Friday, 26 April 2024

Raioh, Paruru and Raito (Light?)

 Nagano adopted the lion as its mascot way back in the 1990s, when the team was known as "Nagano Elsa" (Elsa being the name of the lion star in the movie "Born Free". However, until the team joined the J.League, they were content to keep the graphic design of their mascots fairly simple -- a "lion passant" which bore a strong similarity to the ones used on the  "three lions" emblem of English football. In 2015, however, the team unveiled an entire family (or should that be "pride") of lion mascots, including elder brother "Raioh", sister "Paruru" and the youngest, "Raito" (though some team PR documents have rendered it as "Light").  They even have a "coach" named "Parpapa"!


Old Uniforms

Click on the small pictures to see a larger-size image

2012 (H) 2012 (A) 2013 (H) 2013 (A) 2014 (H) 2014 (A)
2014 (H) 2014 (A) 2015 (H) 2015 (A) 2016 (H) 2016 (A)
2016 SP  2017 (H) 2017 (A) 2018 (H) 2018 (A) 2022 (SP) 
2019 (H) 2019 (A) 2020 (H) 2020 (A) 2021 (H) 2021 (A)
2022 (H) 2022 (A) 2023 (H) 2023 (A)