Secondhand comic book firm tapping into American interest in 'manga'

Savoring his success dealing in secondhand comic books and character items in Japan, Masuzo Furukawa, president of Mandarake Inc., is now eyeing an overseas market he believes is thirsting for Japanese "manga" culture.

Tokyo-based Mandarake sells secondhand comic books and a slew of other items related to manga (comics) and animation characters, ranging from ordinary toys and stuffed dolls to products with antique value.

Since there is considerable interest and demand abroad for Japan's manga culture, creating adequate access to related secondhand goods will help the business grow overseas, the 49-year-old Furukawa maintains.

"Some of our foreign customers come to our shop out of nostalgia for (old) comics and animation, and others are people who enjoy animation of the current time," Furukawa said. "It's just like that for our Japanese customers as well."

Although Mandarake has operated a shop in Los Angeles since August 1999, Furukawa said he intends to expand overseas operations by directly targeting foreigners, instead of Japanese residents abroad.

As a way of doing that, Furukawa plans to open a shop in New York next year at which the firm hopes to make some $ 3 million in sales annually -- a target that is three times larger than yearly sales at the Los Angeles shop.

At the same time, the firm will move the Los Angeles shop, which is currently housed in a Japanese department store, to a place more accessible to American consumers, he said.

At the Los Angeles shop, about 70 percent of sales in value terms are generated through American customers, since they tend to favor expensive character items.

In contrast, Japanese customers, who account for about 90 percent of shoppers, tend to buy low-price books and other items, Furukawa said.

These figures show that many of the store's American customers are comic buffs and that the customer base of Americans has the potential to expand to a more general level, he said.

Last month, the Tokyo-based company went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market, which is for venture businesses and smaller companies. The public listing was realized two decades after Furukawa, who aspired to become a manga cartoonist, opened a secondhand comic book shop in Tokyo's Nakano Ward in 1980.

In 1987, Furukawa turned the shop into a company and gradually expanded the scope of its business to selling comic character items as well as publishing comic magazines and books.

As a result, Mandarake grew to generate 3.1 billion yen in sales at three shops in Tokyo and Osaka in the business year that ended in December 1999.

The company opened a shop in Fukuoka in March and is planning to open a shop in Nagoya next month. The firm stocks about 4 million books and items, Furukawa said.

A key to its success has been that the company has the expertise to appraise used books and character items and -- unlike other traditional secondhand bookstores -- purchases those goods at half their market value, according to Furukawa.

This transparent purchasing policy has been successful in attracting people who want to sell their books and items, while encouraging consumers to buy secondhand books and other products since they know they will be able to resell them at a reasonable price in the future, Furukawa said.

In contrast, many conventional secondhand book sellers, who are often small business owners, try to beat down their buying price for secondhand books to secure a greater profit per book.

This tactic, Furukawa said, eventually discourages consumers from buying and reselling secondhand books.

"In order to buy items at half their market price, we need to know the going market price for each item. The purchasing is the most difficult part (of the business)," Furukawa said.

Mandarake attracts about 1,000 people per day who want to sell their books and character items.

The firm's 35 trained staffers then take to the task of appraising these products to decide what and what not to buy.

The unique purchasing policy was born out of Furukawa's own bitter experience when he was trying to launch his career as a manga cartoonist. For about 10 years after graduating from high school, Furukawa kept sending his work to various publishing firms while earning a living doing side jobs.

One day, Furukawa received a phone call from a publishing house requesting him to come to the company and discuss his work.

Furukawa saw the request as an opportunity of a lifetime. As he did not have enough money to buy a train ticket, he took his collection of science-fiction books to a secondhand bookseller.

The bookseller offered 500 yen for the books, which were actually being sold for between 20,000 yen and 30,000 yen in total in the shop. However, Furukawa had to accept the offer so he could cover his train fare.

"I knew the market price (for those books) because I like science fiction and went to the bookseller frequently," Furukawa recalls. "That experience traumatized me."