"Fujoshi Marketing Lab" Renamed to "Otakatsu Market Lab"

Sandias Co., Ltd. (CEO Hiroshi Ide) has changed the name of its marketing support business, previously operated as "Fujoshi Marketing Lab," to "Otakatsu Market Lab."

The lab views otaku activities not merely as entertainment consumption, IP business, or an economic zone, but as a "community-based phenomenon" formed through fan conversations, empathy, interpretation, and support behaviors. It will research and analyze the passion and behavioral structures behind these activities.

In recent years, "oshi-katsu" and "otakatsu" have gained attention as growth areas in the entertainment market, often discussed in contexts of IP, content, goods, events, streaming, and advertising.

However, actual fan behavior goes beyond simply purchasing works or products.

Fans talk about their favorites, share impressions, connect with others who share the same passion, deepen interpretations, and create secondary forms of enjoyment. Sometimes adjusting distance and etiquette, they craft their own ways of enjoying within the community. Through the accumulation of such actions, otaku activities have expanded as a form of lifestyle culture and a space for relationships.

"Otakatsu Market Lab" perceives the essence of these activities as something that cannot be measured solely by "consumption amounts" or "IP sales."

The former "Fujoshi Marketing Lab" analyzed the reader psychology, work reception, purchasing behavior, tacit knowledge among fans, and community sense of BL fans and the fujoshi demographic. The BL genre contains many key elements for understanding otaku communities, such as deep interpretation of works, perspectives on relationships, review culture, and the sense of distance among fans.

This name change inherits those insights while expanding the target to various oshi-katsu and otaku activity fields beyond BL, including manga, anime, voice actors, idols, games, and live-action dramas.

Furthermore, Otakatsu Market Lab continuously researches and analyzes otaku activities and fan communities not only in Japan but also in English-speaking and Chinese-speaking regions.

In Chinese-speaking regions, there is high interest in Japanese manga, anime, BL, live-action dramas, voice actors, and idols. Unique community cultures have formed through SNS, video platforms, reviews, fan translations, derivative works, and event participation. Even when supporting the same works or characters, differences are observed between Japan and Chinese-speaking regions in how things are discussed, spread, the sense of distance among fans, expressions of passion, and the types of relationships and character images that are readily accepted.

The lab tracks these differences not merely from the context of "overseas markets" or "China expansion," but from the perspective of how fans encounter works, talk about them, empathize, and form communities.

Going forward, Otakatsu Market Lab will support the business development of entertainment companies, publishers, e-bookstores, video/streaming providers, and advertisers through research reports on domestic and international otaku communities, corporate seminars, promotion support, and fan insight analysis.

Comment from Hiroshi Ide, Director of Otakatsu Market Lab and Representative Director:

"Otaku activities are not mere consumption behaviors. I believe they are community-based practices where people connect, talk, share interpretations, and create their own places and ways of enjoying through their favorites.

What we have seen through analyzing BL fans and the fujoshi demographic is the richness of actions—not just the works themselves, but how they are received, who they are discussed with, and how they are supported.

In recent years, we have been paying particular attention to fan communities in Chinese-speaking regions as well. Even for the same work, the way it is discussed, the excitement, the relationships among fans, and how it spreads differ between Japan and Chinese-speaking regions. By carefully examining these differences, we believe we can see the essence of otaku activities that cannot be captured by terms like 'entertainment market' or 'IP economy zone.'

At Otakatsu Market Lab, starting from the deep reader understanding cultivated through BL fan analysis, we will visualize the passion and structure of otaku communities both in Japan and abroad."

YouTube: Otakatsu Market Lab Channel

note: Otakatsu Market Lab

X: Otakatsu Market Lab