Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode and MTV81.com (a MTV Japan website serving international audiences) have today announced a joint syndication deal which will see both parties publishing the other’s content. Tokyo Otaku Mode, who we have written about frequently on this site, is a distributor of content relating to Japanese subculture, including anime, manga, and even cosplay. But given that there is significant overlap in this Japanese otaku culture and Japan’s more broad entertainment culture, this partnership appears to be a very natural fit. With new music and entertainment content coming from MTV81, Otaku Mode now has richer offerings for its wide audience. As we’ve mentioned before, the startup has a massive following on Facebook with more than 11 million fans, so it’s certainly easy to see why such a syndication deal would be attractive for a relatively young publisher like MTV81. On the other side of the deal, MTV81 will publish “selected feeds” from Tokyo Otaku Mode’s news site relating to otaku entertainment news. Earlier in the year when we spoke to Tokyo Otaku Mode, they mentioned that a big challenge for the company would be trying to monetize its huge audience in some way. To that end, the…
at Tokyo Otaku Mode HQ
Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode and MTV81.com (a MTV Japan website serving international audiences) have today announced a joint syndication deal which will see both parties publishing the other’s content.
Tokyo Otaku Mode, who we have written about frequently on this site, is a distributor of content relating to Japanese subculture, including anime, manga, and even cosplay. But given that there is significant overlap in this Japanese otaku culture and Japan’s more broad entertainment culture, this partnership appears to be a very natural fit.
With new music and entertainment content coming from MTV81, Otaku Mode now has richer offerings for its wide audience. As we’ve mentioned before, the startup has a massive following on Facebook with more than 11 million fans, so it’s certainly easy to see why such a syndication deal would be attractive for a relatively young publisher like MTV81.
On the other side of the deal, MTV81 will publish “selected feeds” from Tokyo Otaku Mode’s news site relating to otaku entertainment news.
Earlier in the year when we spoke to Tokyo Otaku Mode, they mentioned that a big challenge for the company would be trying to monetize its huge audience in some way. To that end, the company is experimenting with e-commerce over on otakumode.com/shop. We still don’t have any details on how that’s going or when it might officially launch, as things are still in the pretty early stages.
Tokyo Otaku Mode is one of the rare Japanese startups that adopted an ambitious global vision from the outset, so we certainly hope to see them do well!
Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which we’ve written about many times in the past, shares and promotes Japanese subculture, such as animation, manga, and cosplay. The latest and greatest information in that space is updated on its website and on its Facebook page, which has received more than 11 million likes so far. To commemorate the astounding number of likes, Tokyo Otaku Mode has released a special video. It uses art work by Japan-based a creator John Hathway and a song by Livetune called Redial. Livetune is a one-man unit known for its work using Vocaloid software (the same software used to give voice to Hatsune Miku) and his songs have been played over 3,500,000 times on the internet. John Hathway is known for his work that fuses science technology and art designs. The video is very cool too, showing the digital creation process of Hathway’s piece. Enjoy! (Via AnimeAnime.jp)
Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which we’ve written about many times in the past, shares and promotes Japanese subculture, such as animation, manga, and cosplay. The latest and greatest information in that space is updated on its website and on its Facebook page, which has received more than 11 million likes so far.
To commemorate the astounding number of likes, Tokyo Otaku Mode has released a special video. It uses art work by Japan-based a creator John Hathway and a song by Livetune called Redial. Livetune is a one-man unit known for its work using Vocaloid software (the same software used to give voice to Hatsune Miku) and his songs have been played over 3,500,000 times on the internet.
John Hathway is known for his work that fuses science technology and art designs. The video is very cool too, showing the digital creation process of Hathway’s piece. Enjoy! (Via AnimeAnime.jp)
This is part of our ‘On My Mobile’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in Japan use their smartphones. Few Japanese startups are creating the sort of buzz that Tokyo Otaku Mode has in the past year. Now with over 11 million fans on its Facebook page, the company’s mission is to promote Japanese subculture abroad, and hopefully make a profit in the process. Back in February we spoke with TOM’s co-founder Nao Kodaka to learn more about his company. But recently I thought it would also be interesting to ask Nao to participate in our ‘On My Mobile’ series, and check out what kind of Android apps he’s using these days (see below). Not surprisingly, Tokyo Otaku Mode’s own Otaku Camera app is on Nao’s homescreen, as he uses it a lot with family. He also enjoys the World Conqueror 2 simulation game, which he says he uses a lot during his commute. Google Drive is also among his favorite apps, allowing him to do work from practically anywhere. If you’d like to find out more about the Android apps that Nao enjoys these days, you can browse the interactive graphic of his homescreen below…
This is part of our ‘On My Mobile’ series (RSS), a modest attempt to better understand how folks in Japan use their smartphones.
