Copyright Infringed? - Doraemon and Japanese Sweet

A cute Japanese sweet in the above picture is "Chofu waka ayu (young sweetfish-shaped mochi sweet)" of Eirakuya, a Kyoto confectionery. I bought it because it reminded me of another sweet in the picture below, "Satsuki bare (a fine day in May)" of Tsuruya Yoshinobu, another Kyoto confectionery. They are carp. I bought them late April and wrote about them in one of my previous posts "Carp Streamer Sweets."



I first thought that one of the confectioneries copied the other's product, but I was wrong, because both belong to the same category of sweet, "chofu." Chofu, currently meaning gyuhi (similar to mochi) sweet, used to mean a roll of cloth offered as tax. Gyuhi is, like mochi, made from rice powder, but also includes sugar and water to be made easier to eat in summer. In other words, these two have the same ancestor, but have evolved differently, i.e., one to carp-shaped while the other to sweetfish-shaped. Knowing that no copyright has been infringed, I felt relieved.

In China, a copyright infringement related to Doraemon has been argued for several years and finally a Chinese court has ruled that the Doraemon copyright is infringed by a Chinese company. Since "Robot Cat," the character created by the company, and Doraemon look completely the same to me, I was relieved and glad at this reasonable decision of the Chinese court.