Lawson x Mirai Suenaga

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Mirai Suenaga is now a mascot for the Japanese convenience chain store LAWSON as announced on their official Facebook Page ^o^

Its not the 24 hours of service that make these stores convenient - its the fact that they are absolutely everywhere!

LAWSON can often be found on in the metro too just like at our local station.

LAWSON is another brand that originated in the US. In 1939, dairy owner called J.J Lawson opened store selling milk - which is why the logo shows a barrel of milk.

Daiei got hold of the rights and launched the first LAWSON store in Osaka in 1975 - which is probably why when I went over to Osaka they seemed to have the most share of convenient stores.

They recently opened stores in Indonesia and are rapidly expanding through the country.

LAWSON have their own mascot character called Akiko-chan which they have also made into a Vocaloid called Akikoloid-chan - check her out in action below.

Back at the Nico Nico Chokaigi 2012, I bumped into KIPI who was cosplaying Akikoloid-chan at the LAWSON booth.
At the same time, I bumped into the creator of Akikoloid-chan.

This is Shirai-san who is the Manager of Advertising and Sales Promotion at LAWSON - also the creator of Akiko-chan.

We managed to hook up after all this time at their headquarters in Osaki yesterday to talk about how we can work with each other.

This is Ohno-san - the big boss at LAWSON HMV Entertainment - LAWSON in Japan is now grouped with the music store HMV. Lawson do ticketing for many concerts and exclusively handle the ticketing for the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka.

Our first collaboration project is of Mirai-chan as a mascot for LAWSON!

Starting next month, we will be working with LAWSON closely and spend time in their stores to take photos to cover the latest and greatest - everything from all the anime goodies that they do to the changing of displays and products to match the seasons.

LAWSON is a strong brand with anime fans which you can see through their projects like Gintama, K-ON! and Madoka Magica.

If there is anything in particular you want to see that goes on at LAWSON - just drop a note in the comments and I'll attend to it.

Look forward to seeing more LAWSON x Mirai Suenaga!
In the meantime, you can keep up with the LAWSON brand at their English facebook page.