400,000-Yen Pokémon Hotel & Music Joint Venture NINE BY NINE: Weekly Oshikatsu News (April 10, 2026)

Here is our roundup of the most notable corporate oshikatsu (fan support activities) marketing and fan business news from the week of April 3 to April 9, 2026.

This Week’s Highlights

The defining theme of this week was parent companies stepping directly into the fan business with core capital and infrastructure.

Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) and Universal Music established a joint venture called NINE BY NINE to co-produce and operate music festivals across Asia. Meanwhile, HAYATE—an anime production company backed by Aniplex and Crunchyroll—decided to acquire all shares of Lay-duce, its first equity investment in an anime production studio. Both moves involve deploying direct capital to build organizational structures designed to sustain fan businesses over the long term.

The hospitality sector also made major moves. Grand Hyatt Tokyo opened reservations for special hotel stay packages celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pokémon, including a top-tier suite plan priced at approximately 400,000 yen per night for two guests. Shinjuku Prince Hotel announced a collaboration with Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken), offering an immersive guest room where fans can “step into the shoes of a low-level henchman (zako).” At the same time, Cover Corporation announced a major reduction in company-led activities for HOLOSTARS, the male VTuber group under hololive production. Even as investment in the fan economy expands, the week brought moments that tested the long-term sustainability of specific business lines.

DIAGRAMStructural Moves Across the Fan Economy (April 3–9, 2026)

Capital & Infrastructure Expansion

Sony Music and Universal Music form the NINE BY NINE joint venture for Asian music festivals
Aniplex and Crunchyroll-backed HAYATE decides to make anime studio Lay-duce a wholly owned subsidiary
Grand Hyatt Tokyo, Shinjuku Prince Hotel, and Hoshino Resorts OMO redesign hotel stays around fan travel

Retail & Cross-Industry Touchpoints

Uniqlo, Avail, and Shimamura roll out anniversary manga and character merchandise across wide price points
McDonald's and FamilyMart pair everyday food and candy purchases with digital games and collectible designs
Daimaru Matsuzakaya and Karaoke Kan build dedicated VTuber channels as ongoing business assets

Operational Realignment

Cover scales back company-led group projects, studio streams, and new anniversary goods for HOLOSTARS
Operations shift toward individual talent activities to optimize overall business sustainability

Source: The Oshi Lab's summary of the article

Major Capital Moves in Music and Anime Fan Businesses

Sony Music x Universal — Asian Music Festival Joint Venture “NINE BY NINE”

Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) announced that it established a joint venture called “NINE BY NINE” together with Universal Music, effective April 1. The company was formed to plan and operate music festival businesses across the Asian region. In addition to planning and producing music festivals in Asia, its business scope includes supporting overseas expansion and promotion for Japanese artists. Its inaugural event was announced as scheduled for 2027. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) had previously set a target of expanding the overseas market size for Japanese-origin content to 20 trillion yen by 2033, with a provisional overseas sales target for the music sector set at 500 billion to 1 trillion yen by 2033. According to preliminary METI figures, overseas revenue for the Japanese music industry reached 44.86 billion yen in 2024, expanding to 72.58 billion yen when inbound tourist consumption in Japan is included (AdverTimes. (in Japanese), sme.co.jp (in Japanese), gamebiz (in Japanese), asiaent.net (in Japanese), KAI-YOU (in Japanese), ORICON NEWS (in Japanese), Musicman (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: What matters here is that rather than each label holding separate festivals on its own, the two companies first built a dedicated corporate “vessel” in the form of a joint venture. With the first festival scheduled for 2027, no events have taken place yet. Establishing a formal company ahead of time anyway is a clear statement of intent to maintain ongoing touchpoints with overseas fans as a continuous business. For companies that do not want their fan business to end as a one-off campaign, this sequence—building the organizational structure first—offers a valuable blueprint.

