×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

News
Kobe's 'Anime Street' to Shut Down in June

posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Area housing Gainax West studio, anime shops opened in March 2015

The Kobe Shimbun newspaper reported on Sunday that Kobe's "Anime Street" area will shut down at the end of June.

According to Kobe Shimbun, when the area first opened, it garnered a lot of attention and events held in the area attracted large crowds. However, on weekdays customers were sparse, and sales soon became sluggish. A goods development company in Tokyo told the newspaper that the Kobe Anime Street company, which manages the space, fell behind on payments of around 2 million yen (about US$17,600). A separate company based in Awaji in Hyogo prefecture is also suing Kobe Anime Street for around 2 million yen in overdue payments. The Mainichi Shimbun reported on Wednesday that according to its sources, the company has a total of 8 million yen (about US$70,500) in late payments owed to five companies.

The shopping street opened in the Asta Kunizuka buildings in the Nagata ward of Kobe City in March 2015. The ward was an area that suffered heavy damage and casualties in the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995, and the area south of Shin-Nagata station where the street is located hadn't been able to fully recover. Kobe Anime Street opened the street with the goal of bringing more business to the area. The city of Kobe had invested around 67 million yen (about US$591,000 by today's conversion) into the project.

The location contains shops that cater to anime goods and services, including a shop for displaying and selling figures, a cosplay shop, an "anisong cafe," a filming studio, a plastic model shop, and a shop that specializes in ita-sha (decorated cars).

Gainax launched its Gainax West branch studio — which is housed in one of the Asta Kunizuka buildings — in March 2016. Gainax also opened a shop on the street, and has also held events and opened pop-up cafés in the area.

Kobe Anime Street has also held events or cafés for franchises such as Steins;Gate and Code Geass. A new Botch VR space where customers could go into a booth for various VR experiences launched on April 1.

Kobe Anime Street had removed a previous stylized "eye" logo (not the current logo pictured above) in late 2014 after World-renowned contemporary artist Takashi Murakami launched a complaint against the company, claiming that the logo allegedly plagiarized artistic elements in Murakami's own works.

Sources: Kobe Shimbun (若林幹夫, 杉山雅崇), Mainichi Shimbun (黒川優, 目野創) via Biglobe News


discuss this in the forum (7 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

News homepage / archives