booktalesy Chapter 226 Limited to 1 pieces
Chapter 226 Limited to 1 pieces
Chapter 226 Limited to 10,000 pieces
Kenichi Oshima started to feel something was wrong after watching the third episode.
It's not that there's anything wrong with the plot. On the contrary, the plot is too smooth, so smooth that he was sitting in the kitchen of the bento shop with a bowl in his hand, forgetting that he still had a pot of soup on the stove.
"Kenichi! Soup!"
His wife, Sachiko Oshima, poked half her head in from the front desk and called out to him. He snapped out of his daze and hurriedly ran to turn off the stove.
Sachiko walked in, looked at his dejected appearance, and sighed irritably, "It's just a TV series, is it really that big of a deal?"
"You don't understand." Ken Oshima placed a spoon on the stove and said seriously, "This drama is different from the previous ones."
Sachiko didn't reply and turned to greet the guests at the front desk.
But deep down she knew that Kenichi was right.
Looking back, I really have to thank Kitahara Shin for getting this bento shop up and running.
When Kenichi was laid off from his company, the two of them put their savings together and took over this small shop. When they opened, they were worried about attracting customers. It was Kenichi who came up with the idea of making whatever food was featured in Kitahara Shin's dramas, using the slogan "same bento boxes" to attract their first customers.
Sachiko remembers that period very clearly. Every day, people would come all the way to the shop just to try the dish that appeared in the drama, and chat with Kenichi for half an hour about which character played by Kitahara Shin was the most powerful.
Of course, gimmicks expire, but customers stay.
What kept them there was Sachiko's solid culinary skills and the stable menu that Kenichi had figured out.
Later, Kenichi made another convenient decision: he switched the store's TV to Fuji TV, keeping the channel unchanged during the time slot when "Bayside Shakedown" aired.
This small incident made the bento shop quite famous in the neighborhood.
Every day just after noon, people start to come into the store. Some are office workers from nearby who come to eat during their lunch break; some are housewives who sit down to rest after buying groceries; and there are a few elderly men who come almost every day, always sit at the table by the window, order the same food, and then silently stare at the TV until the end credits start before leaving.
These people, coming together, gradually formed a strange tacit understanding.
When Aoshima Shunsaku suffers misfortune on screen, they shake their heads and sigh; when the chief shifts blame again, they curse, "That old fox!"; occasionally, when a shot is particularly well-shot, someone will involuntarily say, "Kitahara Shin is really amazing," and the people next to him will nod in agreement, without any explanation needed.
Kenichi really liked this atmosphere.
He himself is a die-hard fan, having followed Kitahara Shin since his early works, and the posters on his wall have changed several times over. Sometimes, when he meets customers who are also familiar with Kitahara Shin, the two can chat from lunchbox to closing time, discussing the details of each of the other's dramas over and over again.
So that afternoon, when GG appeared on the screen after the end credits, the atmosphere in the store instantly changed.
A military green M-51 trench coat, exactly the same one worn by Aoshima Shunsaku in the drama, twirled in front of the camera, and then the following text appeared: "Limited release of 10,000 pieces. Phone reservation, first come, first served."
The store was silent for two seconds.
Then the old man at the table by the window was the first to speak, his voice both urgent and excited: "Hey, hey, hey, who wrote down that phone number?"
"I've got it!" A housewife in an apron raised her hand in the corner; she had just been writing it down on a napkin.
"May I take a look?"
"Wait, wait, wait! I want to copy too!"
The whole store suddenly turned into a complete mess.
Kenichi stood at the front desk, watching his usual quiet customers now craning their necks and passing around napkins with phone numbers written on them, and couldn't help but laugh.
"Don't grab it! Don't grab it!" he shouted from behind the counter. "I have a phone here, come one by one!"
"Kenichi, you go first!" The old man by the window was the first to raise his hand.
"Why did he go first? I spoke first!" the housewife next to her protested.
"Wait a minute, all of you," another office worker stood up, already pulling out his mobile phone, "I'll make the call myself, you guys call the store!"
For a time, the bento shop was filled with dial tones.
Kenichi beat everyone else to it and dialed the number first.
The line was busy.
He hung up, then I dialed again.
Still busy signal.
"We can't get through!" someone shouted.
"Me too!"
"Try again, try again, you'll definitely get in!"
