Oshi-Katsu Leave and Allowances: How Japanese Companies Support Employees' Fandom

Some companies offer leave or allowances so that employees can go to their oshi’s live shows and events. If you are thinking of adopting one, you need to settle who can use it, how much it pays and how many days it gives.

Oshi-katsu leave, oshi-katsu allowances, long weekends for traveling to see your oshi: you hear about these schemes more often than a few years ago. How widespread are they, how much do they pay, and how many days off do they give? This article sorts out the practical side of scheme design from published figures and company announcements.

Adoption Is 11.0%, With a Gap of More Than Four Times by Company Size

The Mynavi Career Research Lab “Survey on Oshi-Katsu and Work 2026” (in Japanese), run by the Japanese recruiting company Mynavi, was conducted from July 1 to 7, 2026 among 20,545 full-time employees and 816 corporate mid-career hiring managers. It is the broadest picture of the current situation available.

Two gaps stand out. The first is between supply and demand: one in three full-time employees does oshi-katsu, yet only one company in ten has a scheme to support it. The second is size. Adoption is further along at large companies, which have the capacity to formalize a scheme, and lags at smaller ones, where revising the work rules costs relatively more.

32.3%

Full-time employees currently doing oshi-katsu

11.0%

Companies with a support scheme

62.8%

Work hard for my oshi-katsu

56.4%

Attracted to a company where oshi-katsu is easy

Adoption runs from 3.6% at companies with 50 or fewer staff to 16.6% at 301 or more.

Source: Mynavi Career Research Lab, Survey on Oshi-Katsu and Work 2026 (in Japanese)

It also helps to see where such a scheme sits among employee benefits as a whole. The credit-research firm Teikoku Databank ran its “Survey of Companies on Employee Benefits” (in Japanese) from September 16 to 30, 2025 and received 10,554 valid responses. The benefits companies said they wanted to introduce most were company trips and flextime (11.4% for each), and oshi-katsu schemes aren’t mentioned. Oshi-katsu leave isn’t mainstream yet; it is still an option for companies that want to stand out.

That cuts both ways: adopt one and you do stand out. Monthly spending of ¥14,125 comes to about ¥170,000 a year. An allowance can’t realistically cover all of that, but even ¥10,000 a year works as a declaration that the company recognizes oshi-katsu.

Schemes Fall Into Three Types

The published cases fit roughly three types.

Many companies combine them. Leave alone leaves the wall of travel costs, and an allowance alone doesn’t get you to a weekday-evening event.

Time

Leave type

• One to several days a year, or trip weekends
• Only paid-leave days used
• Accommodates anniversaries and trips

Money

Allowance type

• Fixed subsidy for tickets, goods, travel
• Roughly ¥5,000 to ¥20,000 per person a year
• Eases cost, makes the scheme visible

Hours

Early-departure type

• Early departure on set days, flexible half-days
• Nearly zero cost
• Makes weekday-evening genba possible

Most companies combine types so that money, time and evenings are all covered.

Case Studies: How Each Scheme Was Designed

Yume Tenbo: Oshi-Katsu Leave Built Backward From a “Culture That Values What You Love”

The apparel e-commerce company Yume Tenbo announced (in Japanese) a new “oshi-katsu leave” scheme on November 28, 2025.

• Aim: Root a “culture that values the feeling of loving something” inside the company and draw out employees’ individuality and planning ability. It also serves as a hiring appeal to a diverse workforce, including Gen Z
• Approach: Roughly two to three days of leave a year (set by the company each fiscal year in coordination with the annual number of days off). Any employee who meets the work requirements can take it whenever they like during the year. Whether there is a financial subsidy hasn’t been disclosed
• The Oshi Lab’s view: The order of the announcement matters more than the content of the scheme. As an interview with Netshop Tantosha Forum (in Japanese) also shows, the company explained its culture of valuing what you love first and presented the leave as a consequence. Start from the scheme and the question “why our company?” lingers inside; start from the culture and the scheme needs no explanation

K Village: A Korea-Trip Scheme That Published 100 Uses

K Village, a company that runs Korean-language classes, introduced its “#Oshikan Support” scheme (oshi-kan, “oshi in Korea”) in July 2025 and announced (in Japanese) on February 10, 2026 that usage had passed 100 cases.

