World Cup mascots anime to debut next month.

A cartoon for television, featuring the Spherics--the mascots for the 2002 soccer World Cup finals--will be aired in Japan from next month.

The cartoon has already begun airing weekly in South Korea on terrestrial TV stations. But in Japan, sponsors were hard to find, and, in the end, plans to air the program on terrestrial networks had to be abandoned.

Instead, SkyPerfecTV will air 12 episodes, compiled from a total of 26 episodes, from June 7.

The names of the three mascots--Kaz, Ato and Nik--were chosen in April last year. Three months later, the decision to animate the trio was made.

Fill-in Japan, a company based in Tokyo, obtained …