Tokyo Game Show Draws 260K+ & Roblox Hits 23M Matches: Weekly Oshikatsu News (Oct 3, 2025)

Here is our roundup of notable corporate oshikatsu (fan support activities) marketing and fan business news from the week of September 26 to October 2, 2025.

This Week’s Highlights

The defining theme of the week was hard proof backed by numbers, demonstrated through trade show attendance and collaboration track records.

Total attendance at Tokyo Game Show 2025 reached 263,101 visitors, and next year’s Tokyo Game Show 2026 was scheduled to run for five days for the first time in the event’s history. In Kyoto, the Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair (known as KYOMAF) marked its 14th edition overall. Blue Archive held its first-ever live stage event at KYOMAF, while the VTuber agency NIJISANJI returned in full force for the first time in several years.

Impressive numbers also lined up on the collaboration front. Saga Prefecture’s “Sagaprise!” initiative has built up a track record of more than 40 collaborations over roughly ten years. The 2.5D idol group Ireisu drew a career-high 90,000 fans on its national arena tour. Meanwhile, a partnership between a soccer game on Roblox and FIFA saw more than 23 million matches played. Rather than ending as passing fads, projects that demonstrated their track records in concrete figures stood out all week.

DIAGRAMKey Attendance and Engagement Figures Reported This Week

263,101: Total visitors at Tokyo Game Show 2025 (including a record 107,131 across its two Business Days)
40+: Collaborations accumulated by Saga Prefecture's Sagaprise! project over roughly ten years
90,000: Career-high concert attendance across five cities and ten shows on Ireisu's 2025 arena tour
23M+: Matches played in Roblox's Super League Soccer through its FIFA Club World Cup 2025 tie-up

Source: The Oshi Lab's summary of the article

Local Governments and Sports Teams Turned Fan Enthusiasm into Visuals and Track Records

Saga Prefecture’s “Sagaprise!” — A Local Government That Has Built Up Over 40 Collaborations in About 10 Years

Saga Prefecture has continued its collaboration-driven public relations project “Sagaprise!,” accumulating more than 40 collaborations to date. According to the report, when the project began roughly ten years ago, cases of local governments collaborating with anime or video games were still rare. Representative examples include its third installment, “Romancing Saga” with Square Enix’s SaGa series in fiscal 2013, and its tenth installment, “Sagakeen” with Nintendo’s Splatoon in fiscal 2015. In both collaborations, Saga Prefecture said it faced the challenge of setting shared goals with partners whose business objectives differed from its own. Even so, it reportedly spent around six months holding repeated discussions to lay out Saga Prefecture’s tourism resources and local products while blending them with each franchise’s world (AdverTimes. (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: The true value of this initiative lies in the cumulative total of more than 40 collaborations. Rather than aiming for a single viral hit, Saga Prefecture has spent ten years establishing a clear reputation among IP holders as “the prefecture that does collaborations.” Companies considering one-off tie-up campaigns often overlook the ongoing design needed to make a partner think, “We want to work with them again.”

Hanshin Electric Railway — Reliving the League Championship Victory Toss and Beer Shower Through VR Footage

Hanshin Electric Railway introduced virtual reality (VR) footage at the Koshien Museum of History to commemorate the Hanshin Tigers’ 2025 league championship. There were two videos—one featuring the traditional doage (victory toss of the manager into the air) and the other capturing the celebratory beer shower—each running for about three minutes. By putting on a dedicated headset, visitors could watch a 360-degree view of the players walking around the field, exchanging high-fives, and celebrating at the victory party. The experience was included in the standard museum admission fee (900 yen for adults) at no additional charge. Availability began on September 26, 2025, and it was announced that starting September 29 the footage would be screened alongside the existing 2023 championship VR videos (Mogura VR (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: Only the fans physically present at the stadium could experience the moment of victory firsthand. With VR footage, however, fans who were not there in person can see that exact same view at no extra cost. Simply layering a new experience onto an existing revenue asset—facility admission fees—creates a mechanism that refreshes people’s motivation to visit every year. It is a fine example of how a regional tourism facility can keep turning its archive of memories into a selling point in subsequent years.

