{"id":231,"date":"2026-03-24T15:11:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/india-marketing.jp\/project\/ota-tokyo-2\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T02:48:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T17:48:31","slug":"ota-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"project","link":"https:\/\/india-marketing.jp\/en\/project\/ota-tokyo\/","title":{"rendered":"A record of running a booth at OTA TOKYO in Bengaluru"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nThis article is based on what we could verify As of August 1, 2026<\/strong> in public records and news reports from India. India revises its tax rules and regulations frequently, and the details here may have changed since. When making an actual business decision, please check the latest information with primary sources such as the ministries responsible and local experts.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In January 2026 we ran a booth at Ota TOKYO, held in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, displaying and introducing trading cards. Ota TOKYO is an event themed on Japanese pop culture such as anime, manga, games and cosplay, and it has been growing in scale and attention within India year by year.<\/p>\n

Anime fans in India are estimated at about 53 million<\/strong>, the second largest in the world after the United States (source: JAAA REPORTS, The fast-growing Indian anime market, November 2024<\/a>). In September and October 2024, Mera! Mera! Anime Japan!! was held in Delhi, with more than 40 Japanese companies exhibiting and more than 47,000 visitors, and the heat in the market is clearly rising (source: JETRO, October 2024<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Bengaluru, the host city, has a large young population on the back of its IT industry and a high level of English literacy. Sensitivity to overseas culture is also high, and most visitors were in their late teens to early thirties, a group that enjoys Japanese anime and game culture as part of daily life.<\/p>\n

Related article: Market overview of Bengaluru<\/a><\/p>\n\n

How anime and Japanese culture have spread in India<\/h2>\n

The presence of Japanese anime in India has risen rapidly in recent years. On top of the generation that encountered it on television as children, the environment is now in place to watch a wide range, from the latest titles to older works, through streaming platforms such as Netflix and YouTube.<\/p>\n

Japanese trading cards are well known, and most visitors came to the booth already assuming that they knew them and that this was hugely popular content to begin with. In January 2025 an official Pok\u00e9mon track by Badshah of the Indian hip-hop scene was released, and the blending with local culture is moving forward (source: GameBusiness.jp, March 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Related article: India's startup market<\/a><\/p>\n\n

What we exhibited and how we thought about the booth<\/h2>\n

For this booth, in addition to displaying cards, we ran a venue-exclusive lucky draw style sale<\/strong>. By making it a mechanism where you draw a card without seeing what is inside, chance and a game element were added, and there was a crowd in front of the booth at all times.<\/p>\n

As a result the lucky draw drew large crowds all day, working as content that visitors took part in actively rather than an exhibit only to be looked at.<\/p>\n

We also set up an official social media account on the day and posted the lucky draw as reel videos on the spot. Making the heat of the event visible immediately created a path for conveying the atmosphere outside the venue as well.<\/p>\n

Related article: Instagram Marketing in India<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Insights from how visitors responded<\/h2>\n

Visitors already understood card games as popular content, and we saw young people lining up again and again for reasons such as wanting them as a collection or enjoying the feeling of testing their luck.<\/p>\n

Many visitors photographed or filmed their cards after buying and posted them straight to social media, and it was striking that cards are consumed not only as something to play with but as a culture experience people want to share. This shows that the way Japanese IP is consumed in the Indian market is extending from personal enjoyment to social sharing.<\/p>\n\n

What we see as possible from here<\/h2>\n

Through running this booth, we confirmed that Japanese trading cards already have high recognition and popularity in the Indian market, and that combining them with a participatory sales method such as a lucky draw brings in enough visitors and purchases.<\/p>\n

On the back of that turnout, we have now started buyer meetings with local card shops and retailers<\/strong>. This time we were not able to design the card game experience itself, but we obtained the following results.<\/p>\n