Minion Day in Japan Date in the current year: March 20, 2024

Despicable Me is a media franchise created by Spanish animator, director and screenwriter Sergio Pablos, produced by Illumination, and distributed by its parent company Universal Pictures. The first feature film in the franchise was released in 2010. Since then, the franchise has expanded to include, as of 2024, thee sequels, two spin-off prequels, 18 short films, a television special, a digital series, video games, and theme park attractions.

The protagonist in the Despicable Me series is Dru, an ambitious supervillain-turned-Anti-Villain League-agent. He is aided by a group of henchmen called the Minions. The Minions are small, yellow capsule-shaped creatures that have one or two eyes and wear round gray goggles, blue overalls, black rubber gloves, and shoes. While the Minions are shown to possess exceptional engineering abilities, they are generally childlike, absent-minded, and mischievous.

The Minions have their own language, which is largely unintelligible to others but includes elements from other languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish. In the films, they are voiced by three actors: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, and Jemaine Clement (Coffin and Renaud also co-directed Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2). James Arnold Taylor voiced the Minions in Despicable Me: The Game, a video game released in 2010.

Although the Minions were conceived as sidekicks, they became so popular that Illumination has released two spin-offs primarily focused on the Minions, Minions and Minions: The Rise of Gru, and has adopted the characters as its official mascot. In addition to the Despicable Me franchise, the Minions have appeared or been referenced in other media, including The Simpsons, Family Guy, and the 2018 film Mortal Engines.

Minion Day is celebrated in Japan on March 20 because the date 3/20 sounds in Japanese similarly to the word “minion”: “mi” for 3 and “nion” for 20. Of course, the holiday does not have any official status, but it has been promoted by the official Facebook account of Despicable Me: Minion Rush, an action video game developed by Gameloft.

You don’t have to live in Japan to celebrate Minion Day – this fun holiday is for everyone everywhere. You can spend the day watching Despicable Me movies or playing games, throw a Minion-themed party, bake a batch of Minion cupcakes and share them with your friends and family, unleash your inner Minion and eat a banana (because the Minions LOVE bananas), or even take a trip to a Universal Studios theme park and take the Despicable Me Minion Mayhem simulator ride. And don’t forget to spread the word about the holiday on social media with the hashtag #MinionDay.

By the way, Japanese Minion Day seems to be not the only holiday dedicated to these funny yellow creatures. According to Urban Dictionary, National Minion Day is celebrated on June 24, although we haven’t found any other sources that support this claim.