Here's the founder:

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That's excllent. Maybe it's how you go in looking.

When graphic designers go bad.

Kumon ... bringing an indeterminate frown of "fmeh" to your children's faces since 1977.

Did you take that pic? It just screams "photoshop" to me. (*Checks Kumon.com*) OMG! It's for real!

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It's supposed to look like an Asian cartoon character. A lot of popular characters, like Kogepan, Badtz Maru, and Tare Panda scowl or look blank. The face is supposed to look like one of them. Here are pages where you can see a few more examples: San-X, Giant Robot's online store, and Kawaii Gifts.

There are a lot of Kumon centers around my hometown, although they didn't come until I was way too old to be dragged, kicking and screaming, in from a nice summer day to cram for SATs or practice trigonometry. But I always thought that Kumon might be a least-worst place to go, because at least someone knows the kids don't want to be in there.

Anyways, they're reputable as far as I know, so yes, parents would send their kids there. It doesn't matter what's on the sign. All that matters is that the GPA and the SAT scores go up.