Approximately half of COVER’s 30 billion yen in sales are from merchandise sold through EC^*1. I am the Executive Officer in charge of managing merchandising, EC, and logistics and overall merchandise sales.
Among these, I am most focused on improving logistics. Due to our rapid business growth, we face issues such as pressure on shipping capacity and delivery delays. We are working to improve these issues by formulating strategies, implementing them, and building an organization that includes recruitment. We plan to launch a new logistics center around next summer.

Before joining COVER, I gained experience in the launch of an indirect materials EC site and online drugstore, management of an EC business in Southeast Asia, and a printing EC site. It was because of my long experience in management and all the fields of work related to EC that Mr. Tanigo approached me.

As for my career to date, I graduated from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University, and then joined Sumitomo Corporation. I was responsible for planning and launching the indirect materials EC site MonotaRO from the ground up during the period known as the winter for trading companies, when Japan’s general trading companies faced a challenging business environment and had no choice but to launch new businesses. After that, I launched the online drugstore Soukai Drug (now Rakuten 24), and as part of its expansion into Asia, I served as president of Soukai Drug Malaysia and MonotaRO Indonesia. After returning to Japan, I left Sumitomo Corporation and became an Executive Officer in the printing business at the EC company RAKSUL.

I have known Mr. Tanigo, COVER’s President & CEO, for 14 or 15 years, and we were in touch about once every three years, When I contacted him in April this year, he told me that he needed an EC professional. At first I was thinking about starting my own business, but as I researched COVER, I felt that the potential for growth–such as EC and global expansion–was incredible, so I officially joined in July.

What is remarkable about COVER’s EC business is that overseas sales account for 30%. The United States is its largest market. There are fans all over the world, and the fact that it originated in Japan is what attracted me to COVER. We are currently working on cross-border EC, but we are also considering more localized sales approaches in the future. Rolling out EC sites overseas requires not only product characteristics and marketing, but also addressing foreign capital regulations, taxation, quality, and other issues in each country. We also need to build a distribution network overseas, including the expansion of stores, and we are thinking of how to handle this going forward.

There are three things that I value in my work: “taking on challenges from Japan to the world,” “making customers happy,” and “having technology as the backbone.” In particular, in terms of “from Japan to the world,” I had a strong ambition to create a system to distribute Japanese products to the world, including services, products, and content by applying my overseas experience.

I was studying abroad in the United States around 2008, and at the time, there was a mood of “Japan is nothing” (Japan has no presence). And even at the research institute at Stanford University where I was affiliated, the only research on modern-day Japan that stood out was on manga. Until then, I thought Japan was a one of the coolest countries in the world that was doing various research, but my perception was overturned and I was shocked.

After that, an experience when I was the president of Soukai Drug Malaysia left an impression on me. At the time, the influence of K-pop was growing, and I was surprised by the fusion and influence of Korean culture when I saw young people wearing New York Yankees hats over their hijabs and performing K-pop dances. The wave of Korean entertainment was also sweeping through Indonesia, and the ambassadors for major EC sites are all K-pop idols like BTS. During lunch breaks, I saw staff watching Korean dramas on YouTube and really felt the strength of Korean entertainment, including the backing of the Korean government.

At the time, I thought that the only areas where Japan could compete and win overseas were entertainment, social security, and food. However, social security has high entry barriers such as laws, and food was already highly competitive with many rivals. So I felt that entertainment had the most potential. However, at the time, I thought it didn’t concern me. Amid this, when I was approached by Mr. Tanigo, I felt the potential and importance of EC and logistics for merchandise, which is my particular forte, and I felt that I could definitely contribute to the growth of COVER. That is why I made the decision to join the company.

I think that the fact that the VTuber culture originating in Japan is being accepted around the world could make it a new export industry for Japan. In particular, the collaboration between the Los Angeles Dodgers and hololive production that was held at the beginning of July 2024 was an impressive event.
There was a line of people waiting to buy merchandise that went around the stadium, and some fans waited in line for nearly five hours.

Seeing how content from Asia is accepted by people of all ages in the United States and has become a part of their daily lives, I am convinced that VTubers are a new form of entertainment that can be enjoyed around the world. I think the reason for this is that the anime-like appearance of these characters makes people less aware of race, and the diffusion of the Internet has led to a greater sense of real-time entertainment and the democratization of language.

The Grand Design and Action Plan for a New Form of Capitalism ^*2, approved by the Cabinet in June 2024, also announced a new content industry revitalization strategy. According to the document, the overseas sales of content originating from Japan are comparable in size to the exports of Japan’s steel and semiconductor industries. In addition, half of the top world rankings for characters are from Japan. For a long time, Japan may have had a strong image as a manufacturing nation, but with this kind of trend in the country, the globalization of content has become a hot topic recently. Furthermore, in the context of the Cool Japan Strategy, Japan has started to focus on exporting its culture, including anime, manga, and dramas, and this year could be called the Year One of Global Content. With that background in mind, I think that the VTuber business has great potential to create global companies originating in Japan.

