She’s cute, she’s cuddly.

She’s ten years old and she’ll kick your ass.

This is the phenomenon that is Pucca.

Not since the mighty merchandising industry that was (and remains) Hello Kitty has Asia produced such a juggernaut of wallet-emptying pre-pubescent appeal. Adorning the clothing, accessories and toy shelves of many a Pacific Rim kiddie, Pucca is now poised to invade the Western mindset.

She’s already forged inroads here. Take a bus ride down to your local Chinatown and ask for something, anything Pucca-related at one of the gift shops. You’ll be inundated with a broad spectrum of trinkets, the variety and kitchiness of which haven’t been seen since the days when Fonzie was the pop cultural touchstone of children everywhere.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? You will. Like her Hello Kitty precursor, Pucca will be infiltrating our airwaves every bit as aggressively as she pursues her ninja paramour, Garu. Jetix, in the U.K., is the first broadcaster on board, but I’m sure it won’t be long before some North American network, hungry for product-product-product as they all are, will hop on and start beaming images of this adorable little kung-fu powerhouse into the heads of your offspring.

I’m frightened and I don’t even have kids to bug me to buy them Pucca crap.

This is what I’m writing these days. The format for the first season is twenty-six episodes made up of three seven-minute cartoons each. I’m doing the Michael Maltese thing, writing a bunch of these shorts to fit the “Funny Love” theme.

The story so far, if you haven’t been following the series of flash animation films out there on the web, is this: Pucca loves Garu. Garu is a ninja who’s always getting into fights with his many enemies. But when the fighting interferes with her romantic agenda, Pucca beats the hell out of anybody who gets in her way. Meanwhile, Garu, being a little boy, thinks girls are icky. But since Pucca is infinitely powerful, he doesn’t have much choice but to be victimized by her unwanted affection.

Wackiness ensues.

There’s a cast of supporting characters and plenty of locales along for the ride. These have been generated by the Vooz Character System which, it seems, operates as something of a mill for iconic figures that look good on a t-shirt or tote bag. Their website for Pucca used to be filled with all sorts of goodies like cartoons, desktop backgrounds, broken English and screensavers. Now, of course, just when I want to direct you there, the site seems to be undergoing some major revamping and all you can do is play with the homepage colour scheme.

I’ll let you know when something more substantial comes back up. Then you too can wallow in the Funny Love universe as I’ve been doing every day for weeks now.

Wallow! I command you! Wallow in the cuteness!