Located on Omotesando in the district of Harajuku is a statue right in front of the entrance of “Cat Street”.
The statue is known as “Yonderu” and it was sculpted by renown sculptor Takeshi Yoshino and established by the Yonderu Project Executive Committee and unveiled to the public on July 7, 2013.
The statue’s pedestal has a poem written by Taichi Sakaiya (a renown writer especially about economics and worked at the Ministry of International and Trade who served as chairman of the project).
According to Sakaiya-san, he named the statue “Yonderu” because it was a name based out of love and the word “yonde” which means (“calling” for people) and hopes that people dress up Yonderu in costumes for different seasons.
The statue was created in the hopes of becoming a symbol of the city such as Brussels “Manneken Pis” and Copenhagen’s “Little Mermaid” sculptures.
Sakaiya even said when it was unveiled that he hopes that people in the community and tourists refer to Yonderu as a meeting place.
And what a fitting statue featuring a young woman walking on the cat walk, in front of the fashion-driven street off Omotesando known as Cat Street.
When the statue was first unveiled, there were bamboo cylinders around the statue, but those have since been removed.
But the statue has become a meeting place and has become a symbol of Harajuku, Shibuya.