Trade Show Attendance Demonstrated the Strength of the Content Industry

Tokyo Game Show — 263,101 Visitors Attend, with the Event’s First-Ever Five-Day Run Planned for 2026

The Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association (CESA) announced that total attendance at Tokyo Game Show 2025, which closed on September 28, reached 263,101 visitors. Although this was down from 2024 (274,739 visitors), it exceeded the 2023 total (243,238 visitors) that had marked a strong post-pandemic recovery. Attendance across the two Business Days totaled 107,131 visitors, setting an all-time record and rising sharply from 2023 (69,815) and 2024 (87,180). Exhibitors reached 1,136 companies and organizations from 47 countries and regions. Next year’s Tokyo Game Show 2026 was scheduled to run for five days (September 17 to 21, 2026) for the first time in the event’s history (Dengeki Online (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: Public Day attendance declined from 187,559 the previous year to 155,970, while Business Day attendance broke its all-time record. This shows the event shifting its center of gravity from a “fan festival” toward a “business negotiation venue.” Companies considering exhibiting or attending need to think not only about the excitement of the public days, but also about how they design business development opportunities during the Business Days.

Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair — Marks 14th Edition as Blue Archive Holds Its First KYOMAF Live Stage

Held on September 20 and 21, 2025, the Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair 2025 (commonly known as KYOMAF) celebrated its 14th edition overall. KYOMAF is one of the largest content trade fairs in western Japan. Kyoto offers a strong educational environment, including Japan’s only Faculty of Manga at Kyoto Seika University. In addition, Osaka-based broadcasters such as Yomiuri TV, ABC Asahi Broadcasting, and MBS Mainichi Broadcasting serve as major production and broadcasting hubs for popular anime. Because of these factors, KYOMAF has attracted strong interest from the business community as well. This year, Blue Archive held its first-ever live stage at KYOMAF on a scale estimated by the report at more than double that of other stages held that day, and the VTuber agency NIJISANJI also made a full-scale return after several years (Inside (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: Major trade shows tend to cluster in the Kanto (greater Tokyo) region. KYOMAF’s strength lies in how Kyoto’s location itself is tied to an industrial cluster of educational institutions, production studios, and Kansai-area broadcasters. Even investments on a scale that would not stand on their own can become viable by drawing on a region’s existing industrial structure. For companies weighing fan events outside Tokyo, this case highlights the value of researching the industrial foundation already present in the area.

Retailers and Apparel Brands Welcomed Popular Characters to Their Storefronts

“DRAGON BALL STORE TOKYO” — The World’s First Permanent Store Opens at Tokyo Station Ichibangai

Dragon Ball’s first permanent store in the world, “DRAGON BALL STORE TOKYO,” opened on November 14, 2025, on the first floor of Tokyo Station Ichibangai (First Avenue Tokyo Station). Created by Akira Toriyama, who began serializing the manga in 1984, the franchise has been loved around the world for decades. The 2022 theatrical film Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero took first place at the box office in both its domestic opening weekend in Japan and its US debut. The store rolled out exclusive merchandise available nowhere else alongside interior decorations expressing the world of the series (eeo (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: What makes this fascinating is that an intellectual property (IP) with a 40-year history is opening its first permanent flagship store only now. Even for an IP that has repeatedly released merchandise and run pop-up shops, committing to a permanent store requires a different level of investment decision. The longer-lived an IP is, the more its next stage of growth depends on judging the right moment to shift from limited-time exposure to a permanent touchpoint.

Hello Kitty x United Arrows — The Character Debuting in 1974 Gets Her First Collaboration with the Retailer

Sanrio’s Hello Kitty and the select shop retailer United Arrows teamed up for their first collaboration. The companies announced the release of four items starting October 4, 2025 (all prices include tax): a charm (3,300 yen), a cardigan (28,930 yen), a shoulder bag (14,900 yen), and a tote bag (11,000 yen). The collection stood out for incorporating motifs of Hello Kitty—who debuted in 1974—in a mature, sophisticated style through 1970s-inspired embroidery and detailing (Anime! Anime! (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: In this first tie-up with United Arrows, a cardigan featuring Hello Kitty—half a century after her debut—carries a price tag of nearly 30,000 yen. Moving past the preconception of character goods as inexpensive items for children, can a brand justify this price point through materials and design? Whether it succeeds depends on how the fashion brand translates the character’s accumulated brand equity into the product itself.

San-X Characters x Lawson — Rilakkuma and Sumikko Gurashi Gather at Convenience Stores Nationwide

A collaboration campaign bringing together San-X characters—including Rilakkuma, Sumikko Gurashi, and Tarepanda—with Lawson convenience stores across Japan (excluding certain stores, Natural Lawson, and Lawson Store 100 locations) launched on September 30, 2025. Customers who purchased two eligible confectionery items received an “Original Clear Sheet” (4 designs in total, limited to a combined 18 sheets per store) on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies lasted. Reusable eco-bags (2 designs) and mini acrylic stands (7 designs) were also sold in limited quantities. On the official X (formerly Twitter) account, a lottery campaign gave one winner an original QUO prepaid card worth 10,000 yen (Anime! Anime! (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: A specific, small cap like “18 sheets in total per store” gives fans an immediate reason to walk into a location. In nationwide convenience store collaborations, it is easy to focus on the massive overall scale. Yet what actually drives a fan out the door is store-level scarcity—the urge to get there before the neighborhood shop runs out. Companies rolling out nationwide campaigns are often the ones most prone to underestimating per-store allocation design.

