Honda Takes Its Sanrio Collaboration To The Next Level With This Kuromi-Flavored Scooter

Sanrio fans are everywhere, and now Brazil gets a Honda x Kuromi collab of its own.

By Janaki Jitchotvisut, Nov 14, 9:27am ET Sanrio's characters travel well. Fans in Tokyo, São Paulo, and everywhere in between recognize them without a translation, and Honda is clearly betting that the same goodwill carries over to two wheels. This latest tie-in brings Kuromi to a scooter, with Brazil as the first market to get it.

The bike at the center of this is the BIZ 125. Honda isn't reinventing the platform here. It's dressing a familiar commuter scooter in Kuromi's look, and that's the whole pitch. Character branding on small-displacement scooters isn't new, but it works because the buyer gets a recognizable identity without a different machine underneath. That's also where the questions start. The material doesn't say how many units are planned, what the pricing looks like, or whether this is a one-off drop or the first step toward a wider rollout. If you're tracking Honda's licensing strategy, those are the details that would tell you whether this is a marketing stunt or a program with legs.

Practical transport, personal styling

Honda and Sanrio are betting on something that sounds obvious but matters a lot: a lot of people need to get around cheaply and reliably, and a lot of those same people want their ride to say something about them. A commuter scooter sits right where those two needs overlap. That's the logic behind putting a cartoon character on a machine you'll ride to work, and it's more coherent than it first looks. Honda Brazil has now released the Honda x Kuromi BIZ 125. Whether that collab was built around the idea above isn't something anyone outside the company can confirm. What's clear is the audience. Sanrio fans, and Kuromi devotees especially, are not casually interested. They're the kind of buyers who already know the character's whole backstory, which makes the design's appeal almost self-explanatory. And yet the color does a lot of the work. You don't need to be a Kuromi fan to notice a bike drenched in purple, and that's probably the smartest part of the choice. It gives the scooter a hook for people outside the fandom. The open question is how far past the existing fan base that hook reaches once the novelty fades and buyers start comparing price and running costs with everything else on the lot.

The color does most of the work

Start with the paint, because it's what you notice first. The colorway is called Mat Midnight Purple, and in these photos it looks deep and saturated without tipping into candy-store territory. The name suggests a matte finish, which would suit a scooter this playful. Hard to judge fully from a press shoot, though.

Small storage, smarter hooks

Here's where the BIZ 125 earns some respect. A small pocket sits under the handlebars, sized for the things you actually reach for while riding: your phone, a water bottle. Nothing sprawling, just the essentials kept within arm's reach. The front hook is the more useful detail. Loop a tote, a handbag, or a backpack strap over it and you're not balancing your life on your knees at the next stoplight. That's a thoughtful touch for a city scooter, and it's the sort of thing that makes a daily commuter feel less like a compromise.

Flex fuel and a price that needs context

Under the bodywork is Honda Brazil's 125cc FlexOne engine, built to run on gasoline or ethanol blends, hence the name. For a market where ethanol is a real fuel choice, that's the practical substance behind the pink-and-purple branding. The MSRP is 17,990 reais, roughly US$3,235 at the time of writing. Whether that's a bargain depends entirely on where you live. Local cost of living, incomes, and what else sits in the same price bracket will shape how the number lands, so treat the dollar conversion as a rough guide, not a verdict.

Who this one is for

Let's be honest about the audience. The Kuromi styling is the hook, and it's not subtle. But strip away the collab and you have a small, practical scooter with a sensible engine and thoughtful little storage touches. That combination is harder to pull off than the cute factor suggests. So if you're a rider who wants something that looks like it has opinions and still hauls your groceries, this one has a real case to make. If you need highway capability or serious cargo space, look elsewhere. And if you've ridden one, or you'd happily try it, tell me what you'd want from it. I'm already eyeing that Kuromi hoodie from the video, so I'm clearly not the most objective judge.