Popular burger chain Mos Burger will be celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. To commemorate the occasion they’re planning to hold various events, campaigns and collaborations throughout the year.
In one particular collaboration the company is teaming up with Tobu Railway to rename Itabashi ward’s Narimasu station on the Tobu-Tojo Line to “Narimosu Station”.

The similarity between the station name and that of the burger chain may seem like the only thing the two have in common, but coincidentally the area of Narimasu is where Mos Burger first set up shop five decades ago – and of course, there can’t be a 50th anniversary without recognition of the burger chain’s roots.

The collaboration will be running until the 3rd of April 2022, and will see station name signboards on the platform and at the southern exit changed to “Narimosu station”.
In addition, a celebratory 50th anniversary Mos Burger logo will be pasted onto the front and back faces of trains running between Ikebukuro station and Ogawamachi station on the line. Lastly, flags recommending a trip to “Narimosu station” will be set up on trains and around the station to express gratitude and revitalise the area.

The first Mos Burger store opened up in a 9.25m² rented space from a Narimasu greengrocer’s former warehouse back in June 1972. This location still exists today as the current Mos Burger Narimasu Store.

During the same year of opening, the first Winter Olympic Games to take place in Asia were held in Sapporo, and the country was experiencing a record breaking economic growth rate. Reflecting this, Tokyo’s neighbourhoods began to grow rapidly, with Itabashi ward recording 486,301 registered individual residents in 1972. In comparison, the growth rate has since slowed, with the ward’s population having increased to 581,909 residents in 2021.

Below is an image of Narimasu station back in 1972.

In addition to the portmanteau renaming of Narimasu station, Mos Burger will be celebrating five decades in a number of other ways, such as the renewal of stores, distribution of collaboration stickers and the introduction of limited edition 50th anniversary product “Narimosu Double Burger”.

Perhaps the biggest change customers may notice however, is the retirement of Mos Burger’s beloved mascot “Mossan”, which made its debut back in 2009. Taking its place is “LilMos”, a human-like character that inherits the appearance of Mos Burger’s original mascot “Moss Boy”, who held the position from 1974 to 1987.

According to LilMos’ character description, the mascot wants to climb to the peak of a mountain, enjoys playing the ukulele by the ocean and is skilled in telling the time by the height of the sun in the sky. This strange combination of facts are in fact a reference to the meaning of “Mos” in Mos Burger, which stands for “mountain”, “ocean” and “sun”.