Razer's Hello Kitty And Friends Collection Is The Cutest Way To Game (2024)

When Razer first released its pink Kraken Kitty wireless headset, my partner Tina became a Razer customer for life. She’s been wearing the headset - complete with its Hello Kitty signature pink bow - every day since she got it, and frequently muses about transforming her work-from-home station into a full Kitty experience.

To celebrate Hello Kitty’s 50th anniversary, Razer has released a new Hello Kitty and Friends collection that allows her to do just that. Walking into her office is now like stepping into a Sanrio store. Yesterday, I caught her running her fingers across the keyboard muttering “very demure, very cutesy”. Speaking for the world’s biggest Hello Kitty fan, Razer nailed it with this one.

The Hello Kitty and Friends collection includes Kitty-fied versions of the Ornata V3 TKL compact keyboard, the Gigantus V2 mouse mat, the Kraken Kitty V2 Bluetooth headphones, and the crown jewel of the collection: the Enki X gaming chair. Razer provided samples of the keyboard, mouse mat, and headphones for review. I’d like to get her the chair someday too, but I fear if I do, she’ll never leave the office again.

Starting with the Kraken Kitty V2s, they provide a modest but welcome upgrade over the original Kraken Kitty’s. Most notable is the new USB-C charging port, replacing the micro port on the original. I think the Kraken Kitty was the only reason we still had micro cables around, so I’m grateful for the upgrade to the standard USB-C. I also appreciate the new lighting around the earcups, which gives the recessed Hello Kitty icon a nice glow.

The color scheme is a bit different too, trading the hot pink on white of the original for an all-around soft pink on the V2s. You’ll find a couple of nice character details, including Hello Kitty, Kuromi, and My Melody on the band, that match the simple sketch style featured in the rest of the collection. The sound quality, comfort, and charge time all seem on par with the original Kraken Kitty.

The Ornata V3 TKL has hot pink keys to match the bow of the headset and some nice subtle details all around the frame, like bows, strawberries, and hearts. It has a low-profile design and features Razer mecha-membrane switches, which are subtly clicky with a nice cushioned feel - oddly, it's exactly how you’d expect a Hello Kitty keyboard to sound and feel. It’s bigger than most TKL keyboards, which are generally 75 percent scale, but not much.

The Razer Chroma back lights are bright and easy to program with Razer’s Synapse software, and I’m impressed by the see through keycaps, which have each letter etched out to show the RGB more prominently. I do think Razer should’ve just had the entire board glow pink instead of blue by default, though, since many fans will likely program it that way anyway.

To see the characters on the keyboard, you’ll need to attach the included magnetic wrist-wrest (they call it soft touch, but it feels like a block of wood to me). There’s a nice continuity between the wrist wrest and the mouse mat (and the chair), which feature the same collage of classic and modern Sanrio characters. The center of the collage is an empty bubble, on the mouse mat it says Hello Kitty in the bubble, but on the wrist rest you’ll find the Razer logo. I much prefer the Hello Kitty logo.

The Razer Orochi V2 is also sort of, kind of, part of the collection. The customizable mouse has a variety of templates for the 50th anniversary, including one that matches the mouse mat/chair. It’s a $90 mouse with the customization, but Razer has included the pink “Quartz” version of the Orochi V2 in all the marketing for the collection, which is only $70. Personally, I think the pink mouse looks great with the rest of the collection, even if it isn’t technically Hello Kitty-themed.

It definitely feels like an incomplete set without some kind of mouse, and if I’m spending $120 on a wired keyboard, I’d like to get the full ten-key experience. But my partner is obsessed, and I can’t argue with the pure joy this collection brings her every time she sits down at her desk to work. I asked her what her final verdict on the collection was after a full day of using it, and she said “every Hello Kitty fan would love this”.