“Earthquake just happened,” Margie Tam posted from Hong Kong. “R u ok kumamon?” “Are Kumamon and his friends safe?” wondered Eric Tang, a college student. “Pray for Kumamoto & Kumamon,” wrote Ming Jang Lee from Thailand, a phrase that would be repeated thousands of times. On 12 March 2016, one month before the earthquake. Kumamon had bounded on to an outdoor stage at the opening event of his birth