Oshi-Katsu Meets Cosmetics: Why Oshi-Color Makeup and Limited Packaging Sell in Japan

Cosmetics with characters on the packaging, or in colors inspired by an oshi, are oshi-katsu goods you can use every day instead of just admiring. For cosmetics brands, they are also a collab strategy: a way to put a product in front of a franchise’s fans and turn that attention into sales.

Cosmetics also get used up, which means people may buy the same product again. So this article looks beyond collab designs to how usability and repeat purchasing fit in.

Cosmetics Oshi-Katsu Collabs Come in Three Types

Yano Research Institute’s survey puts Japan’s domestic cosmetics market in fiscal 2024 at ¥2.58 trillion (roughly $17 billion; source in Japanese), or 104.1% of the previous fiscal year. Within that market, oshi-katsu spending falls into three types: practical makeup brands teaming up with an IP; collabs with VTubers, streamers who perform as animated avatars, such as talent from the agency Nijisanji; and cosmetics lines built from the start as fan goods.

As for the growth of the oshi-katsu market as a whole, a column from the General Policy Division of Japan’s Ministry of Finance, “Oshi-Katsu: A Form of Consumption Growing Rapidly Among Young People” (Economic Trends No. 137, 2025), in Japanese, cites Yano Research Institute estimates that 16 major “otaku” fields grew by about 50% between fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2024. That estimate covers the “otaku” fields as a whole, not the size of the cosmetics and beauty market alone.

Where there are no market numbers, vocabulary has taken hold instead: choosing cosmetics to match an oshi color, or wearing your oshi’s image as a scent. In 2025, Fragrance Project Co., Ltd. promoted expressing an oshi’s image through scent as “concept oshi-katsu” (in Japanese), and the thinking behind gainen code, or concept coordination, has now reached cosmetics and perfume.

A Past Milestone: KATE x Jujutsu Kaisen Set the Template

The steps companies follow today trace back to a case in June 2025. The global makeup brand KATE, from Kanebo Cosmetics, teamed up with Jujutsu Kaisen: Hidden Inventory / Premature Death and released two limited-quantity items themed on Satoru Gojo’s eyes: the “Designing Eyebrow 3D” and the “Super Sharp Liner EX 4.0.”

• Aim: Keep the practicality of a serious makeup brand while reaching new customers on the energy of an anime IP
• Approach: A three-stage sales design: pre-orders on Kao’s official online shop, early sales at directly operated stores, then general sale. The copy “Makeup is the ultimate technique for controlling confidence” (in our translation) laid the character’s personality over the brand message (Kanebo Cosmetics press release, in Japanese)
• The Oshi Lab’s view: What this project left for those who followed was not the artwork but the sales design. Pre-orders gauge demand, directly operated stores build the experience, and general sale broadens reach. Three stages deliver buzz and stock control at once, and collabs between serious brands and popular anime IPs have almost all followed the same order since.

Go back further and there is the 20th anniversary of Sailor Moon in 2013, when Bandai’s “Creer Beaute” launched an adult cosmetics series, “Miracle Romance,” including pressed powder themed on the Crystal Star Brooch, the heroine’s transformation item. It was the first project to open the path of buying again, as an adult and as cosmetics, a work you watched as a child. The adult Precure cosmetics described next extend that path.

Cases: Four Moves in 2026

Bandai’s Otona Pretty Holic x the Precure Series (Second Adult Cosmetics Line)

• Aim: Reach, through the same IP, the generation who were children when it aired
• Approach: From January 17, 2026, Bandai rolled out products themed on Futari wa Precure Max Heart and Futari wa Precure Splash Star, with a launch pop-up shop, “CURE/W,” running at the same time (Bandai press release, in Japanese)
• The Oshi Lab’s view: Precure swaps in a new series every year, so 20 years of “children at the time” have piled up as a customer segment. Choosing the first two series for the second line was probably aimed at the thickest group, people who are now around thirty. An IP whose timeline doubles as its customers’ age chart has a strength that is hard to reproduce.

Reiss x Sanrio Characters

• Aim: Provide first-time cosmetics users with an entry point that guarantees safety
• Approach: On April 25, 2026, Reiss released makeup palettes designed with Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, Cinnamoroll and Kuromi, each holding three eyeshadow shades, two blush shades, a water-based nail polish and a lipstick. The packaging stated clearly that the products came off with water or soap (Sanrio official news, in Japanese)
• The Oshi Lab’s view: In kids’ cosmetics, the person who decides on the purchase is the parent, not the child. The single line “washes off” works before the characters’ cuteness does. A safety statement is not garnish in the sales copy; it is the gate to the purchase itself.

