As anime reaches the mainstream, the consumer base for goods begins to rise. As one of the primary distributors of international goods,Aitai Kuji’s website has garnered an average of 475k visitors per month and counting. What isAitai Kuji, exactly? It’s in the name! The second word, “kuji” (also written as 籤 in kanji) means, “lottery”. This implies most of the goods that are sold can only be obtained via gashapon machines, which are vending machines that pop out a toy at random. This means that every time you play, you never know what you’ll get. Additionally, “Aitai” 会いたい means, “I want to see/meet (you)", so the name itself would roughly translate to, “I want to see the lottery”.
Though what makesAitai Kujistand out is the fact that their business model ensures that customers receive the goods that they want without having to worry about spending extra money on a gashapon; and Audrey Lamsam (@aitaikimochi) wants to make sure your money is well-spent.
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GR:How did you reach your goal of starting a business?
Audrey:I wouldn’t really say I met any goal of mine per se as I never intended to come to Japan to start a business. I initially came to Japan to just get a taste of what it’s like to work in a foreign country. I double majored in Economics and Film/Media Studies with a minor in Japanese back in college, and after working in Hollywood for a time as a Production Associate, I decided the film work lifestyle wasn’t for me.
I was then hired by an (at that time) start-up company to help manage their marketing and media in Tokyo. However, before moving to Japan in 2013, I was already blogging a lot on the social media platformTumblr,and then soon after posting onTwitterwhere I offered to translate from Japanese to English various news and media about anime or video games I was interested in. This was something I did as a hobby on a daily basis and still continue to do even now, simply because I enjoy it.
After I moved to Japan, since I was also a fan of various anime and video games myself as well as had an interest in their merchandise, I realized that I could also help others have access to those items as well. I thought that I could eventually create something out of it, so that’s when my immigration lawyer suggested starting my own company. With their suggestions, I decided to incorporate myself as a 株式会社 (Kabushiki Gaisha), which is a corporation where I am the full shareholder of my company’s stocks. Since I was familiar with creating business plans and marketing plans based on my previous education and work history in both English and Japanese, I was able to write up a solid business plan to stick to as I incorporated my company.
After creating the company 株式会社Aitai Japan, I then used it to host my own visa, which is called an “Investor and Business Relations Visa 経営管理ビザ” here in Japan. It took about three months to go through the process, and for business owners in Japan in general, you usually have to prove that you have at least 5,000,000~10,000,000 yen in cash that you will invest into your company.
We incorporated in April 2016 with two full-time employees, and now almost 7 years later, we are a team of over 20 people from a wide range of backgrounds and ethnicities (70% foreigners, 30% Japanese staff). It is a rewarding experience that started off on a whim from the desire to help connect fans to easily access Japanese merchandise that is otherwise difficult to find outside of Japan.
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GR:How are Series’ are chosen?
Audrey: Our teams atAitaikuji.comspend a lot of time monitoring anime and video game trends on a daily basis for market research on what type of series does well, the type of content people engage with, and the current availability and market of merchandise for said series. We also engage with customers to see what kind of items they are interested in as well. Customers also contact us regarding various series or collections that are trending. We attempt to remain on top of social trends as much to our abilities though, spending adequate time to analyze the data we collect from our market research to pinpoint what type of items and series sell well.
GR:Which merchandise gets approved, and how do you manage to get your hands on it?
Audrey:The type of merchandise that gets approved depends on where the item is coming from. We generally source our items through official wholesale routes within Japan. We also have manufacturers or licensors themselves contact us to be a retail outlet for them to sell their items both domestically and abroad.
GR:What merchandise doesn’t make the cut and why?
Audrey:We do not handle any counterfeit items as all our items are legitimate and guaranteed authentic. We also do not handle much adult material (items for ages 18 years or older) as it can get tricky when shipping internationally due to different countries’ laws on censorship. Other goods that do not make the cut are items that have strict licensing policies or items that are just difficult to obtain, such as items that require you to enter a lottery to be randomly chosen to be eligible to purchase an item.
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GR:Other potential factors that go into merchandising in the anime industry?
Audrey:Other potential factors regarding merchandising in the anime industry depend on whether you are simply a retailer or you actually manufacture items as well. If you are a retailer, your options usually include purchasing from wholesale avenues where there is usually a third party that sources the item for you. That is the most conventional way of distributing items domestically in Japan, and once you obtain the item, you then either ship it domestically or internationally depending on your customer base.
However, if you decide to manufacture your own items, you will need to obtain licenses to do so depending on whether that item is based on a pre-existing IP or if it is a completely new IP that you yourself own. If it is the former, you will need to negotiate a deal with the licensor. The details of the license depend on who you are talking to and the type and quantity of the item you wish to sell. If the item you wish to sell requires a specific design, then licensors sometimes require you to pay for their in-house team to create the designs for you. It really depends on the company you talk to when approaching them with a request to sell licensed goods.
If you wish to create your own original IP merchandise here in Japan, it’s very easy to find a manufacturer to create goods for you, whether it be acrylic items, towels, plush, etc. The manufacturer themselves also have their own rules on what can or cannot be made.
However, Japan has very relaxed rules for fan-made goods, and you will see many artists create their own fanworks as acrylic stands, keychains, mugs, etc. that are usually sold either online or at conventions domestically. Japan has an interesting fanworks culture where even though technically those individual artists would need to contact a company for permission to sell items with a likeliness to their IP, the companies themselves turn a somewhat blind eye to it as the exposure from the fanworks still benefits the company or IP rather than harm it. The anime merchandise industry and e-commerce in Japan is ever-growing and changing, and it’s very interesting to see how trends shift and how companies adapt to those changes over the years.
Follow Audrey on her socials for regular updates, streams, interviews, and more.
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