Wrapped Bullet Trains and Anime Airplanes: How Japan's Railways and Airlines Move Fans

Japanese railway and airline companies now run campaigns aimed squarely at oshi-katsu fans: wrapped trains, limited-edition goods, in-car touches tied to a particular work. They do more than carry fans to a destination. They give fans a reason to pick that flight or that line in the first place.

Over the past few years, railways and airlines have rapidly stepped up their collabs with anime, idols and VTubers. These can look like one-off publicity stunts, but they speak directly to the core business problem of creating demand for travel. Drawing mainly on cases from September 2025 to September 2026, this article looks at how such campaigns are put together and where the risks lie.

Three Reasons Transit Fits Oshi-Katsu

First, travel itself is an oshi-katsu activity. In a survey on oshi-katsu and ensei (in Japanese) conducted in August 2025 and announced in November by Neo Marketing and the travel agency H.I.S., “comfortable travel” and “experiences that let you feel your oshi” came up as what fans want when they travel to see their oshi. Women in particular tended to put weight on extra or additional public transit services and on affordable lodging. Fans don’t want to cut down on travel. They want to make it part of their oshi-katsu.

Second, trains, stations and aircraft become advertising media. The Oshi-Katsu and Fan-Supported Ad Survey 2024 (in Japanese), announced by JR East Marketing & Communications on February 27, 2025, polled about 25,000 people between December 26, 2024 and January 9, 2025. Among the 53.3% of all respondents who had something they liked and supported, 26.3% had an oshi, and 59% of the people who do oshi-katsu knew about fan-supported ads. Among the organizers and funders of fan-supported ads, 86.8% said their spending went up and 89.1% said they wanted to support their oshi even more. The survey puts the potential market at about ¥76.9 billion (roughly $510 million). Station ad space, in other words, is somewhere fans will pay out of their own pockets to be.

Third, the campaign formats are already established. JR Central’s “Oshi Tabi” (“Oshi Trip”), launched in November 2021, doubled from 50 campaigns in fiscal 2023 to 100 in fiscal 2024, according to a series by Atsuo Nakayama in gamebiz (in Japanese), and now runs to 100 a year. It is turning into a standard program for the railway industry rather than one company’s experiment.

Railway and Airline Collabs, Case by Case

The formats may be settled, but what each company puts at the center differs widely.

26.3%

Share of respondents with an oshi

86.8%

Organized or funded a fan-supported ad and said spending rose

¥76.9B

Estimated potential market

100

JR Central Oshi Tabi campaigns a year

Sources: JR East Marketing & Communications survey (in Japanese); gamebiz (JR Central Oshi Tabi, in Japanese)

JR Central “Oshi Tabi” x The Idolmaster Series

The goal was to make the Shinkansen ride itself out of the ordinary and win new customers. “TR@VEL MEDLEY!!!!!!,” which started on August 30, 2024, cast 18 idols from six brands of the idol franchise The Idolmaster as “cheering ambassadors.” It paired original voice recordings heard only on board the Tokaido Shinkansen with travel-themed Idolmaster station bento boxes, and added new rounds for about a year and a half, through February 2026 (JR Central Oshi Tabi official site, in Japanese).

Across “Oshi Tabi” as a whole, the number of campaigns doubled in two years. Each campaign builds on the last, and together they run as an ongoing business.

The Lab’s view is that the heart of this campaign is content you can only get on board. Merch can be bought by mail order, but a voice heard in a moving car reaches only people who bought a ticket. Turning the ride into an experience nothing else can replace is the real value to a railway company.

JR East x Jujutsu Kaisen “Higashi-Nihon Kaiyu”

Announced on December 8, 2025 and run from December 17 to mid-May 2026, this campaign aimed to get people traveling around the Kanto and Tohoku regions. It combined a wrapped E5 series train on the Tohoku Shinkansen, a stamp rally through stations in Kanto and Tohoku, and limited voice content on the audio app Locatone (JR East press release, in Japanese). Participants who met the conditions received an original acrylic keychain, in limited quantities.

The design layered the train (seeing), the stamp rally (walking) and the voice (listening) as separate pieces. When one campaign runs several oshi-katsu activities side by side, fans can also choose to join in with just one of them.

JR West x One Piece on the Sanyo Shinkansen

From spring 2025, JR West rolled out three wrapped trains in turn on the “Kodama” service between Shin-Osaka and Hakata. “Setouchi Blue” debuted on April 12, “Chopper” on May 28 and “Luffy” on July 2, and the production went as far as using the theme song “We Are!” as the in-car chime (JR West press release, in Japanese). Counting a summer campaign and a second round of goods, it ran all year.

Three trains instead of one was the key decision. The Lab’s view is that it deliberately creates a “you can’t tell which one you’ll get” state. Catch the train you were after and you are delighted; miss it and you have a reason to ride again. It builds randomness into the timetable instead of into the merch, like a blind box where nothing needs to be bought twice.

Kintetsu Railway x The Idolmaster Series

From September 13, 2025, Kintetsu sold commemorative platform tickets covering three stations (Ujiyamada, Toba and Uge) as one set, with a mount, limited to 2,000 sets at ¥1,000 each (on sale until sold out) (railf.jp report, in Japanese). The aim was to encourage travel around the Ise-Shima area. The tickets stay valid until February 28, 2027, so buyers don’t have to use them up right away.

On December 29, 2025, additional sales locations were also announced.

The Lab’s view is that the point is bundling three stations into one set. Sell one station at a time and the visit ends after one stop; sell a set and “a trip that visits three stations” becomes the product.