• Aim: Officially recognize employees’ “likes” as an employee benefit and raise engagement and retention
• Approach: A Korea-trip allowance of ¥10,000 per trip (once in each half of the year, up to twice a year). An entertainment oshi-katsu allowance pays the same amount on the same terms, provided the employee pays out of pocket for tickets of ¥8,000 or more including tax. It covers not only full-time employees but part-timers and executives
• Result: Usage passed 100 cases a little over six months after launch
• The Oshi Lab’s view: The value here lies in the disclosure, not the design. More companies have announced oshi-katsu leave, but almost none publish how much it is used. The figure “100” proves to job seekers that this is a scheme people actually use, many times more strongly than any description of the scheme could. Extending it to part-timers also heads off the sense of unfairness that comes with a perk for only some employees

NS Group: A Five-Day Trip Break That Costs You More If You Don’t Take It

NS Group, which runs the Karaoke Pasela chain, announced (in Japanese) a “national tour travel long-weekend scheme” and half-price oshi-katsu afternoon tea on March 19, 2025. It launched before the survey period, but it is one of the few earlier cases to back ensei (traveling to see your oshi) head-on.

• Aim: Create an environment where employees can attend consecutive-day live shows far from home, and tie it to a corporate brand of fully supporting oshi-katsu
• Approach: Taking a break of five or more consecutive days at least once a year is mandatory, and a manager whose staff don’t take it is penalized. Employees can also have the company’s signature afternoon tea at half price and spend the time watching their oshi’s videos in a projector room
• The Oshi Lab’s view: A design in which the boss is in trouble if you don’t take the break is a direct answer to schemes becoming dead letters. The biggest reason leave schemes go unused isn’t a flaw in the scheme but an atmosphere that makes applying hard. Appeals don’t change an atmosphere, but moving the evaluation from the subordinate to the manager does

DIVISION1: A Fixed Monthly Amount That Simplified Applications

On March 31, 2025, DIVISION1 Inc. announced an “oshi-katsu allowance” on its official blog (in Japanese). It covers a wide range: concert fees, goods purchases, theater tickets, fan club dues and related books. It pays a fixed amount each month to simplify the application process. The specific amount hasn’t been disclosed.

• The Oshi Lab’s view: Covering a wide range of activities and paying a fixed monthly amount is the practical part. With per-use reimbursement, employees would have to write on the application what they support. For people who don’t want their fandom found out (oshi-bare), that alone is reason not to use the scheme. A fixed amount with broad eligible uses lowers that psychological cost

Earlier Cases: Two Companies That Built This Field

“Oshi-katsu leave” is not a phrase from the last year or two.

Zeal Crest Co., Ltd. introduced “Oshimen Leave” (in Japanese) in December 2017 as part of its “STYLE Plus” benefits program. Employees can take one day of leave a year for the birthday or anniversary of an anime, manga or game character, or of an actor or voice actor, and the company covers activity costs up to ¥5,000. Game and anime media covered it widely at the time, and it became the prototype for the field.

favy Inc. introduced “Oshi-Katsu Wednesday” (in Japanese) on April 1, 2023, allowing early departure after 4 p.m. on Wednesdays with a subsidy of up to ¥2,000, five times a year. In 2024 it dropped the day-of-week limit and renamed the scheme “Oshi-Katsu Weekday.” Fix the day and you get the complaint that it can’t be used on any day but Wednesday. The published account of loosening the restriction while running the scheme is a useful reference for small organizations.

1. Dec 2017Zeal CrestOshimen Leave, one day a year
2. Apr 2023favyOshi-Katsu Wednesday
3. 2024favy updateDay-of-week limit dropped
4. Mar 2025NS Group, DIVISION1Trip break and monthly allowance
5. Jul 2025K VillageKorea-trip support begins
6. Nov 2025Yume TenboOshi-katsu leave announced
7. Feb 2026K VillagePasses 100 uses

The idea is not new, but few companies publish how much it is used.