We should be considering about this from a broader perspective, rather than just trying to win out over our rivals. Japan currently has a surplus of imported digital services, with many services provided by overseas IT companies such as GAFA being used. Against this backdrop, I feel that we can contribute to correcting Japan’s digital deficit by enhancing the presence of Japanese digital content through VTuber culture and increasing its influence in Asia and the world.

I often explain the relationship between hololive production and merchandise using the following scheme.

This is a scheme where performers and influencers and use digital platforms such as YouTube, events, and live shows to connect in the physical world with their fans through merchandise, acting as an engagement tool. This resembles the Showa era when fans and players connected by wearing happi coats and carrying megaphones to professional baseball games. Watch YouTube, get interested, connect through merchandise, and stan. And I think that the series of fan activities that go to concerts, or so-called “stan activities,” have a certain reproducibility. I myself have an episode where I had a big realization about stan activities.
This is when I attended an auction party with my son, which was also attended by players from the All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team, and Michael Leitch, a member of Japan’s national rugby team. A rugby ball was put up for 40,000 yen. My son plays rugby, so I bid on it even though I thought it was expensive. After that, my bid won and my son was given the opportunity to tackle Michael and to take part in a line-out. When this happens, the ball comes with added value from this experience, and the family who initially said it was expensive suddenly says it’s cheap!(Laughs) I display the ball and totally stan Michael during national team games.I’m excited by his performances.This was the first instance where I realized that fans were buying the value and experiences through merchandise.
I now have a better understanding of the essence of merchandise in the VTuber business, where the value for fans is embodied in the merchandise. Create fans, connect them through various channels, and do marketing. I am confident that the strength of the COVER business model lies here.

I feel that COVER has a lot of growth potential. The employees respect and value COVER’s content. I was struck by the quality and technical skills of the creative talent that COVER has assembled.
That said, the business side is still a work in progress, and I think we can improve it and communicate better. I am confident we can achieve high business growth and, by extension build a stronger and faster ecosystem to reinvest in content and creativity.

COVER was listed on the growth market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth Market in March 2023, and it is aiming to transition to the Prime Market. Publicly listed companies have additional responsibilities to society. Moving to the Prime Market means more responsibility and more accountability to investors.

As organizations become larger, they become more pyramidal, which also makes them harder to strengthen. Also, a higher level of discipline is expected of us. As a listed entity, I believe COVER must fulfill its social responsibilities and become a company that is respected.

With this in mind, I would like to raise the level of management so that the entire organization is moving in the same direction. From a business side, the most important thing is to deliver good products to customers as quickly as possible. To improve communication within the organization, it is key to find people who are highly motivated, self-disciplined, and able to see things through to completion. I would like to recruit and train such strong talent.

Personally, I want to make something originating from Japan. I would like to use numbers to clarify the scheme that merchandise is an intermediary to connect various online and real channels that I mentioned earlier. I also want to realize COVER’s mission of “Together, Let’s Create Culture Loved by All” and make a big change in culture.  

And I want to make entertainment reproducible based on that. People tend to think that entertainment is subjective and cannot be reproduced, but I want to create a system that can is reproducible.

I’ve only been at COVER for two and a half months, but I strongly feel there is a foundation such that even small changes to the structure can result in a major transformation. I want to build a structure that can accumulate these kinds of changes and transmit and communicate them to the world.

In my view, the most important consideration when working at a COVER is whether you can respect the creative process. Our mission is to deliver good products that our customers will be happy with, and I would like to work with people who can take action.

Because this is an industry that has never existed before, I feel the appeal of COVER is that there are no precedents to refer to when driving the business forward. This also means that you will have many opportunities to stand in the batter’s box. A lot will be delegated down, so I would like our people to be aggressive in taking up challenges.

And because the COVER has top-class talent from various industries, there is an environment where you can learn from a variety of perspectives. I can also say with confidence that it is a place where you can take on global challenges, so I am excited to meet candidates who want to grow in this environment and communicate with the world.In my view, the most important consideration when working at a COVER is whether you can respect the creative process. Our mission is to deliver good products that our customers will be happy with, and I would like to work with people who can take action.

Because this is an industry that has never existed before, I feel the appeal of COVER is that there are no precedents to refer to when driving the business forward. This also means that you will have many opportunities to stand in the batter’s box. A lot will be delegated down, so I would like our people to be aggressive in taking up challenges.

That’s ‘Potential’!
COVER has tremendous potential. By setting clear goals and deciding what to do and what not to do, it has the potential to make great progress. Unleash this potential and make leaps forward. I am truly excited about its future growth.