JAL x GUNDAM and Love Live! Nijigasaki

The best-known airline example is JAL’s “FLY TO THE FUTURE PROJECT.” JAL began flying the “JAL Gundam JET” on March 3, 2025, and on August 18 put “Gundam Goshoin” stamps (¥500) on sale at 10 airports nationwide: New Chitose, Haneda, Osaka, Tokushima, Izumo, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Kagoshima and Okinawa. Each airport has a different mobile suit design, which feeds the urge to collect them all (GUNDAM.INFO, in Japanese).

Risk has surfaced too. JAL and Bandai Namco Filmworks announced travel plans in October 2025 tied to the film “Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Final Chapter Part 2,” at ¥3,300 per course or ¥8,800 for a three-city pack, on sale from October 6, 2025 to May 31, 2026. A cast talk show scheduled at Kyoto Station in March 2026 was canceled for safety after an email threatening disruption arrived (Dengeki Online report, in Japanese).

That is not a failure of the campaign’s quality. It is a structural risk of any fan event whose date and place are made public. The Lab’s view is that planners should prepare two things in advance: a process for deciding to cancel, and announcement wording that treats fans as victims.

Keihan Electric Railway x Sound! Euphonium

Since September 1, 2026, Keihan has run a wrapped train, a collab cafe and collab rooms for the anime Sound! Euphonium all at once (Keihan Electric Railway’s official collab site, in Japanese). What stands out is that the collab project in partnership with the city of Uji has continued since 2016. Uji has 38 spots tied to the story, including the “Kumiko bench,” and it has settled in as a pilgrimage route.

A collab that lasts more than ten years becomes an “annual tradition” woven into fans’ lives and shapes the town’s reputation itself. The Lab’s view is that this is an asset the ROI of a one-off campaign can’t capture.

On the ground

Railway

• Wrapped trains and in-car voice
• Stamp rallies through stations
• Platform ticket sets

In the air

Airline

• A themed aircraft
• A different stamp at each airport
• Travel plans tied to a film

Both turn a route into a collection.

What Works and What to Watch For

Line the cases up and you can see the shapes of what works and what comes with built-in risk.

Getting a Campaign Approved and Running

Railway and airline collabs carry heavier lead times and rights handling than most other industries. Work through the steps below in order and both internal approval and on-site operations keep moving.

1. Learn the IP side’s anniversary and release schedule first: The more closely you align with a new release or anniversary, the bigger the total buzz. Working backward, starting the proposal a year ahead is realistic.
2. Design trains, stations, aircraft and merch as separate contracts: As with Jujutsu Kaisen x JR East, the wrapping, the stamp rally merch and the voice content each end up with a different contract scope in practice. Separating the layers at the start makes it easier to add measures later.
3. Work backward from vehicle inspection cycles for installation: Wrapping and removal depend on how vehicles are deployed. Fix the publicity team’s preferred dates first and the coordination falls apart.
4. Decide on one thing “you can only get there”: Prepare at least one element that only riders receive, such as in-car voice, station-exclusive designs or in-flight handouts.
5. Extend travel distance through collection design: Change the artwork by site, sell as a set, set a long validity period. Kintetsu’s platform ticket set put its expiry about a year and a half out.
6. Fix your KPIs at the planning stage: Ticket and platform ticket sales, merch sales, stamp rally completion rate, social media mentions, repeat ridership. Whether you publish them is a separate matter, but without metrics measured internally you cannot budget for next year.
7. Document safety measures and contingencies: Criteria for canceling, who decides, a template for the announcement, a refund policy. The JAL case showed that having these in advance can make all the difference.

1. 01Learn the IP calendarStart a year ahead
2. 02Split the contractsTrain, station, merch, voice
3. 03Fit inspection cyclesWork back from vehicle schedules
4. 04Add one exclusiveSomething only riders get
5. 05Fix your KPIsMeasure even if unpublished

Lead time and rights handling are heavier here than in other industries.

Items to check before planning:

• Matched the IP side’s anniversary and new-release schedule against your own operating plan
• Sorted the contract scope for trains, stations, merch and voice separately
• Prepared at least one element only riders can get
• Designed the differences by site (designs, perks)
• Decided purchase limits and restock policy for limited-quantity items
• Prepared a process for deciding to cancel and the announcement wording
• Decided in advance which metrics to track, whether published or not
• Prepared a path for fans in regional areas to take part (mail order, online campaigns)

Notes From The Oshi Lab: The Companies That Make Travel the Destination Will Win

The biggest asset a railway or airline has is not its trains or route network but the fact that fans are already traveling. Ensei is among the costliest oshi-katsu activities, and one of the biggest investments of time. What separates winners is whether a company can turn the travel time itself into part of the oshi-katsu, instead of slipping ads in afterward.

In that sense, in-car exclusive voice and a Goshoin that differs by airport are more than promotional items. They help fans explain for themselves “why I board, why I get off, and why I’ll ride again.” The wrapped Shinkansen where you can’t tell which of the three trains you’ll catch has the same structure, with collectibility built into the timetable.

The weak spot in this industry is that results stay invisible. Most cases publish neither economic impact nor rider numbers. Choosing not to publish can be a sound business decision, but if no figures are kept internally, the moment the person in charge changes the campaign gets demoted to “something that seemed good.” Because these companies can turn travel into oshi-katsu, the Lab believes the ones that put measurement in place first will be the ones that last.

Related articles: What Is Oshi-Katsu Marketing? / What Is Fan Marketing? / Ensei Packing Checklist / The Oshi-Katsu Market Size (2026 Edition)