The group of people stood around the front desk, dialing again and again. Every time they heard a busy signal, they would let out a sigh of regret. Occasionally, someone would get through, which would immediately attract envious glances from those around them.
Sachiko came out of the kitchen and was stunned by what she saw.
This was the first time since she opened her shop that she had seen customers leave their food uneaten and crowd around a phone, vying to make calls.
"Kenichi—" she walked over and asked in a low voice, "You want to buy one too?"
"Nonsense." Kenichi didn't even look up, staring at the phone waiting for it to connect. "It's the same model as Aoshima Shunsaku's. How am I supposed to brag to my customers if I don't buy it?"
Sachiko paused for a moment, looked at the "GG" image of the trench coat, then at Kenichi who was making a phone call with a serious expression, and finally sighed: "Then order one for me too."
Kenichi turned his head sharply and looked at her in disbelief.
Sachiko remained unfazed: "These are for you to wear, consider them a gift from me. Hurry up and hit me."
Kenichi paused for two seconds, then grinned and turned back to continue dialing, this time with extra enthusiasm.
Similar scenes played out simultaneously in countless places across Tokyo that afternoon.
In an apartment in Shibuya, a single working woman stuffs the last bite of her lunch break bento into her mouth, chewing while watching a male celebrity on TV. She slowly puts down her chopsticks, then goes to her bedside table to flip through her notebook, checking the scheduled phone number in the male celebrity's video—
I copied down the words.
In an ordinary house in Nerima Ward, a housewife who had just dropped her child off at school and was about to start cleaning was still wearing an apron when she made a phone call.
In a small bookstore in Setagaya, a clerk who was organizing the inventory wrote down the phone numbers broadcast on the radio on the back of his hand. When his shift ended, the first thing he did was look for a phone booth.
In an old student apartment near the University of Tokyo, Toru Ijuin casually tossed the remote control onto his bed and lay facing the ceiling for about three minutes.
He was a film school student, and his taste in films tended to be rather niche. He wasn't very interested in theatrical blockbusters, but he was particularly fascinated by auteur films with very limited distribution. Kitahara Shin was one of the few commercial directors he would seriously follow, because there was always one or two things about his films that resonated with him.
He watched every episode of "Bayside Shakedown" and found the show more and more interesting the more he watched it.
On the surface, it's a farcical story about the daily lives of a group of unlucky police officers, but at its core, it satirizes the bureaucratic system with extreme restraint—a restraint that surprised even him. Most other filmmakers would have portrayed this subject matter with anger or heaviness, but Kitahara Shin made it like a light comedy, making you laugh only to suddenly realize that something is amiss behind the humor.
Even so, his first reaction upon seeing that limited-edition trench coat was still a bit awkward.
Limited to 10,000 pieces, by phone reservation only.
He'd seen this tactic before. It's the same trick used in department stores selling limited-edition sneakers: creating scarcity to inflate prices. It's not that he couldn't afford it, but he just felt that it was a bit...unseemly for a director and actor whose work speaks for itself to get involved in this kind of thing.
He thought of a word in his mind, but then felt it was too harsh and didn't say it.
But he still sat up and dialed the phone number.
The line was busy for a long time, so long that he thought he had dialed the wrong number before he finally got through.
The person who answered the phone was a woman who sounded quite tired. In the background, there was a lot of keyboard noise and the sound of other people answering their phones, like a makeshift call center.
The other party asked for his name, mailing address, and contact number, and informed him that the confirmation of the appointment would be sent in writing to the registered address in a few days, before politely ending the call.
Ijuin Toru stared at the microphone for a while, then hung it back up.
He couldn't tell how he was feeling.
That afternoon, the appointment call room at Kitahara's office was like a battlefield.
The twenty temporarily assigned operators haven't stopped working since the moment GG started broadcasting. Their headsets are filled with alternating busy and connection sounds, and they've already gone through several stacks of registration forms.
Secretary Aida, who was in charge of coordinating this work, stood in the center of the room, holding a stack of data in his hand. His expression was less composed than usual, and more confused.
Within the first hour of GG's broadcast, the number of reservations exceeded three thousand.
In the second hour, it reached 6,700.
As evening approached, she took the latest figures and knocked on Kitahara Shin's office door.
"President," she said, placing the data sheet on the table, "the number of registered appointments has now exceeded 12,000."
