From Fighter Jet Canopies to Fandom Icons: The 90-Year History of the Acrylic Stand

The acrylic stand, now a symbol of oshi-katsu, is known as an akusuta. On a café table, against a travel view, in the middle of a birthday-party altar, an akusuta of someone’s oshi is almost always standing there.

Trace this clear plate back far enough, though, and you arrive at the canopy of a fighter plane. This column fast-forwards through the roughly 90 years it took the acrylic stand to reach the center of fandom.

Background to this article: The Oshi Lab reported on this theme in Podcast and YouTube Episode 57, “The Complete History of the Acrylic Stand” (released July 20, 2026). The full version, which also covers Korea’s poka (photocard) culture and China’s guzi (goods) economy, is on Spotify and YouTube (in Japanese).

The 1930s: Acrylic Was a Military Material

Acrylic resin was put to practical use in Germany in the 1930s as “Plexiglas.” Manufacturing began in Japan around 1938.

Light, transparent, hard to break. The first place these properties were prized was not a novelty shop but the battlefield: during World War II, acrylic was used for fighter plane canopies.

The 1970s: The Age of In-Store POP

POP stands for “point of purchase”: the cards and displays that sit on a shop counter or shelf. After the war, acrylic moved into the commercial world, and in the 1970s it became established as a material for in-store POP (point-of-purchase) displays. “Stand up what you want to stand out” was a usage already perfected in this era, and it is the prototype of the acrylic stand.

Around 2010: The Printing Revolution Changed Everything

The turning point was direct UV printing and the practical use of white ink (around 2010). It became possible to print full color directly onto clear acrylic, and in small runs.

It was the end of an era when “you don’t break even unless you mass-produce.” You could make one for each character, each member, each costume change. Random sales and completist culture both technically start here.

January 2014: Hello! Project Makes History

The forerunner of real-life idol acrylic stands is said to be the “Figure Stand Keychain” that the idol agency Hello! Project released in January 2014.

A product that let you “stand up and display” an individual member won explosive support, and from 2015 on it expanded all at once to acrylic stands of anime and game characters.

Timeline: From Canopy to Fandom

Laid out like this, you can see that the acrylic stand was born when three things came together in order: material (acrylic), technology (printing) and culture (oshi-katsu).

Why Did the Culture of “Standing Them Up” Spread So Far?

Technology made only the printing possible. The explosive spread came because the acrylic stand matched what fans had wanted to do all along.

• You can take it with you: Light, thin and hard to break. Standing your oshi up and photographing them in a café, on a trip, or in the landscape of a seichi junrei (anime pilgrimage) is a pleasure a figure can’t replace
• You can line them up: Because they stand on their own, you can have every member “take a seat” on your saidan (fan altar)
• You can create the picture of them being “there”: At a birthday party without the guest of honor, it is an acrylic stand that stands in the seat of honor. Put it in a photo and your oshi was there. The power of “attending by proxy” may be the acrylic stand’s greatest invention

Supplement: The Difference Between Acrylic Stands and Acrylic Keychains

Beginners tend to stumble first over the difference from the akukii (acrylic keychain). The material and printing technology are almost the same, but an akukii is hung and worn, and an akusuta is set on a base and displayed. The structure that lets it stand on its own is the foundation of the three pleasures above.

And Now: At the Center of a 4-Trillion-Yen Market

The oshi-katsu market is estimated at about ¥4.1 trillion (roughly $27 billion), and a Yano Research Institute survey found that the market for the main otaku fields passed ¥1 trillion (roughly $6.7 billion) in fiscal 2024. Details and sources are in our article on the oshi-katsu market size.

Otaku here means the enthusiast market for anime, games and idols. The culture has crossed the sea too. In China, character goods in general are called guzi (“goods”), and the character goods market there is reported to have reached about ¥3.4 trillion (roughly $23 billion) in 2024, up more than 40% year on year. The Japan-born culture of taking your oshi with you has spread worldwide on a scale that rivals its home market. We cover this in more detail in Episode 57.

The Future of the Acrylic Stand: From “Frenzy You Can’t Buy Into” to “Happiness You Want to Collect”

Rapid growth has had side effects, though: fatigue with random sales, resale and waste.

We believe the keyword for the next ten years is sustainability. Can we rethink random sales, expand made-to-order models and design “happiness you want to collect” instead of stoking “a frenzy you can’t buy into”? The 90-year history of the acrylic stand is at that fork in the road now.

Notes From The Oshi Lab: Standard Goods Don’t Create Desire; They Give It a Form

At the Lab, we treat the history of the acrylic stand as a case study in how standard goods are born. What stands out is that the acrylic stand didn’t create a new desire but gave form to a feeling that was already there: “I want to be with my oshi.” When planning merch, look for the intersection of what has technically become possible and what fans want to do. That is the most practical lesson to draw from 90 years of acrylic stand history.

See also: What Is Oshi-Katsu? The Complete Guide / What Is an Acrylic Stand? (Glossary)