Back in February, Tokyo’s Ueno Park has received two new giant pandas from China under the agreement between Tokyo Metropolitan Government and China Wildlife Conservation Association.

The panda duo — which Tokyo is renting for about $950,000 a year — originates from the Chinese province of Sichuan, the home of the most of the world’s estimated 1600 pandas that still exist in the wild. According to the officials, the payments will aid in rebuilding a Sichuan panda sanctuary that was almost destroyed during a 2008 earthquake as well as funding Japan-China joint breeding projects.

Upon arrival in Japan, the pair has also received new names — Ri Ri and Shin Shin — which were chosen from 40,438 suggestions sent in by the public. Their original Chinese names are Bi Li and Xian Nu.

As you might have expected, the acquisition of the two cuddly creatures has created quite a panda craze in Japan this year.

Here’s an example of some effective marketing — a catalog of panda themed sweets from Japanese food retailer Ecute:

One bakery came up with an ingenious idea of making panda bread like this:

In Tokyo, there’s a new free shuttle that runs between Asakusa and Ueno Park. The Pandabus even winks and has seats with panda ears:

Incidentally, we found that even some tribal members in Shibuya exhibit certain panda characteristics: