By the end of 1998, roughly half of all Hello Kitty merchandise was aimed at adults, including boxer shorts, ties, an e-mail program, golf bags in pink and leopard, a Yamaha scooter, and a Daihatsu automobile in metallic rose or white with Hello Kitty-patterned upholstery and a speedometer decorated with a Hello Kitty logo that progressed from Hello Kitty sleeping to smiling to sweating bullets depending on the speed.

—Kethy Merlock Jackson, Hello Kitty in America, in Mark I. West, editor, The Japanification of Children’s Popular Culture