Few Japanese startups are creating the sort of buzz that Tokyo Otaku Mode has in the past year. Now with over 11 million fans on its Facebook page, the company’s mission is to promote Japanese subculture abroad, and hopefully make a profit in the process.
Back in February we spoke with TOM’s co-founder Nao Kodaka to learn more about his company. But recently I thought it would also be interesting to ask Nao to participate in our ‘On My Mobile’ series, and check out what kind of Android apps he’s using these days (see below).
Not surprisingly, Tokyo Otaku Mode’s own Otaku Camera app is on Nao’s homescreen, as he uses it a lot with family. He also enjoys the World Conqueror 2 simulation game, which he says he uses a lot during his commute. Google Drive is also among his favorite apps, allowing him to do work from practically anywhere.
If you’d like to find out more about the Android apps that Nao enjoys these days, you can browse the interactive graphic of his homescreen below and click through to the apps on Google Play.
Tokyo-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which curates and shares content and news about Japanese anime and manga culture, recently announced a syndication deal with 13 internet news sites in Japan and around the world. The international partners are as follows: Cheezburger (Cheezburger Inc., USA) Bahamut (a video game review site from Oneup Network Corporation, Taiwan) anime.mx (an anime news site in Mexico) RetornoAnime (Anime news for Mexico) Some of the notable Japanese media partners added to Tokyo Otaku Mode’s repertoire of syndication sources from which it translates news are: Anime.excite Anime Anime Netlab Kai-You.net Fashion Headline Now with over 11 million Facebook fans, many people wondered how Tokyo Otaku Mode might monetize its rapidly growing fan base. When I spoke to the startups co-founder Nao Kodaka back in February, he explained that one way would be try to funnel its Facebook traffic onto its main website (otakumode.com) which could then be monetized with advertising. So now with more quality incoming content, and with an extended reach thanks to syndication deals, TOM has made positive steps towards this goal. The company says in its announcement that it hopes to translate articles into more languages in the future, and ostensibly Spanish is…
Tokyo-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode, which curates and shares content and news about Japanese anime and manga culture, recently announced a syndication deal with 13 internet news sites in Japan and around the world. The international partners are as follows:
Now with over 11 million Facebook fans, many people wondered how Tokyo Otaku Mode might monetize its rapidly growing fan base. When I spoke to the startups co-founder Nao Kodaka back in February, he explained that one way would be try to funnel its Facebook traffic onto its main website (otakumode.com) which could then be monetized with advertising. So now with more quality incoming content, and with an extended reach thanks to syndication deals, TOM has made positive steps towards this goal.
The company says in its announcement that it hopes to translate articles into more languages in the future, and ostensibly Spanish is a priority given the deals with Mexican publishers noted above.
The startup also recently partnered with convenience store chain Lawson to help promote aware of the store’s brand around Asia and the rest of the world. They have established a special promotion page featuring characters that introduce Lawson’s products.
Stay tuned for more from Otaku Mode, as an e-commerce channel is expected to be just around the corner for the startup. If you’d like to sign up to be notified when it opens, head over to otakumode.com/shop.
Japanese convenience store chain Lawson has partnered with up-and-coming startup Tokyo Otaku Mode (TOM) to establish a special promotion page to increase the store’s brand awareness in Asia and the rest of the world. Lawson has more than 10,000 stores in Japan, but it also has presences in China, Indonesia, and Hawaii. With plans to penetrate South East Asian markets it is launching more than 50 stores in Thailand by the end of this year. In the Asia region, people seem to have a deep affinity for Japanese anime and comics, so the convenience store chain decided to ask Tokyo Otaku Mode (which has more than 11 million of such geeky fans on its Facebook page) to help out with its promotion campaign. On the promo page (located at otakumode.com/sp/lawson) there are many posts of certain characters introducing what you can buy at the convenience store. Fans can like the posts, which should give Lawson increased visibility even in regions where it doesn’t yet have a presence. In addition to 11 million likes on Facebook, the startup’s Otaku Camera app has seen 2.5 downloads in five months since its launch. With the funds raised from three major VC firms last month,…
Lawson has more than 10,000 stores in Japan, but it also has presences in China, Indonesia, and Hawaii. With plans to penetrate South East Asian markets it is launching more than 50 stores in Thailand by the end of this year. In the Asia region, people seem to have a deep affinity for Japanese anime and comics, so the convenience store chain decided to ask Tokyo Otaku Mode (which has more than 11 million of such geeky fans on its Facebook page) to help out with its promotion campaign.
