Friendship in Hello Kitty Island Adventure has always been the real endgame, and the City Town DLC raises the stakes with Usahana, Sanrio's colorful rabbit character who sits at the center of the expansion's entire story progression. Get her friendship level up fast, and City Town opens up. Drag your feet, and the DLC's 90-plus quests stay locked behind a wall of missed gift opportunities.
Why Usahana's friendship level actually matters
Unlike some characters in Hello Kitty Island Adventure who reward friendship with cosmetics or optional side content, Usahana is the key to unlocking City Town's core questline. The friendship quests tied to her are what bring the majority of the new area to life. Skipping or slowing down her friendship progression means missing out on the bulk of what makes City Town worth playing.
The three-gifts-per-day cap is the same as every other character in the game, so picking the right items each time counts. Burning daily gift slots on low-value items is the fastest way to stall your progress.
The gift tags that matter most
Here's the thing: Usahana's preferences follow the same tag-based logic as every other character in the game. She responds positively to gifts tagged with Imagination, Mochi, and Rainbow. Any item matching one or more of those tags will land at minimum as a one-heart gift, which at least moves the needle.
The key here is not overthinking it early on. Colorpillars are catchable from the moment you arrive in City Town, require zero crafting materials, and count as a valid one-heart gift. Catch them whenever you spot them, even if you have no immediate quest need for them, and you'll build up a solid surplus to fall back on.
Gift quality breakdown
Not all gifts are equal. The table below covers the easiest items to gather for Usahana, organized by how much friendship each one earns:
Rainbow Dango is the clear standout here. As a three-heart gift, it accelerates friendship progression faster than anything else on the list. The catch is that it requires more preparation than simply catching critters, so it becomes more realistic once you've settled into City Town's crafting systems.
Unlocking mochi and the cooking questline
Once you reach friendship level 3 with Usahana, the quest "A Whole New Menu" unlocks. Completing it gives you access to mochi crafting, which turns any ingredient gathered from Friendship Island into a two-heart gift. The only requirement is Rice Flour, made by processing Rice at the Chef's Station.
This is where Usahana's gift progression shifts from passive collecting to active cooking. What most players miss is that mochi ingredients are flexible, so you're not locked into farming one specific item. Whatever you have on hand from Friendship Island can go straight into a mochi recipe and straight into Usahana's gift queue.
Where to find everything
All of Usahana's preferred gifts are exclusive to City Town, which is a departure from how some earlier characters worked. Cogimyun in the Wheatflour Wonderland DLC followed the same pattern, with her best gifts locked to that expansion's area. Players who tried to shortcut the process by bringing items from Friendship Island found that nothing in their existing inventory made much of a dent.
That said, City Town is dense with gatherable items and catchable critters from early on. The Colorpillar supply alone is generous enough to keep daily gift slots filled while you work toward unlocking the cooking recipes that make the two- and three-heart gifts accessible.
For players working through multiple friendship tracks at once, you'll want to browse more guides to keep track of which characters prefer which tags, since the City Town roster each has distinct preferences that don't overlap much.
Getting the most out of three gifts a day
The daily gift cap is the real constraint here. Three gifts per day means roughly 21 gifts per week, and with a mix of one-, two-, and three-heart items available, the difference between reaching friendship level 5 in a week versus two weeks comes down almost entirely to gift selection.
Prioritize Rainbow Dango whenever you have the materials. Fill remaining slots with mochi once the cooking quest is unlocked. Use Colorpillars as a fallback when crafting materials run low. That order of priority keeps friendship progression moving at the fastest realistic pace without requiring you to grind materials obsessively.
If you have Friendship Blossoms or Bouquets from earlier play, those can bypass the daily limit entirely and are worth saving for exactly this kind of situation. City Town's story content is substantial enough that accelerating Usahana's friendship early pays dividends for hours afterward. Check out our latest gaming news to stay current on any updates Sunblink Entertainment rolls out for the expansion.
