Source: Masashi Taomoto, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

French Embassy in Japan welcomes its “tanuki ambassador” in witty viral Tweet

As of 2022, there are 157 embassies in Japan, each one doing important diplomatic work for their respective countries.

Most posts from the Twitter accounts of these respective embassies are, as expected, serious in nature. However, sometimes, as we saw recently in the case of the Georgian embassy, they can occasionally be of a more lighthearted nature.

A more recent example came from the French Embassy on October 29th, 2022, when it introduced a certain "ambassador" who stopped by for an impromptu visit, in a Tweet that quickly went viral:

"Ambassador Tanuki made an unexpected visit to the French Embassy. In addition to autumn delicacies, he and our staff exchanged views on the recent improvements in and future prospects of transformation techniques practiced by humans at Halloween. We would have loved to have invited him to our residence, but he preferred to stay near the kitchen, where the aroma was so pleasant!"

For those who are wondering about His Furry Excellence's keen interest in transformation techniques, 狸 tanuki, or Japanese raccoon dogs, are often portrayed in Japanese folklore as masters of disguise and shapeshifting. Some of our readers may have seen them in anime films like Studio Ghibli's Pom Poko and most recently, the TV anime series My Master Has No Tail.

Whether he came to conduct diplomacy on behalf of Japan's wild animals or was simply hankering for a bit of French cuisine, his appearance seems to have made an impact online, partly thanks to the embassy's witty Tweet.

The Tweet elicited numerous comments, such as:

  • "Both the tanuki ambassador and the content of the post are so cute. It made me smile."
  • "I love it when embassies make humorous posts like this."
  • "What an adorable ambassador...! He looks so fluffy I want to hug him."*

Tanuki are wild animals. Please don't approach one and try to hug it if you see one in Japan.

Seeing how graciously they treated him this time, perhaps he will bring more "ambassadors" with him for further discussions with embassy staff in the future...

By - grape Japan editorial staff.

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