Charlotte Gallagher

But now the designer, who's been at its helm for more than four decades, is stepping down.

Yuko Yamaguchi took charge of Kitty in 1980 and oversaw its rise to a global brand.

Marika Ooi is the BBC's self-professed Hello Kitty correspondent.

What a job.

My colleague Catherine Burahanga asked her why it's so popular.

That's a big question because if you actually look at Hello Kitty, it's a pretty simple design and I don't think the company expected to become so huge.

And it started as like a design for a wallet that the company was thinking of selling.

And the BBC actually spoke to the original designer of Hello Kitty.

And she actually said herself that she didn't expect it to get that big.

And she was actually looking at her own cat, I think, when she was designing it.

But in case you haven't heard, she's not a cat.

She's a little girl from London.

And I did ask Sanrio Boss about, you know,

really like she really looks like a cat is she really a person and you know he had a very diplomatic answer you know back in the day because this was in the 70s 80s I think you know she was around when I was a kid and it was when Japan had this huge admiration for the the British culture and so that's

probably why they decided to make her a British girl.

And she has a family.

She has a younger sister.

All of those details that they didn't think would become such a big deal until Hello Kitty became so huge.

But yeah, she's everywhere, not just on your stationeries and toys, but she has her own theme park, museum.

So absolutely global icon and probably one of the biggest soft power of Japan as a