Shobido x Detective Precure!

• Aim: Claim kids’ cosmetics shelf space early, timed to the broadcast of the new anime
• Approach: From April 28, 2026, Shobido rolled out a three-pack of peel-off nail polish, makeup palette sets, sparkly heart-case cosmetics sets and more, mainly through variety stores (Toei Animation official site, in Japanese)
• The Oshi Lab’s view: Pretty Holic targets “viewers of 20 years ago,” while this line targets “children watching now,” though both carry the Precure name. Releasing different products to two age groups at the same time is something only a long-running series can do.

iCouleur x Nijisanji “Fuwagusa”

• Aim: Reach the VTuber fandom while holding down inventory risk
• Approach: From May 11, 2026, iCouleur offered collab cosmetics featuring newly shot visuals as made-to-order items (CyberAgent Anime & IP Division press release, in Japanese)
• The Oshi Lab’s view: Made-to-order is a sensible defense against excess stock and resale, but the price is a wait before shipping. In a 2025 collab iCouleur ran with AMPTAKxCOLORS, shipping came about five months after the campaign period. If you choose a model that makes people wait, the campaign includes putting the shipping timing first, in bold.

In fall 2025, practical items moved too. The Korean-born skincare brand VT COSMETICS ran a collab with Nijisanji talents, and DHC has released a medicated lip balm in a SPY x FAMILY collab design; practical-item activity has continued from the previous year.

Expanding Across Categories: From Cosmetics to Perfume

On July 25, 2026, Pretty Holic released (in Japanese) a fragrance based on the character image of a Precure, “Top of Lily Fragrance,” extending an IP already proven in cosmetics into perfume.

Rights need care here. Copyright doesn’t extend to a scent itself, but the character’s design rights and trademark rights come into play in the bottle design, the packaging and the naming. Confirming the scope of the license every time you widen the category is an obvious task, and an easy one to overlook.

Patterns That Work and Patterns to Watch For

On the cautionary side, waiting time does the most real damage. Made-to-order paired with a wait of several months has become routine, so the wording of the announcement changes how it is received. Whether the shipping timing sits in a prominent place makes, directly, a difference in trust.

For Corporate Teams: Steps for Designing a Cosmetics Collab

1. Decide on day one whether it is practical or merchandise: Price range, quality standards, sales channels and packaging cost all follow from this
2. Prepare a three-stage sales design: Gauge demand with pre-orders, build the experience at directly operated and flagship stores, and broaden reach with general sale. Skip a stage and you lose either stock control or buzz
3. Start the color design from the oshi color: Fans identify characters by color. Offering alternative shades for people whose personal color (a popular Japanese system for matching shades to skin tone) clashes with the oshi color widens the choices
4. If made-to-order, put the shipping timing first: The period, the shipping month and how you will notify people of changes. This is not information to add later
5. Put safety labeling high in the sales copy: For kids and beginners, whether it comes off, its ingredients and the target age are the gate to purchase
6. Reconfirm the rights scope each time you extend a category: A cosmetics license doesn’t necessarily extend to perfume or packaging designs
7. Measure the share of new customers: If the collab’s purpose is acquisition, the real metric is the share of first-time buyers, not total units sold

Notes From The Oshi Lab: Cosmetics Are “Oshi Goods You Meet Every Day”

What sets cosmetics collabs decisively apart from other oshi-katsu products is that the product gets used up. An acrylic stand stays on display and a T-shirt comes back from the wash, but a lip color runs out. Running out is normally a weakness, yet in oshi-katsu it means something different: finishing the product becomes a record that you spent that whole stretch of time with your oshi.

That is also why designing “limited” is harder in this field. Limited quantities create buzz, but they also leave a fan who loved the product and used it up with no way to buy it again. KATE’s three stages of pre-order, early sale and general sale were a way to give up neither buzz nor availability. From the standpoint of fan marketing, cosmetics are one of the few collab products where repeat purchases arise naturally instead of ending with a single sale. With every project, it is worth checking whether limited sales are undermining that advantage.

What we are watching next is whether cosmetics will broaden from “a tool for expressing your oshi” to “the experience of using what your oshi uses.” Eyeshadow in your oshi’s color moves you closer to your oshi, but choosing the brand your oshi actually uses moves you closer to your oshi’s life. The former can be made through an IP collab; the latter doesn’t work unless the talent shares their daily life. We think the growth in VTuber collabs is backed by the existence of this kind of “oshi who can show their life.”

Related articles: What Is Oshi-Katsu Marketing? / What Is Oshi Color? / What Is Gainen Code? / Gen Z Oshi-Katsu Spending