JR East to Adopt New Suica Character to Succeed Penguin

Tokyo, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)–East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, has unveiled images of three candidate characters for its Suica smart card system to succeed the current character based on a penguin. The three candidates–a brown squirrel, a purple rabbit and an orange creature carrying a bag with a mole in it–were announced Tuesday. The Suica card can be used to pay train fares and as electronic money. JR East will select one of the three through a public vote, and the new character will play the role of promoting the Suica services from April 1, 2027. The vote started Tuesday on a special website and will run through Sept. 23. The result will be announced Nov. 18. The name of the new character will be decided based on proposals to be collected from the public. The three candidate characters were picked from among nearly 20 ideas submitted by young creators. The current penguin-based character has been used since the fiscal 2001 introduction of the Suica system. Also on Tuesday, JR East said that it plans to make the Suica card usable at all stations across its service areas for train fare settlements by the early 2030s. At present, passengers can settle fares with their charged Suica cards for travel within each of the six areas set by JR East, but fare settlement for travel from one area to another is technically impossible under the current Suica system. The company plans to introduce a new system covering all six areas to make the across-the-board use possible. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]