Unko! or, Japan Loves Poop

I have come to the conclusion that Japan loves poop. 

Everywhere you look, you find poop-shaped things.  Poop stuffed animals, poop erasers, poop stationery, poop trees.  Okay, maybe not EVERYWHERE, but it's a lot more prevalent than it is back in the states.  Chalk it up to our snooty Puritan values, but I don't think we find poop to be as funny as Japanese people do.  To them, poop is not limited to the world of grade schools and novelty stores.  No, Japan is content with poop showing up in all aspects of life, including children's literature.  Meet "Unko!"

Note how it's the number one BEST book in the store.  Japan loves poop.

I found this book at the store today.  It's a heartwarming tale about a sentient poop.  When I saw the cover, I thought "no, this can't POSSIBLY be a book about the adventure of human feces."

Luckily, I was right!  It's actually about the adventure of dog feces.

Anyway, Unko (whose name a cutesy version of the word unchi, or poop) searches for love in a  variety of people and animals only to be rejected by every one of them.  Eventually he finds his way to a farmer's field and becomes one with the soil.  The end.

Here's another example of how Japan loves poop:  one of my adult students was telling me how on New Year's morning she stepped in some of her dog's poop.  I expressed concern, but she assured me that it was a good thing.  In fact, she was really excited about it.  Turns out that in Japan it's good luck if you step in poop at the beginning of the new year.  This is because the chi part of unchi means "fortune" or something like that.  I think it's just a way to justify stepping in poop (or like Joanna pointed out, you'd think they wouldn't be so strict about cleaning up after your dogs if it was so lucky) but I'm telling you: Japan loves poop.