On the promo page (located at otakumode.com/sp/lawson) there are many posts of certain characters introducing what you can buy at the convenience store. Fans can like the posts, which should give Lawson increased visibility even in regions where it doesn’t yet have a presence.
In addition to 11 million likes on Facebook, the startup’s Otaku Camera app has seen 2.5 downloads in five months since its launch. With the funds raised from three major VC firms last month, the company is preparing to launch an e-commerce channel which could be its first significant revenue stream. But with partnerships such as this one with Lawson, the startup could also bring in some revenue by tying up with big Japanese companies struggling to get attention from global audiences.
Tokyo Otaku Mode’s popular photo app Otaku Camera has recently received a big boost by recently being featured on Google Play in 42 countries, including the US and Japan. We’re told that this has helped the Android version of their app has hit the one million download milestone within a very short time. Currently the iPhone version of the app is doing ok too, with about 400,000 downoads to date. And if the momentum can continue over on Google Play, then perhaps two million total downloads is not too far off. We did a brief video demo of Otaku Camera last month, highlighting some of its main features (see video below). The company has been providing downloadable photo frames in the app via its frame shop. Currently the frames are free, although I expect later they will introduce some paid frames. Tokyo Otaku Mode is perhaps best known for its wildly popular Facebook page, which has more than 10 million fans. Currently the Tokyo-based startup is making an effort to monetize that fan base, and developing a mobile presence is one aspect of that initiative. You can learn more about TOM by checking out our in-depth feature from back in…
Tokyo Otaku Mode’s popular photo app Otaku Camera has recently received a big boost by recently being featured on Google Play in 42 countries, including the US and Japan. We’re told that this has helped the Android version of their app has hit the one million download milestone within a very short time.
Currently the iPhone version of the app is doing ok too, with about 400,000 downoads to date. And if the momentum can continue over on Google Play, then perhaps two million total downloads is not too far off.
We did a brief video demo of Otaku Camera last month, highlighting some of its main features (see video below). The company has been providing downloadable photo frames in the app via its frame shop. Currently the frames are free, although I expect later they will introduce some paid frames.
Tokyo Otaku Mode is perhaps best known for its wildly popular Facebook page, which has more than 10 million fans. Currently the Tokyo-based startup is making an effort to monetize that fan base, and developing a mobile presence is one aspect of that initiative. You can learn more about TOM by checking out our in-depth feature from back in February.
Just last week we reported that the up-and-coming Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode had raised a new round of funding from three VC firms. And while the company’s progress on the web appears to be going well (see our feature on TOM from a few weeks back) the company has also made some recent updates on its most prominent mobile initiative, Otaku Camera. If you haven’t tried it yet, the basic feature of the app is that it turns any photo into a manga-style picture. But earlier in the month, the company announced new downloadable Hello Kitty photo frames for the app, and today it’s rolling out Tiger & Bunny photo frames, from the famous anime TV series. Currently all frame sets are marked as ‘Free’ in Otaku Camera, but I expect that in the future we’ll see paid photo frames rolling out as well, as Tokyo Otaku Mode makes and effort to monetize. When we last heard from Tokyo Otaku Mode, we were informed that Otaku Camera has over 500,000 downloads. I think this figure will get larger, given the company’s enthusiastic base, with over 10 million fans on Facebook. For a quick video overview of Otaku Camera, check…
Just last week we reported that the up-and-coming Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode had raised a new round of funding from three VC firms. And while the company’s progress on the web appears to be going well (see our feature on TOM from a few weeks back) the company has also made some recent updates on its most prominent mobile initiative, Otaku Camera.
