‘Kill Bill’ Sneakers Turn Japan’s Soft Power Into Hard Profits
From Muji to Mario, Hello Kitty to Asics, brands that appeal to foreigners are enjoying record earnings.
Photo illustration: 731; Edward Berthelot, South China Morning Post, and Yoshikazu Tsuno via Getty Images
The unlikely must-have item for tourists in Japan is the footwear of choice of Kill Bill’s protagonist.
Onitsuka Tiger, the fashion brand reborn when Uma Thurman’s The Bride wore its sneakers in Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 movie, is enjoying record sales1. Asics Corp. discontinued the brand for decades until the early 2000s, but post-Covid visitors can’t get enough of the comfy, timeless trainers. Revenue in Japan has doubled in a year, with tourists accounting for almost all the surge. Onitsuka is by far Asics’s highest-margin segment, with a new flagship store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris and plans for shops in the US. Shares are up eightfold in the past five years, helping its market capitalization to recently pass $20 billion.