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Tobimaru Fulie-maru
When Yokohama FC was established, it did not have a mascot. The club seemed to deliberately resist the idea of creating one, perhaps because the club's forerunner, the Yokohama Flugels, had one of the most beloved and well-designed mascots in the J.League: "Tobimaru", a caped beagle with a flying helmet that actually sported wings.
For several years a large contingent of Yokohama FC fans begged the team to bring back Tobimaru. But after its breif sojourn in the J1, in 2007, the team seemed determined to distance itself from the past. To mark the ten-year anniversary of Tobimaru's "death", Yokohama FC rolled out a new mascot -- an alien creature, which goes by the name of "Fulimaru". Considering how cool the phoenix on Yokohama's logo looks, this design certainly leaves something to be desired. Many Yokohama FC fans (and almost all former Flugels fans) consider Fuliemaru to be an insult to Tobimaru's legacy. But the team clearly has decided to move on and focus on the future, rather than the past. I guess that may be the best explanation available for the choice of mascot.
Flugels / Yokohama FC -- Uniforms (1995-present)
Click on the small pictures to see a larger-size image
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