If you haven’t tried it yet, the basic feature of the app is that it turns any photo into a manga-style picture. But earlier in the month, the company announced new downloadable Hello Kitty photo frames for the app, and today it’s rolling out Tiger & Bunny photo frames, from the famous anime TV series. Currently all frame sets are marked as ‘Free’ in Otaku Camera, but I expect that in the future we’ll see paid photo frames rolling out as well, as Tokyo Otaku Mode makes and effort to monetize.
When we last heard from Tokyo Otaku Mode, we were informed that Otaku Camera has over 500,000 downloads. I think this figure will get larger, given the company’s enthusiastic base, with over 10 million fans on Facebook.
For a quick video overview of Otaku Camera, check out our video demo above. If you’d like to try the app for yourself, it’s available on both iOS and Android.
Tokyo Otaku Mode (TOM), a new media startup focusing on Japanese geek culture, announced today it has raised funds from three VC firms, including YJ Capital (the investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Itochu Technology Ventures, and DG Incubation (of Digital Garage). Financial details were not disclosed. Prior to this fundraising, the startup raised more than $500,000 from 500 Startups and several notable angel investors in Japan and the US. TOM was founded in 2011 in Tokyo (registered in Delaware), and has acquired more than 10 million ‘likes’ on its Facebook fan page since then, with some posts getting more than 100,000 ‘likes’. The company is also noted for having ex-Apple iAd chief Andy Miller as an advisor, which should certainly help as it dips its toes into mobile. TOM recently introduced a smartphone app called Otaku Camera that allows you to turn your snapshots into fun manga-style pictures. The startup is currently preparing to get into e-commerce as well, which should be a strong monetization channel for them. Given their enthusiastic fan base, it’s likely that same audience would purchase limited-production items such as the very geeky products often featured on the site. Earlier in the month we did a…
Tokyo Otaku Mode (TOM), a new media startup focusing on Japanese geek culture, announced today it has raised funds from three VC firms, including YJ Capital (the investment arm of Yahoo Japan), Itochu Technology Ventures, and DG Incubation (of Digital Garage). Financial details were not disclosed. Prior to this fundraising, the startup raised more than $500,000 from 500 Startups and several notable angel investors in Japan and the US.
TOM was founded in 2011 in Tokyo (registered in Delaware), and has acquired more than 10 million ‘likes’ on its Facebook fan page since then, with some posts getting more than 100,000 ‘likes’. The company is also noted for having ex-Apple iAd chief Andy Miller as an advisor, which should certainly help as it dips its toes into mobile. TOM recently introduced a smartphone app called Otaku Camera that allows you to turn your snapshots into fun manga-style pictures.
The startup is currently preparing to get into e-commerce as well, which should be a strong monetization channel for them. Given their enthusiastic fan base, it’s likely that same audience would purchase limited-production items such as the very geeky products often featured on the site.
Earlier in the month we did a feature on Tokyo Otaku Mode, and you can read even more about their story in that article.
When I first heard of Japan-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode it was little more than a Facebook page sharing content about Japanese Otaku subculture. But as far as Facebook pages go, there wasn’t really anything little about it. At that time I think they had about half a million fans, and since then they have gone on to crack through ten million. Yes, you read that correctly. Ten. Million. To put that in perspective, that actually makes them bigger than both Elvis (7M fans) and Jesus (5.1M). In the last year alone, they saw new fans coming on board at an average rate of 600,000 per month. The content on Tokyo Otaku Mode is primarily curated. That doesn’t simply mean curation in the normal sense of tumblr-esque web clippings brought together in recycled stream of web regurgitation. The startup gets in touch with right holders not just to obtain permission to share content, but also to offer its services to help Japanese content creators reach global audiences. According to co-founder Nao Kodaka, many of those rights holders say that the Japanese market is not growing, and now they want to pursue audiences abroad. So far, Tokyo Otaku Mode has established…
When I first heard of Japan-based startup Tokyo Otaku Mode it was little more than a Facebook page sharing content about Japanese Otaku subculture. But as far as Facebook pages go, there wasn’t really anything little about it. At that time I think they had about half a million fans, and since then they have gone on to crack through ten million.
Yes, you read that correctly. Ten. Million.
To put that in perspective, that actually makes them bigger than both Elvis (7M fans) and Jesus (5.1M). In the last year alone, they saw new fans coming on board at an average rate of 600,000 per month.
