Twenty years ago, the metro Phoenix suburb of Mesa didn't have an Asian District. Then, the transformation of an abandoned ...

Lai's shop is in a strip mall filled with other Asian businesses, like a Korean barbecue restaurant, a Chinese traditional medicine store and a boba shop ... with a name and logo.

And so the pantheon of cute unites figures as disparate as the sentient dust balls and boba of the Sumikkogurashi entourage, who were designed in 2012 to adorn merchandise, à la Hello Kitty ...