Karaoke Rooms for Oshi-Katsu: How Japan's Chains Turned Singing Booths Into Fan Clubhouses

Some karaoke chains in Japan now offer rooms and plans built for oshi-katsu: a place to watch live concert footage or simply get together with other fans. The idea is to put what a karaoke box already has (a private room, a sound system, a big screen) to work for something other than singing.

We look at the oshi-katsu rooms and franchise (IP) collaborations of the major karaoke companies, and compare how they use their facilities, how they price them, and what perks they offer to bring fans through the door.

“Karaoke Without Singing” Brought the Market Back

According to Teikoku Databank’s nationwide karaoke market survey for fiscal 2024 (in Japanese), the karaoke market was expected to recover to roughly ¥320 billion (roughly $2.1 billion) in fiscal 2024. That is up about 84% from ¥174 billion in fiscal 2021, when the pandemic hit, and close to the pre-COVID level of ¥348.5 billion in fiscal 2018.

The makeup of the recovery is the interesting part. The survey names the growth of “karaoke without singing” as one factor, and says a new trend is taking root: groups booking a room for hours to watch idol event or concert DVDs and live viewings. The trade paper Foodrink also ran the story under the headline “Karaoke in fiscal 2024: a V-shaped recovery that nearly matches pre-COVID levels, with oshi-katsu as a tailwind” (in Japanese), noting that capturing oshi-katsu demand helped raise spending per customer.

The wider oshi-katsu market is growing too. A survey reported by Netshop Tantosha Forum in March 2026 (in Japanese) put the market at about ¥4.1 trillion (roughly $27 billion). Three in ten respondents said they do oshi-katsu, and more than seven in ten of them spend less than ¥10,000 a month. So the core audience is not big spenders but a broad majority who want to be satisfied for a few thousand yen, and a soundproof private room for a few hours fits that price point well.

¥174B

Market size in fiscal 2021

¥320B

Market size in fiscal 2024

+84%

Growth over those three years

¥348.5B

Pre-COVID level in fiscal 2018

Groups renting rooms without singing were one tailwind for the market's expected recovery.

Source: Teikoku Databank karaoke market survey (in Japanese)

Approach 1: Generic Rooms Built From Color

The karaoke companies started with a permanent product that does not depend on any particular franchise.

Karaoke Kan “Kara-Oshi Kan” (Akihabara Main Store)

On April 16, 2026, B&V Co., Ltd. announced (in Japanese) a new oshi-katsu-only room called “Kara-Oshi Kan” at its Akihabara main store. It has lighting in 25 colors (billed as the industry’s largest), a wall with magnetic display shelves and frames for showing off merch, 11 oshi-color drinks, and a large projector screen.

• Aim: Redefine karaoke from “a place to sing” to “a space to share what you love with friends and have a special time,” and set the store apart
• What they did: Made the lighting, fixtures and drinks a permanent set, with plans to roll it out to other areas as needed
• The Lab’s take: The magnetic shelves are a practical touch. Fans begin the experience by rearranging the merch they brought onto the wall, so the design leaves room for them to do the decorating instead of the store doing it for them

Big Echo “Oshi-Color Room”

Daiichikosho, the company behind the Big Echo chain, got there first. When the Big Echo Shin-Yurakucho store reopened after renovation on March 28, 2025, it introduced (in Japanese) an “Oshi-Color Room,” with doors, walls, sofas and more unified in one of 11 colors: pink, green, light blue, blue, yellow, white, black, violet, red, orange and aurora. It became the starting point for the nationwide rollout that followed.

• Aim: Use the shared language of oshi color to create a collab-like experience with no license needed
• What they did: Divided rooms by color and let guests choose their oshi’s color when booking
• Follow-up: The company has kept launching franchise collabs since
• The Lab’s take: Color is the cheapest kind of worldbuilding. With no characters involved, it needs no licensing or supervision and goes from planning to operation quickly. Treat it as permanent baseline strength, not as a stopgap for when an IP deal falls through

Pasela Resorts also runs an “Oshi-kai” (oshi gathering) plan as its own service, so turning the generic format into a standard offering is an industry-wide move.