Anniversary Campaigns Made Years of Brand and Fan History Visible

TOHO animation STORE — 20 Newly Illustrated Characters for Its 10th Anniversary and Pop-Up Shops at Marui

TOHO animation’s official online shop, TOHO animation STORE (TaS), marked its 10th anniversary on September 30, 2025. To celebrate, TaS produced and unveiled newly drawn visuals featuring a total of 20 characters across 10 titles, including Haikyu!!, Jujutsu Kaisen, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, and The Apothecary Diaries. It also announced a traveling pop-up shop, “10th Anniversary Branch Office in OIOI,” scheduled sequentially at Yurakucho Marui (October 24 to November 9), Namba Marui (November 22 to December 7), and Hakata Marui (December 20 to January 4) (Anime! Anime! (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: This campaign cuts across 10 different titles. In addition to serving fans of individual series, it is designed to make fans of the “TOHO animation label itself” visible. Rather than only building up fandoms for separate IPs one by one, it cultivates attachment to the overarching label and e-commerce platform. This approach can be applied by any company that manages a portfolio of multiple IPs.

Chiikawa Bakery — Marking Its First Anniversary as the Harajuku Brick-and-Mortar Store Proves Its Staying Power

It was announced that Chiikawa Bakery, the Harajuku/Omotesando shop selling character-shaped bread based on Chiikawa, would celebrate its first anniversary on October 29, 2025, with its “1st Anniversary Celebration” kicking off on October 25. During the celebration period, shoppers spending 3,300 yen or more (tax included) received a “1st Anniversary Original Matte Can Badge.” At participating stores inside Tokyu Plaza Omotesando “Omokado” and Tokyu Plaza Harajuku “Harakado,” customers also received a sticker for every 1,500 yen spent. In the Omohara no Mori rooftop space, a limited-time drink stand modeled after the wagon from the anniversary mook (magazine-book) also appeared. The bakery’s total floor area is 61.22 tsubo (202 square meters) (Emo!miu (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: The very fact that a brick-and-mortar store for a manga born on social media is celebrating its first anniversary is what gives this milestone value. While more IPs originating online are opening physical shops, whether a store is still operating in the same location a year later serves as a direct barometer of its site selection and product development accuracy. Being able to celebrate an anniversary at all becomes key evidence for deciding on future store openings.

Anime Worlds Filtered into Everyday Neighborhood Infrastructure

The Apothecary Diaries — Opening a Regional Foothold Through a Pop-Up Store at a Newly Opened Bookstore

On October 3, 2025, Miraiya Shoten Suzaka (in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture) opened its doors as a brand-new bookstore. The store announced a limited-time pop-up shop for the TV anime The Apothecary Diaries running through October 29. The first season of the TV anime, which aired in October 2023, won a Special Award at the TVer Awards 2023, and its second season aired across two consecutive cours (broadcast quarters) starting in January 2025. It is a major hit series with massive cumulative worldwide circulation (Cho! Animedia (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: By layering an IP pop-up shop onto a newly opened store, the retailer turns the store-opening announcement itself into a fan event. When opening new stores in regional areas, predicting initial foot traffic is a common challenge. Tapping into the existing fanbase of a popular IP to drive opening-week visitors is an idea that can be applied well beyond bookstores.