HAYATE (Backed by Aniplex and Crunchyroll) — Decides to Acquire Anime Studio Lay-duce as Its First Subsidiary

On April 3, HAYATE announced its decision to acquire all shares of the anime production studio Lay-duce, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. This marked HAYATE’s first decision to take an equity stake in an animation production studio. HAYATE is an anime production and planning company jointly funded by Aniplex and Crunchyroll. Lay-duce is a studio founded in 2013 by Noritomo Yonai, formerly of studio Bones, and has worked on the production of titles such as Fanfare of Adolescence (Gunjō no Fanfare) and Magi: Adventure of Sinbad. Among its recent works, Clevatess: Majū no Ō to Akago to Shikabane no Yūsha (Clevatess: The King of Magical Beasts, the Baby, and the Corpse Hero) and Tomo-chan Is a Girl! have been nominated for the Crunchyroll Anime Awards (AdverTimes. (in Japanese), UZUREA (in Japanese), Branc (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: This is a move in which the side holding the streaming distribution platform places the production studio that creates the works directly under its umbrella. The titles that fans fall in love with can only continue to be supplied when there is a stable production system outside the streaming platform itself. Making an investment decision to support the supply source rather than merely consuming intellectual property is directly tied to the long-term sustainability of a fan business.

Apparel and Retail Line Up Characters for Anniversary Sales

Uniqlo x Shueisha 100th Anniversary — Wave 2 of “Manga UT” Features 7 Series Including One Piece

Uniqlo announced that it will sequentially release the second wave of its “Manga UT” collection celebrating the 100th anniversary of publisher Shueisha’s founding, starting in mid-May 2026. Drawing from popular titles across magazines such as Weekly Shonen Jump, Weekly Young Jump, and the shōjo (girls’ manga) magazine Ribon, the lineup brings together seven series in total: One Piece (4 designs), [Oshi no Ko] (1 design), Kaguya-sama: Love Is War (1 design), Coji-Coji (2 designs), SAKAMOTO DAYS (2 designs), Chibi Maruko-chan (2 designs), and Naruto (4 designs). Each shirt is priced at 1,990 yen (tax included) and available in sizes XS through 4XL. The first wave featured 11 series, including Hunter x Hunter, Jujutsu Kaisen, and YuYu Hakusho (Inside (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: The breadth of Uniqlo’s strategy is evident in a lineup that cuts across everything from boys’ and young men’s manga magazines to girls’ manga magazines. Leaning exclusively on One Piece would generate plenty of buzz on its own, but placing Ribon titles alongside it creates touchpoints with demographics that do not ordinarily buy graphic T-shirts. Standardizing the 1,990-yen price point across every title and turning the joy of choosing into the product itself is also a helpful reference for designing anniversary campaigns.

Avail and Shimamura Build Dedicated Shelves for the Sanrio Character Ranking and Pompompurin’s 30th Anniversary

Sanrio announced the release of new “Sanrio Characters” merchandise at Avail stores starting April 11, and on its online store from 12:00 p.m. on the same day. Timed to the “2026 Sanrio Character Ranking” (Sanrio Character Taishō), the lineup features everyday lifestyle goods such as die-cut cushions, tote bags, and book covers. For every 550 yen (tax included) spent on Sanrio character merchandise, shoppers receive one voting card. The voting period runs from April 9 to May 24 (Inside (in Japanese)). Meanwhile, Shimamura announced the April 11 release of apparel, bedding, and everyday goods celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pompompurin, with online store sales starting at 3:00 p.m. on the same day (Denfaminicogamer (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: What both campaigns share is a focus on accessible price points—items that can be bought individually or around the 550-yen mark. When people hear “anniversary campaign,” they tend to picture massive, high-ticket collaborations. In practice, stocking everyday goods that shoppers can casually pick up during a routine store trip does more to drive actual visit frequency. Bundling voting cards is a smart, compact mechanism that turns a retail purchase into active “participation,” pairing naturally with fan voting events.

Convenience Stores and Fast Food Turn Character Purchases into Games and Sweets

McDonald’s x Sanrio — A Two-Tiered Approach with Happy Meal Sets and a Smartphone Game

On April 10, McDonald’s Japan launched its “Sanrio Characters” and “Tomica” Happy Meal (Happy Set) promotions. The Sanrio toy lineup features four designs in Wave 1, including a Kuromi flip-phone-style keyring, and five designs in Wave 2, including a Cinnamoroll spinning sweets case. Prices start at 510 yen (tax included) (Inside (in Japanese)). Alongside the physical toys, an online browser game developed by Aladdin X—Sanrio Characters no Happy Suika Game (Sanrio Characters Happy Watermelon Game)—was released exclusively for Happy Meal buyers. The Suika Game (Watermelon Game) series has surpassed 13 million cumulative downloads. This new game is a second installment following the strong response to Hello Kitty no Happy Suika Game, which was distributed in July of last year (Inside (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: By offering physical toys and a digital game simultaneously, McDonald’s creates a brand touchpoint that does not end at the register. Having customers scan a 2D barcode printed on the Happy Meal toy box to access the game is a clever mechanism to get them to visit the game website even after their meal is finished. Designing a single campaign to capture two metrics at once—merchandise sales and repeat visits to the game website—is a strategy that industries beyond fast food can readily adapt. This is a case worth examining alongside our guide to corporate collaboration design principles.

