“Happy New Year, Starlight! I love you!” Hug
 
Starlight Glimmer of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic receives a Fukubukuro grab bag and warm hugs from Kimiko, a local Honolulu girl who’s a big Starlight fan. Inside the bag is a big Starlight plushie like the Hearth’s Warming Eve plushies on the show. Starlight cries happy tears over discovering how beloved she really is among the keiki (children in Hawaiian) of the MLP fandom.
 
In Japan, Fukubukuro (mystery grab bag) is a New Year’s Eve shopping tradition in which retailers fill grab bags with premium products and sell them for at least half the retail price. It’s caught on and growing in Hawaii because of the Japanese tourists that shop at popular malls such as Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, and has caught on with the local population as well. There has been a large ethnic Japanese population in Hawaii for over a century, going back to the old plantation days of the late 1800’s.
 
This cartoon was my first for 2017. It was drawn at Ala Moana Center, photographed with my mobile phone, and is being colored with Adobe Photoshop.
 
Original description and picture by newportmuse, not me by the way.