What Separates Success From Dead Letters

Works

Design that works

• Broad scope, including family and hobbies
• Part-timers and executives included
• Self-reported, no proof of devotion
• Not taking it is the manager's problem
• Usage counts disclosed
• Explained together with company culture

Watch out

Prone to becoming a dead letter

• Limited to idols and artists
• Full-time employees only
• Must prove the oshi exists
• Announced, then left to the floor
• One launch press release
• Copies only the look of other cases

In its July 11, 2025 article, the HR outlet chrea (in Japanese) names three risks for a company that copies another’s scheme only on the surface: managers who don’t understand the purpose, leaving an atmosphere in which applying feels awkward; a “we have the scheme but it’s hard to use” reputation spreading on social media and damaging the company; and a gap between the expectations set at hiring and reality after joining, which leads to early resignations. The article proposes the sequence “philosophy, scheme, empathy, applications,” and Yume Tenbo’s announcement order follows it.

So far, no case of oshi-katsu leave setting off an online backlash (enjou) at a major company has surfaced. Still, the sense of unfairness, “it doesn’t concern employees who don’t have an oshi,” always comes up at the design stage. Decide how far to widen the scope before adoption.

For Teams Considering Adoption

Eight items to check emerge across the cases.

• Before the scheme, made it possible to explain our company’s values in a sentence
• Didn’t limit eligibility to an oshi, and decided a scope that includes family and hobbies
• Decided first whether to include non-full-time staff
• Decided how much of the reason to require on the application, and kept it minimal
• Checked with a tax accountant (zeirishi) or labor and social-security consultant (sharoshi) whether the allowance is taxed as salary or treated as a welfare expense
• Identified which clauses of the work rules to revise
• Set up a session to explain the purpose to managers
• Decided to tally results six months and a year after launch and to disclose them

You can work backward from the cases to a rough cost. For allowances, ¥5,000 to ¥10,000 per use is the going range, and the annual per-person cap is ¥5,000 at Zeal Crest and up to ¥20,000 for each of K Village’s two allowances. Using both allowances can bring the total to ¥40,000 a year. Leave adds no direct spending beyond the paid-leave days used, even if you add days, so even smaller companies can adopt it. As for preparation, adding a slot to an existing special-leave or condolence-leave system can be handled with a partial revision of the work rules.

One caution: no company has disclosed whether it treats the allowance as taxable salary or as a welfare expense. Check with a tax accountant or labor and social-security consultant before adopting. On rights clearance, the leave and allowances themselves don’t involve a company using an oshi’s IP, so there are basically no concerns. But if you feature employees’ oshi images or goods in an internal newsletter or recruiting PR, take care over copyright and portrait rights.

From The Oshi Lab: What These Schemes Protect Is Not Time Off but the Freedom Not to Lie

If you think the point of oshi-katsu leave is that employees can take time off, you will get the design wrong. One extra day a year is worth little, because at many companies you can take the same day off with paid leave.

The scheme still matters because you no longer have to fake your reason for taking time off. You write “hospital visit” in the reason field of your paid-leave request and go to the concert. If your boss asks, you get vague. Small lies like these pile up and create distance between you and the company. That 62.8% of the oshi-katsu group in the Mynavi survey said “I work hard for my oshi-katsu” shows that oshi-katsu isn’t a hobby outside work; it is continuous with the motivation to work. We think the core of the scheme is creating a state in which you don’t have to hide that.

That is why a scheme that makes employees explain their oshi on the application betrays its purpose. The objection is fair that a leave that asks for no reasons doesn’t need to be named as a scheme at all. The name is still worth having because it becomes a signal that “this is allowed at this company.” If you want it to work as a signal, all you can do is publish not the scheme’s existence but its usage. That is why K Village’s “100” is so strong as recruitment PR.

And the 11.0% adoption figure shows this field is still in its early days. New adoption announcements were far from common from 2025 into 2026, and only a few new schemes have been published since September 2025. A company that moves first leaves a memory in the hiring market as “the company that moved first,” which counts for more than the content of its scheme. But that memory turns against you the moment people learn the scheme goes unused. We recommend deciding whether you can show results a year from now before you decide to adopt.

Related articles: What Is Workplace Oshi-Katsu? / What Is Oshi-Katsu Marketing? / How Big Is the Oshi-Katsu Market? / What Is Oshi-Katsu Fatigue?