FamilyMart — Turning Sanrio Characters into Mochi Sweets with “Tabemasu Mochi”

Bandai Candy announced that it would launch “Tabemasu Mochi Sanrio Characters” at FamilyMart stores nationwide starting April 14, priced at 378 yen each (tax included). The “Cinnamoroll & Kuromi” pair uses milk tea-flavored bean paste and chocolate-flavored bean paste, while the “Pompompurin & Pochacco” pair uses custard-flavored bean paste and milk-flavored bean paste. Each character features seven different facial expressions (Inside (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: A notable feature here is how the confection itself—combining differently flavored bean paste fillings in two-pack pairings—embodies the character relationships. By offering seven facial expression variations per character, Bandai brings the same “joy of collecting” found in character goods directly into the food aisle. The approachable unit price of 378 yen fits right into the high-frequency shopping environment of convenience stores.

Hotels Design the Entire Fan Travel Day Around Event Expeditions

Shinjuku Prince Hotel x Fist of the North Star — Recreating the World Through a “Become a Low-Level Henchman” Room

Shinjuku Prince Hotel announced a collaboration with the anime Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken: FIST OF THE NORTH STAR) scheduled for June 1 to July 31, 2026. The immersive concept room, “Paradise of the Henchmen” (Zako no Rakuen), is a special guest room themed around the nameless mohawked zako (low-level thugs or henchmen) who appear throughout the series. The room places henchman characters across wall tapestries and around the beds, and includes a lighting effect where the Big Dipper (Hokuto Shichisei) appears when the room lights are dimmed. Rates start from 29,300 yen per person (based on double occupancy). At the hotel restaurant, collaboration menu items starting from 1,400 yen were also announced, including a hamburger steak pasta inspired by the signature move “Ganzan Ryōzanha” (Rock-Splitting Wave) (Anime! Anime! (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: The angle of “stepping into the shoes of a low-level henchman” is wonderfully distinctive. While plenty of collaborations offer the experience of becoming the protagonist, leaning into the disposable villains makes the room instantly shareable as a humorous talking point on social media. It demonstrates that even a high-ticket product like a hotel stay can succeed by centering on supporting characters rather than relying solely on the franchise’s main heroes.

Grand Hyatt Tokyo x Pokémon 30th Anniversary — Top Suite Plan Priced at Around 400,000 Yen Per Night

On April 8, Grand Hyatt Tokyo opened reservations for collaborative stay packages celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pokémon (Pocket Monsters). Limited to eight rooms per day, the standard plan uses a 42-square-meter twin room, with rates starting at 71,500 yen per night for two guests (consumption tax included; 15% service charge and accommodation tax additional). Limited to just one room per day, the top-tier suite plan uses the 120-square-meter Chairman Suite, which featured a total of 30 Pikachus arranged inside the room. Rates for one night for two guests started at 400,000 yen (consumption tax included; 15% service charge and accommodation tax additional). Stays were available from check-in on June 20 through final check-out on August 26 (Inside (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: The two-tiered structure of 71,500 yen and 400,000 yen immediately catches the eye. For the top-tier suite, scarcity itself is the product: the limit of one room per day and the sheer volume of 30 Pikachu units justify the price tag. Meanwhile, the standard plan provides eight rooms a day to welcome a broader guest base. It is a structure that sells an aspirational luxury experience and an attainable celebratory stay at the same time. When targeting high-ticket oshikatsu spending, offering an extreme two-tier split rather than a conventional three-tier (good-better-best) menu helps capture both ends of the fan market without missing either.

Hoshino Resorts OMO — Updating Live Event Tourism into a Full “Concert Expedition Experience”

Hoshino Resorts launched a stay package tailored to live-event tourism—the “Live & Event Full Enjoyment Plan”—at OMO7 Osaka, part of its urban “OMO” hotel brand. The plan provides guest-exclusive lockers, the “OMO Base” public lounge for meeting up with friends and taking merchandise photos, after-party dining recommendations curated by local neighborhood guides (“OMO Rangers”), and bathhouse tickets valid until 1:00 a.m. (25:00). Rates start at 13,200 yen per night per person (based on double occupancy, tax included). According to the company, Japan’s live entertainment market reached an all-time high of 760.5 billion yen in 2024, recording total attendance of 85.61 million people (PR TIMES (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: It is symbolic that the hotel itself uses the fan term sansen (“joining the battle,” fan slang for attending a concert or live event) in its announcement. Luggage storage and late-night bathhouse access directly solve the real-world pain points that traveling concertgoers face. The shift from hotels merely providing a bed for the night to designing the entire day before and after an expedition is an important evolution to keep in mind when looking at the broader oshikatsu market size.