Approach 2: Collab Rooms Built From a Franchise

If the generic room is the foundation, licensed collabs are what create the spikes in traffic.

The foundation

Oshi-color room

• No characters, so no license needed
• Fast from planning to launch
• Permanent, and works for any fandom

The spike

IP collab room

• Licensed from a specific franchise
• Limited run that drives bookings
• Needs supervision and decoration swaps

Color is the baseline; licensed collabs are the spikes on top of it.

Karaoke Manekineko x Gakuen Idolmaster

Koshidaka Holdings’ Karaoke Manekineko ran the second round of a collab room series with Gakuen Idolmaster, a spin-off of the long-running idol-training franchise, themed “Cat-Ear Messenger,” from April 27 to June 7, 2026. It was announced that reservations would open at 6 p.m. on April 23 (Idolmaster official site, in Japanese).

• Aim: A company with a track record of about 50 collab titles a year uses a sequel to a popular title to win repeat bookings
• What they did: Brought it back as a second round with a new theme, announcing the reservation start date ahead of time
• The Lab’s take: The four-day lead time, from reservations opening on April 23 to operation starting on April 27, says it all. That speed comes from a system built around swapping decorations. Fifty collabs a year also smooths out the hits and misses of any single one

Round1 x Naniwa Danshi

Round1, the entertainment chain, opened reservations at 6 p.m. on August 29, 2025, and added a collab room with the idol group Naniwa Danshi at its Kichijoji store for use from the next day, August 30. It followed the existing rooms at Sennichimae, Ikebukuro and Tokorozawa (Round1’s official X account, in Japanese).

• Aim: Use an official collab with a popular idol group to drive reservations and maximize occupancy
• What they did: Added rooms after seeing the response
• Response: The official announcement cites “many customers using” the rooms
• The Lab’s take: Adding a room shows the organizer did not ignore the frustration of fans who couldn’t get in. Increasing the number of people who can take part lays a better foundation for the next campaign than a sellout used as a display of popularity

Big Echo x Idolmaster SideM and Hoshimachi Suisei

From January 30 to March 31, 2026, Daiichikosho ran a nationwide collab campaign (in Japanese) with The Idolmaster SideM. In parallel, from January 10 to February 28, 2026, it held a collab with Hoshimachi Suisei, a virtual YouTuber (VTuber) from hololive production, with a special collab drink and singing campaign, plus collab rooms at two stores in Tokyo and Osaka.

• Aim: Reach broadly with singing campaigns and drink promotions, and deeply with rooms at flagship stores, a two-layer approach
• What they did: Split the roles: singing campaigns and collab drinks at 30 stores broadened participation, while collab rooms were placed at two stores in Tokyo and Osaka
• The Lab’s take: Give fans across the country something they can take part in, and give the ones who can travel a reason to go. Because rooms can’t be multiplied, it works to put other ways of taking part into the same campaign

JOYSOUND x VTubers, “Bui-Kara Summer Fest 2025”

From August 29 to September 14, 2025, a campaign built on “X PARK,” which Xing runs on JOYSOUND, let fans chat one-on-one online with VTubers from karaoke rooms nationwide equipped with JOYSOUND X1 (PR TIMES, in Japanese). On the voice actor and artist side, the GRANRODEO x JOYSOUND directly operated stores (in Japanese) campaign, which began on August 8, 2025, offered collab drinks with novelty gifts at just 30 stores nationwide and a collab room at the JOYSOUND Suidobashi store, along with a stamp rally.

• Aim: Redefine the room from “a place to sing” to “a place to connect directly with your oshi,” and lift occupancy on weekdays and off-peak hours
• What they did: Used the features of the networked karaoke machine to turn the store’s own equipment into the experience
• The Lab’s take: What sets it apart from other companies is that the machine, not the decorations or the prizes, sits at the center of the experience. Equipment is hard to copy and can be reloaded with the next franchise, which makes this an area where investment pays off

Approach 3: Amusement Arcades Hand Out a Reason to Visit

Where karaoke sells a room, arcades bring people to the whole floor. The standard approach is to create a reason to visit with prizes and novelties. GENDA GiGO Entertainment’s GiGO ran a My Hero Academia collab campaign from September 12 to October 31, 2025, with limited-time prizes, a purchase bonus novelty for every ¥500 spent, and collab taiyaki (fish-shaped waffle cakes). From December 6, 2025 to January 11, 2026, it put out prizes exclusive to its group stores for Thoroughbred Collection. Bandai Namco Amusement’s Namco also ran “Namco de Halloween 2025: Mermaid Fantasy” with Sanrio Characters from September 5 to November 3, 2025.