E. Honda x Public Bathhouses and NIJISANJI x Hot Springs — A Week When Characters Borrowed Everyday Spaces

Beams and Cow Brand Soap Kyoshinsha, with cooperation from Capcom, ran the campaign “Sento no Susume 2025: Osaka & Kansai Edition” (Recommendations for Public Bathhouses 2025) through September 30. The campaign featured Edmond Honda (E. Honda), the bathhouse-loving character from Street Fighter II. Original noren (traditional split entrance curtains) were hung at roughly 160 sento (neighborhood public bathhouses) across Osaka Prefecture, and original merchandise such as T-shirts (7,150 yen) was sold at Beams stores and other locations (Saiga NAK (in Japanese)). Along similar lines, the super-bathhouse chain Gokurakuyu jointly announced with GK Marketing a third NIJISANJI collaboration titled “Totonou NIJISANJI” (referencing totonou, the state of deep refreshment after alternating sauna and bath sessions), scheduled to run from October 9 to November 11, 2025. The key visual depicted eight VTubers, including Kuzuha and Tsukino Mito, dressed in yukata (light cotton robes), with themed collaboration baths and merchandise rolled out across 38 locations nationwide (Inside (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: From outside the entertainment industry, public bathhouses and hot spring facilities look like modest, everyday infrastructure. Yet two separate initiatives pairing characters with bathhouses appeared in the very same week. In both cases, the characters’ lore and motifs (a love of public bathhouses, or relaxing in yukata after a sauna) naturally matched the function of the facilities, avoiding any sense of a forced tie-in. Companies exploring cross-industry collaborations have much to gain by first looking for where a character’s setting naturally intersects with their business format.

DIAGRAMHow Everyday Infrastructure and Retail Formats Leveraged Character IPs

Nationwide & Flagship Retail

Dragon Ball Store Tokyo transitions a 40-year IP from temporary pop-ups to its first permanent flagship store
Lawson uses strict per-store limits (18 clear sheets per shop) to create neighborhood-level urgency
United Arrows positions Hello Kitty for adult shoppers with a 28,930-yen embroidered cardigan

Regional & Everyday Venues

Miraiya Shoten Suzaka pairs a regional bookstore grand opening with an Apothecary Diaries pop-up
160 Osaka bathhouses display Street Fighter II E. Honda entrance curtains alongside Beams apparel
Gokurakuyu's 38 bathhouse locations align sauna relaxation with yukata-clad NIJISANJI VTubers

Source: The Oshi Lab's summary of the article

VTubers and Idols Redesigned the Distance Between Performers and Fans

2.5D Idol Group “Ireisu” — Drawing a Career-High 90,000 Fans on Its Arena Tour

The 2.5D idol group Ireisu (performers who bridge 2D illustrated avatars and 3D live in-person concerts) completed its national arena tour, “Summer Tour 2025 ‘Everybody - Matsuri - FESTIVAL!!,’” with final performances at K-Arena Yokohama on September 27 and 28, 2025. Visiting 10 shows across 5 cities nationwide, the tour drew a career-high 90,000 attendees. Ireisu achieved a Nippon Budokan concert just three years after forming and completed its first two-day Belluna Dome concerts at the end of last year. The group has declared Tokyo Dome as its next major goal, and it also held an online live concert on October 9 to mark its fifth anniversary (Anime! Anime! (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: What stands out is how steadily the group has expanded its attendance scale, moving from Nippon Budokan to Belluna Dome and now to a national arena tour. Because this virtual-born idol group continually and publicly declares which venue size it is aiming for next, fans themselves can share in the experience of that growth. Expressing an IP’s growth story through the concrete numbers of venue capacity is a strength that is easy even for people outside the fanbase to understand.

Konami’s “Kyun♡Tube VR Live” — Redesigning the Distance to Idols Through VR

Konami Digital Entertainment announced “Kyun♡Tube VR Live,” an idol entertainment experience utilizing VR, and offered hands-on demos at Tokyo Game Show 2025. Using a Meta Quest 3 headset, viewers could watch the stage from three angles: front center, right side, and left side. The camera viewpoints were placed right on the boundary between the stage and the audience seating—a vantage point that would normally be impossible at a physical concert. Participating idol groups included iLiFE!, Dramatic Record, and NANIMONO, and Konami conducted test streams through October 5 (Inside (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: The core innovation here is using VR to create seats “closer than the front row”—positions that cannot physically exist at an in-person concert. Rather than being capped by venue layout constraints where front-row tickets immediately sell out, device-side investment absorbs that demand. This concept offers a hint for how the broader live entertainment industry can rethink the way it handles the finite resource of physical seating.

Casio Computer’s “Streamer Times” — A Service Supporting Stream Schedule Announcements for Part-Time VTubers

Casio Computer has been rolling out “Streamer Times,” a schedule-announcement service built for livestreamers. Development was sparked when a Casio employee named Mr. Iwashina helped a friend who was active as a part-time VTuber. Seeing firsthand how heavy the burden was to create stream announcement schedules while balancing a day job led him to launch the project. Viewers can register the times they are available to watch, while streamers simply set a thumbnail and title to have their schedule automatically populate a television-guide-style screen (Inside (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: For a watch manufacturer to tackle the challenge of “time management” for streamers is a natural connection. At first glance, a fan-and-creator tool might look unrelated to Casio’s core business. Yet by anchoring the service in a strength the company already possesses—handling time and schedules—it makes clear sense as a new business venture. For companies entering the fan business from outside the entertainment sector, this illustrates the value of first looking for connection points with their existing core competencies.