VTuber Ventures Become a New Entry Point for Non-Entertainment Industries

Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores “EchoVerse” — Wave 2 Auditions for Department Store-Grown Creators

Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores announced that it will hold Wave 2 auditions for its VTuber project “EchoVerse” from April 8 to April 30. While Wave 1 focused on developing creators centered around livestreaming activities, Wave 2 broadens that direction to recruit “next-generation creators” who pursue self-expression through producing creative works such as illustration, music, and video. EchoVerse launched in November 2024. Yoruha Hanayori, selected in Wave 1, began YouTube activities in September 2025 and had surpassed 30,000 subscribers as of April 1, 2026 (Mogura VR (in Japanese), Koubo (in Japanese), Real Sound (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: The shift in Wave 2 lies in the department store redirecting its expertise in art and fashion from livestreaming toward supporting creative production. Nurturing VTubers as “individuals who create works” rather than solely as “streamers” aligns naturally with the curatorial eye that a department store possesses. When a company from outside the entertainment industry enters the VTuber space, this offers a clear example of how to connect the venture to the company’s existing strengths.

Karaoke Kan “Karamii” — Building New Customer Touchpoints with an Official VTuber

On April 7 at 6:00 p.m., B&V—the operator of the karaoke chain Karaoke Kan—launched broadcasts on its VTuber channel, “Kara-Kan Channel.” The channel is hosted by the chain’s official character, “Karamii,” whose birthday is April 7 and whose favorite food is Caprese salad. The company announced that the channel will share campaign and event introductions as well as casual talk sessions with invited guests. The debut video was also broadcast across a total of 10 outdoor large-scale “Kara-Kan Super Vision” screens in locations including Hachioji, Ikebukuro West Exit, Ginza, Roppongi, and Ueno (Inside (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: Rather than stopping at online streaming alone, broadcasting the exact same content across 10 company-owned outdoor street screens is highly efficient. Instead of just building a single isolated PR channel, combining it with existing physical assets to multiply exposure is a practical approach for companies introducing a VTuber for the first time.

HOLOSTARS Changes Operational Structure — Major Scaling Back of Company-Led Activities

On April 3, Cover Corporation announced changes to the operational structure of HOLOSTARS, the male VTuber group under hololive production (launched in 2019, with 12 members at the time of the announcement). The company stated that it is bringing company-led group-wide activities to a close and pivoting to a structure centered on individual talent activities going forward. Cover announced that it will restrict or end company-led initiatives and support, including broadcasts using its in-house studio, new releases of anniversary merchandise, and the production and release of original songs. Cover commented that “this is a management decision aimed at optimizing our overall business operations and is not attributable to the talents” (Otaku Sōken (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: This is a decision to narrow down the areas where the company previously led investment—namely merchandise, music production, and studio broadcasts. In the fan business, stories of rapid expansion tend to get all the attention, yet decisions to scale back operations to match a sustainable business size are happening at the same time. Companies investing in IP and talent need to establish clear exit and downsizing thresholds right alongside their growth plans.

Data and On-the-Ground Sales Figures Back Up Fan Enthusiasm

Booklista “Oshibana” Survey — Nearly 60% of Oshikatsu Users Participate “Basically Solo”

Booklista, operator of the oshikatsu app “Oshibana,” conducted a survey on “solo oshikatsu” (ohitorisama oshikatsu) among 250 active fans in their teens through their 50s. The largest share of respondents—59.2%—answered that they “basically do oshikatsu alone.” When asked in a multiple-choice question why they participate solo, 91.7% cited “being able to move at my own pace,” and 81.1% cited “not having to worry about accommodating others.” The most common place visited alone was “merchandise shops related to my oshi (favorite),” at 70.4%. The survey was conducted from February 13 to March 16, 2026 (PR TIMES (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: The practical takeaway here is the sharp divide between “places easy to enjoy solo” and “places fans want to share with others.” While merchandise shops and pop-up stores see high rates of solo visits, collaboration cafes showed a relatively lower solo rate. When companies design fan events, even within the same venue, they need to separate visitor flows built around solo guests from spaces designed for groups spending time together. These survey findings directly reinforce that need.

