Aki Takanori

Aki Takanori - the boss of Good Smile Company at the offices earlier on today together with Chris Gaunt and Ken Lee.

Apart from the Good Smile website (soon to be on the new version of Mirai Gaia) and the Mirai Figma, we are working with GSC on something incredibly exciting - so exciting that it requires 7.5 consecutive changes of skiddy underwear. GSC and I may bring it with us to the AFA09 next month. Possibly the first of its kind?

Anyway, back to Aki-san. Probably the most talented businessman that I have met. He started off doing things like running a talent agency Whoopee and jewelry design at Dicokick (which he still owns) and progressed to doing distribution for figure companies like Max Factory and Alter.

Through working with these figure companies, Aki gained experience in the figure production process and GSC started to release their own figures.
While Aki-san is not a huge figure fan himself, his passion is making figures and seeing folks around the world smiling and enjoying his company's work - this is the reason why the company is called "Good Smile Company."

Aki's other passion is for fast cars which is why he set up Good Smile Racing where they make car accessories.
And the other passion Aki has is for cycling and folks who follow the GSC closely will know that Aki does a load of activities involving cycling across Japan.

Aki has taken his passion and created a successful business. He is successful because he set up businesses where he could pursue his passion. Passion leads to great products and great products leads to demand.

Aki is an avid DC reader and is keeping a look out for comments on this post in particular because we would like to ask what figure requests you have for GSC. You can answer from a pure "because-that-character-is-mai-waifu" standpoint or from a business perspective - why you think a certain figure will sell, what trends you notice and maybe even a sales forecast?! Bare in mind that the production process from concept to it hitting the shelf can take over 6 months.
If somebody for example mentioned "Figma Kana from Minamike (season 1)" and you agree, then add a "+1" to that thread.