Is Tsutaya slowly moving away from being a video store? What is the surprising business that the struggling Tsutaya has now “mass-expanded” into? And this may just be the beginning of a revival. Culture Convenience Club, which operates the major video rental chain Tsutaya, is rapidly moving away from being a video rental store. There are also shared lounges and gyms, but the one that seems likely to expand is the “trading card store” (photo by author) Culture Convenience Club (CCC), which operates Tsutaya, a major video rental chain. With rental videos on the decline, the company is currently moving away from being a rental video store, and is expanding into other business formats such as Tsutaya Bookstore and Tsutaya Electrics, as well as producing public facilities such as libraries. In addition, in October, they announced the launch of a gym called “Tsutaya Conditioning.” We are currently diversifying our business. One of the areas that CCC is focusing on is the trading card business. At first glance, it might seem like a mismatch. So why is CCC pursuing a trading card business? We would like to explain this while also taking a look at our fieldwork on the ground. ■Trading cards have arrived for 10.5 million yen each! One of the reasons ccc is entering the trading card business is the maturity of the trading card market. To begin with, trading cards are cards with various pictures on them, including Pokemon cards and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. They can be used to play card games, or simply collected as a collection. In Japan, enthusiastic enthusiasts began to appear around the late 1990s, and Pokemon cards and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards appeared during this period. This period is commonly referred to as the “first trading card boom.” The boom then died down for a while, but a second card game boom has arrived in recent years due to the demand for staying at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that people who played cards during the first boom are now parents and playing with their children as two generations. The trading card market has been booming, with many YouTubers posting videos about trading cards. It is said that by 2023, 300 trading card shops will have opened (according to the Reuse Economic Newspaper article “What will happen to the trading card industry in the future? Novasto and Cardon hold seminar”). Another defining feature of the second trading card boom is “trading cards as a speculative investment.” Trading cards are usually sold in sets of several cards at convenience stores without knowing what’s inside. For this reason, rare cards that many people want fetch high prices. There are also limited edition cards and cards that are no longer on sale, which are traded at even higher prices. For example, the popular Pokemon card “Ganbare Lillie” had a peak purchase price of 10.5 million yen for a single card in June 2023 (from the official price base website). As I write this I can’t believe it… The term “trading card bubble” is appropriate. Against this backdrop, the trading card market is booming, and CCC is probably aiming to enter that market. ■CCC’s “trading card stores” across the country CCC operates two main trading card businesses. It is a specialty store and a Tsutaya affiliated store. The specialty store is called “Tsutaya Trading Card” and currently has three stores in Tokyo: Kinshicho, Kita-Senju, and Fuchu. I went to visit the site. Trading card shops are often located in a corner of a multi-tenant building, but this shop has an open and stylish space. Half of the space inside is dedicated to competition, and trading card tournaments and the like are held here quite frequently. When I visited, there were many people playing games.
The only thing I’ve used recently at Geo is renting comics, but Tsutaya is cheaper with a subscription and the fastest is at an internet cafe, so even if I search for stock on the app, they often don’t have it.
There’s a local store nearby that’s stubbornly surviving. I’ve never been inside, but I’m amazed they can run a video rental store 24 hours a day these days lol.
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