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Dialogue "Tarzan Yamamoto ×Toudoukan Director" 13.Toudoukan open
Return > 12.Trip to purchase used books
13. Toudoukan Open
Director: So, it opened on March 23rd.
On that day, I went to the east exit of the station first thing in the morning to hand out flyers, and I came back to the store at 11 a.m. when it opened.
Naturally, no one shows up when the opening time comes.
Normally, when we first opened, we would make a big announcement in advance, but at that stage, we only handed out a few flyers, so it was a very quiet opening (laughs).
So, I immediately went to the west exit to pick up the flyer again.
About two hours later, I came back to the store, but no one had come (laughs).
Just when I started to think that there might not be another one today.
Gacha.
I had my first customer!
A person on crutches came in as if he was pushing open the entrance with his body.
Wow, here we are! What's more, it looks like it's really hard, it's on crutches! What. That first store was on the 5th floor, a little bit of a flight of stairs from the entrance of the building, and an elevator from the mezzanine floor. That's why it came up a lot.
Somehow, a scene that seems to hint at future hardships jumps out at me (wry smile).
Tarzan Yamamoto: It's a dramatic drama.
Director: Wow, I think Taiyo and I were looking at the audience when they came in (laughs) I was surprised.
Tarzan Yamamoto: I was scared
Director: They really had visitors. What we have been doing has reached a complete stranger, and that person has gone out of his way to visit us.
It was an open day, so they opened it for free and bought some magazines at the event.
Anyway, I was happy. The very first customer.
Tarzan Yamamoto: Oh, I'll never forget it.
▲ On the first day of the opening, the record that Taiyo was keeping. Excavated from deep inside my home for the first time in 20 years! (laughs)
Director: That's how it started.
I was prepared for the possibility that things would not work out.
Tarzan Yamamoto: Because it's the first time I've done it, there's zero visibility.
Director: Looking back on it now, the first thing I had to think about was that my target audience was wrong.
A salaryman who likes general Pro Wrestling to start Toudoukan, It was assumed that students who like Pro Wrestling would be the main customers.
I thought that if I dealt with office workers and students who like Pro Wrestling who regularly use Suidobashi, I could establish a business or create a base.
If anything, I think that if there is another manga café nearby, it will compete with other Pro Wrestling shops.
If the book-off is in front of Suidobashi Station, how should we counter it?
I was looking at general manga cafes and book-offs as competitors.
Tarzan Yamamoto: That's not out of place. It's natural. I'm thinking about the most serious thing.
▲ The first guide map of the museum
Director: But now that I think about it, I should have been more maniacal. As I mentioned earlier, it's the difference between appealing to 1 in 100 people and appealing to 1 in 10,000 people.
On the train, on the bullet train, the customers who came to visit us were the customers who really supported our spine. I didn't see that.
In the beginning, when we opened, we put out flyers.
The very first thing I did was to do it every morning for the morning commuter at the east exit of JR Suidobashi (laughs).
"Pro Wrestling Library is open!" he shouted (laughs), just like a bakery opened in the neighborhood (laughs).
I don't react well at all (laughs).
Tarzan Yamamoto: Oh, it doesn't react. Zero.
Director: Some people receive flyers, but they're wrong. target.
Tarzan Yamamoto: You're wrong. Don't deal with the world.
Director: That's right. So, I thought I was a huge Pro Wrestling fan and a fan who had always loved Pro Wrestling.
When I think about it, especially when I look at the customers for the first time at Toudoukan , they are all at the level of a national competition. Especially the regulars.
Compared to that, I'm the best in my class, or at most the best in school. I was at a level where I couldn't even play in the prefectural tournament. It was a frog in a well.
I knew about Pro Wrestling shops. I used to go to Osaka to rent videos in Namba as well.
War, it's all just Pro Wrestling and martial arts, it's amazing. I was so happy.
After a while after I came out of Tokyo, a large store opened at the west exit of Suidobashi, and I was impressed.
When I came up with the idea of Toudoukan , I was a champion and I was impressed by it.
I thought it would be nice to create a store that would impress me at that time.
There is at least one person in the class, and I wonder how I can appeal to people who like Pro Wrestling.
That's how I was thinking about it.
▲ Inside the building at the time of opening 1
Tarzan Yamamoto: Because the director prioritizes the business brain over the mania of Pro Wrestling fans. That's the way it comes to mind.
Director: Many of the seniors at the Pro Wrestling shop are very enthusiasts, so I guess the coat color is a little different there.
Tarzan Yamamoto: The coat color is a little different. The coat color is different and it is business-like. Maniacs pursue a world of self-satisfaction rather than a business sense.
The director is a little different from the director in that area, but he always looks at the market calmly.
Director: But the amount of knowledge is a great asset.
Tarzan Yamamoto: The amount of knowledge is not proportional to business. Because it's more realism.
Director: Well. It's true that knowledge alone is tough, isn't it? In business, the real rules are close to comprehensive.
There are a lot of pitfalls in unexpected places, so if one of them becomes a bottleneck, it will be mastered or KO'd immediately.
Well, it opened on March 23rd, and there weren't many customers.
But at that time, it was during spring break, so I thought that if school started in April, many students from nearby Nihon University would come (laughs).
Around April 10th? Until then, I had to be patient, and even if I had to work hard until spring break opened, if I could get past that, I would have a lot of customers. Because there are tens of thousands of students at Nichidai, and if one out of every 50 or 100 of them is a Pro Wrestling fan who buys a weekly pro, it's just a matter of calculating how many people will come (laughs).
Then, when the entrance ceremony was held, the road in front of the store was already looking down from the window of the store on the 5th floor of the Nagaya Building, and there was a huge line of students.
And yet, even though there are so many people, no one comes up to Toudoukan.
There is a sign at the bottom, even though it is out.
That~, it's funny, there is no one like this. Why~? Now that I think about it, that's right.
Tarzan Yamamoto: That's interesting. That's right.
▲ Interior view at the time of opening 2