Riding the Wave of the Times" in conjunction with SNS!　We asked why Kitan Club's capsule toys are so interesting! Hobby Industry Inside - Vol. 50

In 1994, Bandai (at the time) released the Gashapon HG series, ushering in the golden age of low-priced, high-quality capsule toys. 2010s saw Kaiyodo expand its "Capsule Q" line to include animals, military items, and even works of art, adding to the boom.
However, the capsule toys released by Kitan Club (Kitan Club), which was launched in the midst of the boom, are different from those of the 90s and 00s. Not only is the quality of the modeling, but also the popularity of the capsule toys, as exemplified by "Fukuchiko," a child with a cup in her mouth, that has become a part of the daily lives of ordinary people. Why have the capsule toys of the Kitanklub been so well accepted?　We asked the Kitan Club.

Kitanklub and SNS are "inseparable".

─ You established Kitanclub in 2006, just as the figure boom that had been going on since the mid-1990s was taking root. What kind of idea did you have to start with?

Kitan: Our president, Hiroki Furuya, originally worked for Eugene Co. After becoming independent and establishing the KITAN Club, we have been working with the idea of how to create attractive capsule toys that other companies could not produce. In the past, capsule toys, as typified by Kinkeshi and others, seemed to focus on "using popular characters, creating a large variety, and getting people to collect them" rather than on quality or ideas for the products themselves. Since the 2000s, however, figures of high quality and originality have been released one after another in the low price range, such as Kaiyodo's Choco Egg series. The main price has also changed from 100 yen to 200 yen, and now capsule toys are mostly priced at 300 yen. In addition, higher-priced products such as those priced at 400 or 500 yen are also on the rise. Price is a factor directly related to sales, but we do not consider lowering prices to the point of lowering quality. Our motto is "LOVE & AWESOME," and we aim to create products that we can deliver with confidence to customers who say, "I still want Kitanklub's products.

─ ─ What are the criteria for planning what kind of products you will release?

Kitan First of all, we hold a monthly planning meeting within our company, where we basically decide on products to be released in the future. The criteria for products that are approved for release are, to put it bluntly, "products that target the general public but also hit a niche. Among these, recently there has been a trend toward more favorable products around smartphones, especially those that can easily be used as a story on social networking sites. In 2013, when the first "Kop no Fukuchiko" was released, the iPhone had become popular and Twitter was flourishing. Our company and SNS may have an inseparable relationship.


─ ─ Wasn't this a project aiming to be popular on SNS?

Kitan We didn't think about it, but Tanakatsuki did, with the concept of making images of only sweets and latte art, which were popular on SNS, more interesting. It was right on target, but we did not expect it to be such a big hit. After "Fuchiko" became a hit, we developed the "PUTITTO series" as a series of figures specialized for hooking onto the edge of things, and made various animals, characters, and other objects "hook" on the edge. In addition, there are many gimmicky items that light up or move, as well as interior items that can be displayed and enjoyed. We place importance on the kind of experience that can be had with the product, and not just on the fun of the item itself.
We are also collaborating more and more with artists whose names are well-known on social networking sites.



─ ─ You have to be a connoisseur to find talented artists.

Kitan That is why I always have my antenna up and gather information. I not only search on the Internet, but also actively visit exhibitions and events. In some cases, we ask artists to get involved from the planning stage.