The Metaverse and Gaming Showed Companies New Touchpoints

Hakuhodo’s “Metaverse Seikatsusha Lab” — 72.0% Say They Can Be Their “True Selves” More Easily Than in Reality

The “Metaverse Seikatsusha Lab” (Metaverse Consumer Lab) within Hakuhodo’s Institute of Seikatsusha (holistic consumers/everyday people) Insight and Technology published its first research report, “The Future of Digital Society Learned from Metaverse Users.” In a survey of people who use avatar-based metaverse spaces, 72.0% responded that they could be their “true selves” more easily than in physical reality. The report also introduced cases where metaverse use led to higher self-esteem and helped users overcome anxiety about speaking in front of others. It highlighted three key perspectives for companies utilizing the metaverse: engaging seamlessly at eye level with everyday users, drawing on the expertise of specialists who understand the culture and communities, and giving shape to users’ aspirations (Mogura VR (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: Framing social media as “a place to satisfy the desire for recognition” and the metaverse as “a place to realize the self you want to be” is a useful reference when companies design fan touchpoints. A space where brands broadcast information to be viewed requires fundamentally different corporate behavior from a space where people come to spend time together.

Roblox x FIFA Club World Cup — Over 23 Million Matches Played and More Than 324 Million Ad Impressions

The soccer game Super League Soccer on Roblox partnered with FIFA to bring the “FIFA Club World Cup 2025” into the game. Developed by the content studio Gamefam, the integration featured 12 clubs, including Manchester City. Within the game—which has surpassed 800 million total visits—more than 23 million matches have been played to date, with total playtime exceeding 5.5 million hours. According to the report, 61% of users surveyed said they watched or planned to watch the real-world Club World Cup. Advertising reach for official partners such as Visa also reportedly topped 324 million impressions in total (Mogura VR (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: What matters here is that 61% of users surveyed said they watched or planned to watch the real-world sporting event. User-generated and platform-based gaming content can scale rapidly while keeping operating costs down. For sports organizations and sponsor brands, the traditional sequence is reversing: instead of broadcasting a match to existing fans, they first build an audience inside a game and then bring them to the broadcast. For companies seeking touchpoints with audiences outside their existing fanbase, these results carry major implications.

Virtual Avex — New President Appointed Through Management Buyout, Moving Outside Avex’s Consolidated Subsidiaries

Virtual Avex Inc. (VAI) decided on a management buyout (MBO) in which Avex Creator Agency will transfer a portion of its shares in VAI to a company wholly owned by VAI director 原佳祐. 原佳祐 succeeded 加藤信介 as Representative Director and President. The share transfer was announced for execution on October 31, 2025. Following the transfer, Avex Creator Agency’s voting rights ratio will stand at 19%, and VAI was expected to move outside the scope of the Avex Group’s consolidated financial statements starting in the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2026. VAI originally began in 2018 as an internal new business project within the Avex Group before being established as a separate company in August 2021 (Mogura VR (in Japanese)).

The Oshi Lab Note: Here we see a virtual IP business that launched as an internal venture inside a major entertainment group being taken over by its management team to increase its independence. During the launch phase of a fan business, a parent company’s name provides vital credibility. Once the business matures, however, there are stages where spinning out to prioritize speed of decision-making makes more sense. For corporations incubating fan businesses as internal ventures, this case demonstrates the value of thinking through exit and spin-out structures early on.

This Week’s Takeaways

This was a week where being able to express fan enthusiasm in concrete numbers served as a decisive factor for corporate decision-making.

Whether it was Tokyo Game Show’s 107,131 Business Day attendees, Ireisu’s 90,000-person arena tour attendance, or Roblox’s 23 million matches, every one of these figures was presented as the result of steady accumulation. Just as Saga Prefecture’s “Sagaprise!” has stacked up more than 40 collaborations over roughly ten years, a track record of continuity—not a one-off viral spike—is what persuades the next partner to come aboard.

At the same time, initiatives bringing characters into modest, everyday settings—public bathhouses, hot springs, convenience stores, and an online store’s 10th anniversary—also stood out. Even companies without flashy numbers can build natural, unforced collaborations when their business format meshes cleanly with a character’s world.

Where does your company’s fanbase gather, and what numbers can tell that story? Take a look at this week’s developments alongside our guides to the Design Principles of Oshikatsu Marketing and Oshikatsu Market Size.

Weekly Oshikatsu News brings you a weekly roundup of oshikatsu and business news. You can browse past issues in our Oshikatsu x News category.