On a recent visit to Japan, I spent time with one of the longest-practicing tenkara anglers in the country, Mr. Yuzo Sebata. One of Mr. Sebata’s students had created a cartoon character after Mr. Sebata: Sebatake Kun (せば茸くん). Mr. Sebata is known throughout Japan for his wild forays in search of fish and mushrooms; he’s both an expert in tenkara fishing as well as identifying mushrooms. Sebatake is a play on words where “take” means mushrooms, “kun” is wizard. So, essentially the character is the Sebata, Wizard of Mushrooms. The Sebata name is already synonymous with tenkara.
Once we posted pictures of Mr. Sebata wearing his trademark dark blue, long-sleeve shirt featuring Sebatake Kun, we were inundated with requests by customers asking where they could get the shirt. So we asked Mr. Sebata and his student for permission to use the character for making some shirts. All they asked in exchange were a couple of the Tenkara USA ITO rods, with which Mr. Sebata had become a huge fan.
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9 Responses to New Shirt: Sebatake-Kun
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Should be a fun shirt to wear when fishing and to next year’s local annual mushroom foray.
vids ok, would be great with editing to remove the first minute or two. mr. selatake-kun is the star (sorry daniel). love that every pic I see of him shows a smile.
Opps. Forgot to add this.
Seba Take-kun”s Utsunomiyakeiyukai club membership page. ; -)
Coolest Tenkara Shirt ever! Do you think they will be available on the Zazzle site too?
Thanks for the link D!
せば茸くん
jeradventurer picture.
We could put it in Zazzle too, though it will be pricier.
On-demand t-shirts are good for about 8-10 washings before looking very faded. Silk-screened shirts are the best.
I have been wondering what the -Kun suffix meant on the end of someone’s name. Before this was posted I watched all episodes of Hikaru no Go on YouTube. The story is about Hikaru Shindo a teenaged boy who can see Sai, the spirit of a Go player in the Emperor’s palace 1,000 years earlier. Characters early on are always called Shindo-San or Waya-San . But in later episodes as they become more skilled Go players, competing to become professional players they are alternately called Waya-San or Waya-Kun or Shindo-kun.
David, Kun is roughly equivalent to wizard.