DIAGRAMKey Figures in Solo Oshikatsu and Event Consumption

59.2%: Fans who say they basically do oshikatsu alone (Booklista survey of 250 fans)
91.7%: Solo fans citing "moving at my own pace" as their reason for going alone
70.4%: Solo fans who have visited oshi-related merchandise shops on their own
3x: FY2025 sales volume growth for Lotte Coolish Frozen Sour vs. FY2022 launch year

Source: Booklista Oshibana survey and Lotte figures cited in the article

Arknights x Marui — Pop-Up Shop Touring 3 Department Store Locations

Arma bianca, operator of the merchandise site AMNIBUS, announced that it will hold the “Arknights POP UP SHOP in Marui.” The event was set across three locations in total: Kobe Marui (May 1 to May 10), Hakata Marui (May 16 to May 24), and Shinjuku Marui Annex (June 12 to June 28), with plans for advance sales of merchandise featuring newly commissioned illustrations by the illustrator Bodax. Customers who purchased 3,000 yen (tax included) or more in related goods and paid with an Epos Card, or presented their own Epos Card and paid in cash, could enter a guaranteed-prize lottery once per purchase while prizes lasted (PR TIMES (in Japanese), Collabo Cafe (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: Dispersing the venues across Japan—Kobe, Hakata, and Shinjuku—is a key strength of this rollout. Concentrating an event in a single city makes it easy to generate localized buzz, but it leaves behind regional fans who cannot travel far. Tying entry in the prize lottery to payment with Marui’s Epos Card is another signature detail: it connects the merchandise sales floor directly to credit card member acquisition, showing a campaign designed with the retail facility’s underlying revenue model in mind.

Lotte “Coolish Frozen Sour” — Stadium and Event Demand Triples Sales Volume Over 3 Years

Under its “drinkable ice cream” brand Coolish, Lotte has been rolling out an alcoholic version called “Coolish Frozen Sour,” which has seen growing sales driven by demand at sports stadiums and outdoor events. Following test rollouts in 2022 and 2023, Lotte began regular sales in 2024. In fiscal 2025, the number of commercial venue accounts carrying the product grew to approximately 2.5 times the previous year’s level, and sales volume reached approximately 3 times that of its initial launch year in fiscal 2022. On April 6, the company also began rolling out “Frozen Lemon Sour” and “Frozen Grapefruit Sour” for the season (AdverTimes. (in Japanese)).

Lab Note: Applying ice cream manufacturing technology to create a “slushy-textured alcoholic drink” helped cement the product in the specific occasion of live sports spectating. Its easy-to-carry squeeze pouch is likewise engineered backward from how fans actually hold and consume drinks in stadium seats. When developing fan-facing products, thinking all the way through to how an item is physically carried on-site—not just its flavor or surface packaging—directly drives sales volume growth.

Editorial Takeaways

This was a week in which parent companies stepped directly into the fan business with their core operations and capital.

Sony Music and Universal Music establishing a joint venture, and Aniplex and Crunchyroll-backed HAYATE deciding to make an anime studio its subsidiary, are both moves that deploy capital to build permanent structures for running fan businesses. Grand Hyatt Tokyo’s approximately 400,000-yen per night plan and Shinjuku Prince Hotel’s immersive room were likewise cases where hospitality operators reshaped their core lodging product around fan travel. And when Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores and Karaoke Kan entered the VTuber space, they positioned those initiatives not as one-off PR stunts, but as ongoing business channels.

At the same time, as the operational restructuring of HOLOSTARS illustrates, expansion and consolidation are happening side by side. Making the management call to pare back areas of company-led investment to a sustainable business scale is just as much a part of running a fan business. Meanwhile, Booklista’s survey finding that roughly 60% of fans do their oshikatsu solo quietly challenges the default corporate assumption that fan activities are always about “getting excited in a crowd.”

Is your company’s fan business a temporary promotional campaign, or an ongoing line of business worth backing with capital and structure? Take a look at this week’s developments alongside our guides to oshikatsu marketing design principles and the fundamentals of fan marketing.

Weekly Oshikatsu News brings you a weekly roundup of the intersection between oshikatsu and business. Browse past issues in our Oshikatsu x News category.