The content on Tokyo Otaku Mode is primarily curated. That doesn’t simply mean curation in the normal sense of tumblr-esque web clippings brought together in recycled stream of web regurgitation. The startup gets in touch with right holders not just to obtain permission to share content, but also to offer its services to help Japanese content creators reach global audiences. According to co-founder Nao Kodaka, many of those rights holders say that the Japanese market is not growing, and now they want to pursue audiences abroad. So far, Tokyo Otaku Mode has established healthy relationships with those groups and individuals, and as a result, can publish high quality content regularly.
The thing that most astounds me about Tokyo Otaku Mode is that the company has managed to build such a community around Japanese culture with only a ten man team. I can’t help but contrast with this the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s own Cool Japan efforts, which is in a way are trying to do the very same thing – but obviously with not as much success.
Community first
Tokyo Otaku Mode began back in 2011. That wasn’t long after the earthquake, and Nao tells me that they wanted to try to do something that could help Japan. Facebook was just catching on in the country at that time [1]. And while there were more than a few fan groups and sites focused on anime, manga, and Japanese culture, Nao says that there weren’t really and Japanese individuals or media reaching out to the world on their own. He succinctly explains:
All we have is our content. Our uniqueness, and our content.
For a young company just starting out, Facebook was certainly a logical place to build up a fan base. It’s free, and there are no server costs.
Nao describes how his team experimented with different methods of Facebook posting, trying different numbers of photos to see if some worked better than others. He points out that fans eventually began tagging themselves in photos, which meant that their friends were also seeing Otaku Mode content too. In the end, it looks to have resulted in a perfect storm of viral content that still hasn’t let up (see fan growth in the chart on the right).
Tokyo Otaku Mode has previously received backing from a number of investors. I recently got in touch with one of them, Craig Mod, who explained to me what it was about Tokyo Otaku Mode that made him want to get behind them as an angel investor [2]. He describers them as a team of “total hustlers” and sharp marketers, bold enough to turn social media on its head:
[T]he fact that they saw an opportunity to leverage Facebook — and Facebook alone — as a platform to launch a publishing-like company was, to me, a first. Instead of spending tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars building complicated software for their company, they spent five minutes and used Facebook Pages as their home base on the internet. Obvious in hindsight but very avant garde even just a year ago.
Mo’ Money, Mo’ mobile
But you can’t make money directly on a Facebook fan page. So Otaku Mode was still faced with the problem that plagues so many in the content industry. How do you convert eyeballs into dollars? The strategy that the company has taken, and one which mentors have advised, is to drive Facebook traffic to its new website at OtakuMode.com, which just recently emerged from its private beta to become fully open to the public.
Nao explains explains that they hope to drive enough traffic to the site so that they could eventually advertise and convert those eyes into dollars.
The company has also dipped its toes in the mobile space as well, publishing its Otaku Camera application for iOS and Android, which turns your photos into manga style art. It isn’t the most original idea in the world, as Manga Camera did pretty much the exact same thing. But Otaku Camera is, in my opinion, far better executed. So far it has over 500,000 downloads, which is not a bad start. I’m told that in the future the application could sell special frames, in collaboration with certain rights holders.
UGC content: Momoiro Reku’s Hatsune Miku cosplay on Tokyo Otaku Mode
The site also now serves as an outlet for content creators as well, with a dedicated UGC section which features some really amazing stuff. There’s also a verification process, by which the best of the best content creators earn a sort of Twitter-style verified badge, provided that they meet a number of stringent criteria. They can upload content on their own, and leverage Otaku Mode’s platform to reach audiences overseas who they may not otherwise be able to reach.
The website also recently added a news section, where articles about the latest happenings in the world of manga and anime are posted. The company also foresees the possibility of branching into e-commerce as a possible monetization method. Nao says, “Picture Esty, but for Otaku.”
This young company will certainly be one to watch in the coming year, just to see if its good fortune can extend beyond its Facebook success. I’m not going to make any predictions, but if I were a betting man, I certainly wouldn’t wager against them.
In fact, Facebook’s role in post-earthquake communication highlighted the social network in the eyes of many in Japan. ↩
Craig previously wrote his impressions of the company for Contents Magazine in a wonderful article entitled “Our New Shrines“. Like almost everything Craig Mod writes or creates, I can’t recommend it enough. ↩
tokyo otaku mode 
Rick Martin
Yukari Mitsuhashi
Masaru Ikeda