Kitahara Shin didn't even look up, continuing to look at the script storyboard in his hand: "The deadline is set at 10,000 pieces. Any excess will be registered as a waiting list, and the recipient will be informed that they will be given priority notification if there are any additional batches."
Secretary Aida responded and did not leave immediately, but paused for a moment.
Kitahara Shin sensed it and looked up at her.
"Is there a problem?"
Aida adjusted his glasses and spoke cautiously, "President, the current stock in the warehouse is 100,000 units. As per your instructions, we'll only release 10,000 units, leaving the remaining 90,000 sealed. I'd like to confirm—what standards are being used to arrange the subsequent release schedule?"
She paused, then voiced her real question: "If these remaining stock are to be sold later, what's the point of the initial limited edition? Won't consumers feel cheated after finding out there will be more stock?"
Kitahara Shin looked at her, remained silent for two seconds, and then put down the storyboard in his hand.
Do you think a piece of clothing and a piece of clothing that you "snatched up" hold the same weight in the wearer's heart?
Secretary Aida was slightly taken aback.
"The first batch of 10,000 pieces is where this garment comes from." Kitahara Shin leaned back in his chair, his tone calm. "Each piece has a unique number, and the packaging includes a handwritten shipping registration card indicating that this is a limited first batch and the production batch. These 10,000 pieces are exactly the same as the regular version released later, but they are different things."
"The subsequent regular version will tell consumers: This is a well-made everyday garment that you can buy anytime."
But the first limited edition tells a different story: the fact that you managed to snag one is something worth remembering.
As Secretary Aida listened, he slowly began to understand what he meant.
This is more than just scarcity marketing.
The first limited edition serves as a credibility endorsement for the subsequent regular edition. Once 10,000 real people have obtained the garment, worn it, been asked about it by friends, and told them "I got the limited edition back then," the subsequent regular edition will actually become more readily accepted because of this halo effect.
Limited editions sell a sense of scarcity, while regular editions sell recognition of quality.
Two pieces of clothing, two sets of logic, supporting each other.
"Understood." Secretary Aida put away the data sheet, glanced down and added a few lines to the memo. "I'll go arrange the numbering and packaging."
"There's one more thing," Kitahara Shin called out to her, his tone somewhat casual. "Have the public relations department compile the media reports from the past two days and give me a separate list of the critical ones."
Secretary Aida paused slightly, nodded in agreement, and left the office.
The criticisms came very quickly.
To be precise, as soon as the release of the advertisement for this outfit was announced, comments began to pour in from two directions simultaneously—on one side, the fans' enthusiasm for buying it, and on the other side, the media and commentators' indifferent observation.
A cultural commentary column wrote: Kitahara Shin's public image has always been that of a creator whose sole criterion is the quality of his work. Every drama he's worked on, regardless of its reception, at least shows he's putting serious effort into the content. But this limited-edition trench coat, no matter how it's packaged, is essentially just another common tactic of monetizing popularity. Idols selling merchandise, award-winning actors selling related items—this path isn't new, but seeing it in Kitahara Shin's case is somewhat surprising and disappointing.
Another entertainment media outlet put it more directly: "The premiere of 'Bayside Shakedown' had mediocre ratings, and it's understandable that Kitahara Shin is eager to make up for the shortfall in ticket sales with merchandise, but the methods he used were unsightly."
These kinds of articles appeared one after another over the next two days. Although there weren't many of them, the writers all chose very accurate angles. Kitahara Shin had never done this kind of thing in public before, which is what makes it questionable.
When Masaya Ota placed the clippings of these articles in front of Nobu Kitahara, Kitahara simply flipped through them once and then pushed them aside.
"Make some arrangements," he said. "I'm going to be on a variety show next week."
Daejeon paused for a moment, then asked, "Which program?"
Kitahara Shin gave a name.
Da Tian's expression became somewhat subtle—it was an interview program known for its directness and sharpness, and the host was notoriously difficult to fool in the industry. Many artists had to do a lot of preparation before going on the show, as they could easily be led by the nose if they were not careful.
"President, are you sure you want to go there?" Ota asked hesitantly. "That host—"
"I know," Kitahara Shin interrupted him calmly. "That's why he has to go there, precisely because he's not easily fooled."
He picked up the stack of newspaper clippings and casually put them into the file rack on the table.
"I will answer those questions in person."
66