The Lab’s view is that the star here is not the prize but the condition “for every ¥500.” At a time when random goods face strong headwinds, tying a novelty you are sure to get to how much you spend is a sensible way to raise spending per customer without raising the gambling element.

1. Mar 28, 2025Big EchoFirst Oshi-Color Room opens
2. Aug 29, 2025Round1 and JOYSOUNDKichijoji room and VTuber campaign
3. Jan 2026Big Echo collabsSideM and Hoshimachi Suisei
4. Apr 16, 2026Kara-Oshi KanAkihabara oshi-katsu room
5. Apr 27, 2026ManekinekoSecond Gakuen Idolmaster round

Generic rooms and licensed collabs now run side by side.

Winning and Losing Patterns

The trouble on the losing side is structural, not the fault of any one company. Karaoke collabs are often run store by store, so what is allowed tends to vary from location to location. On social media, you can see people remarking on differences such as “that store let us bring merch, but another one said no,” and disappointment that decorations came down right after a collab ended. Frustration at hard-to-book popular rooms has the same root. No company has published a rule that standardizes merch and photo policies across a whole chain.

Checklist for Corporate Planners

• Decided first whether to use characters or build it from color and fixtures alone (whether you need a license changes the lead time)
• Prepared a generic room first, and built IP collabs to sit on top of it
• Announced the reservation start date and method well ahead of launch, not just a few days before
• Set criteria in advance for adding rooms, extending the run or expanding to other stores if demand exceeds expectations
• Stated on the booking page and in-store signage whether outside merch, decorating, photos, and food and drink are allowed
• Included other ways to take part for people who can’t get into a room (nationwide drinks, novelties, stamps and so on) in the same campaign
• Tied novelty eligibility to spending or visits, not to chance
• Decided which decorations, fixtures and recipes carry over to permanent offerings after the run
• Briefed on-site staff on the title, character names, how fans refer to them, and points of caution

On costs, the common division of labor appears to be that the IP holder covers licensing, merch production and novelty costs, while the store handles fixtures, POP displays and drink recipes, but actual contract amounts are not public. On lead time, the Manekineko case shows it can run in a matter of days from reservations opening to launch, whereas building a new oshi-color room, which involves renovating a store, is planned over several months alongside a remodel.

Notes From The Oshi Lab: The More You Let Fans Decorate, the Stronger the Room

Line up the karaoke companies’ oshi-katsu rooms and a paradox appears: a room does not get better the more the store decorates it. The 25-color lighting and the 11-color interiors are not finished products in themselves. They are completed only when fans put down the acrylic stands, plushies and uchiwa fans they brought. The magnetic display shelf is the fixture in which that philosophy shows most clearly.

This connects directly to how birthday parties for an absent oshi have become a fixture in private karaoke rooms. Fans already know how to decorate and celebrate on their own. The store’s job is not to decorate for them but to make decorating easy, and to give them conditions under which they can photograph the result without worry. That the problem of merch and photo rules varying from store to store keeps being raised is exactly because that is the center of the experience.

One more point. One tailwind behind the karaoke market’s expected return to around ¥320 billion was “use without singing,” which suggests a rewrite of what the industry is. A business that sells equipment hours is free to design what people do in that time, and oshi-katsu is one of the demands that fits that open time best. The Lab believes the next question is not how many collabs you run, but whether a reason to come back to that room still exists the day after a collab ends.

Related articles: What Is Oshi-Katsu Marketing? / How to Plan an Oshi-Katsu Event / How to Plan a Collab Cafe, With Success Stories / Birthday Parties Without the Guest of Honor