How did Yamashiron come to be? Discover the answer to this and many other questions in this interview with Kamikaze Productions!

In line with our Local Hero Spotlight on Yamashiron, Team TokuNet also got to interview Kamikaze Productions, the company behind Yamashiron. How did Yamashiron come to be? What else does Kamikaze Productions do? Come with us to learn more!

Please give introduce yourselves for the overseas fans.

Hi, guys. The Kamikaze Productions office is located in the countryside far from Tokyo. We are a company that offers comprehensive promotional services, such as producing animated promotional videos on countryside towns and villages. We do things that cannot be done by big companies in Tokyo in addition to producing various other content and events.

How did Kamikaze Productions become involved in the Yamashiron Project?

There are a lot of difficulties in doing business in countryside towns. It costs a lot of time and money to make promotional videos here, but most difficult of all is showing how ultimately effective our work has been with numbers. Characteristically, it is incredibly difficult from start to finish.

When we were moving from Tokyo to the countryside, we realized that few people know how to start this kind of character-based business and keep it going. While we were actively developing a business that could utilize our expertise, we got the opportunity to make a proposal jointly with a local advertising agency, and that led to Yamashiron Productions.

What was the process for creating Yamashiron like?

A local business was working on a new promotional project, and luckily we had gotten to know someone at that company. Through various meetings, our proposal got picked up.

Kamikaze Productions being founded in Saga Prefecture and our work in content production were all milestones along the road to Yamashiron. We felt that Yamashiron was something that absolutely had to be made.

Who were some of the major players in bringing Yamashiron to life?

Yamashiron grew out of our client’s forward-thinking business, the flexibility of our promotional representatives, the ideas from our company, and the passion from our customers. And we believe that the excitement from fans overseas will no doubt help to fuel Yamashiron and our business surrounding Yamashiron.

We hope that Tokusatsu Network will help us in reaching many fans overseas.

How is Kamikaze Productions involved now?

Right now, we are focussing on building up and producing all aspects of Yamashiron and his settings. We believe that it is our mission to prepare the best environment and opportunities, so we are investing every resource we have into Yamashiron, including time, money, expert technologies and knowledge, and new ideas.

What kind of activities does Yamashiron do regularly?

Yamashiron works at and around Yamashiro Gas Co., Ltd. headquarters as the posterboy of Yamashiro Gas’s major LPG, Dining and Reform businesses, among others.

Furthermore, Yamashiron also participates in events and exhibitions where he spreads the word about Yamashiro Gas and their activities, particularly family and recruitment households within Yamashiro Gas’s commercial sphere.

Yamashiron also holds shows to raise awareness about food education, as part of his “business trip” services to facilities such as preschools.

What are some upcoming projects for Yamashiron and Kamikaze Productions?

Events and our methods of producing them have had to change drastically because of COVID. While it has been tricky to keep providing our services the way we used to, we always ensure we prioritize what we can do to make the customers happy.

Yamashiron has been continuing to communicate with fans online such as holding Twitter icon signing events and Q&A sessions, and we want to expand on these ideas. Also, as live events are slowly coming back, we will promote Yamashiron and the restaurants working under Yamashiro Gas while being thorough in infection prevention practices. We will also hold fan events organized by Yamashiro Gas and food education shows for preschoolers and so on.

In addition, we also plan to do many collaborations between Yamashiron and other businesses and genres. We have already started collaborating with Oha Star, the popular morning children’s show, as well as appearing in films. We feel that collaborating with other heroes is important, but there are a lot more activities going on in the world than just those relating to heroes. As such, we are strategically pursuing “non-hero related” media that are in high demand.

(Team TokuNet: For example, you can see Yamashiron in this short video featuring Oha Star’s hero Mighty KouZ. He is also involved in the upcoming independent production Ghost Cat Rhapsody!)

What products do Kamikaze Productions sell?

You can see goods we have related to Yamashiron here.

Sample of shop offerings

Kamikaze Productions itself also has some merchandise to offer.

Kamikaze Productions’ goods

Otherwise, we are producing a wide range of products to meet the customers needs, including apps and animated works, design works, and websites.

What other projects will Kamikaze Productions be involved in?

We will continue to provide proposals that make the best of our expertise, including animated works, and contents that spread the word about animation production.

A message for foreign fans

Thank you for taking an interest in Japan’s pop culture. There are over 120 million people in Japan and 15 billion English speakers around the world. We hope that if more people take an interest in our business, our business opportunities will expand 12-fold, and then we could all start driving Porsches (lol)!

Please continue to support Kamikaze Productions.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions, Kamikaze Productions! We look forward to what you come out with in the future!

And from Team TokuNet to the readers, have you entered our giveaway in collaboration with Yamashiron? You have the chance to win some really cool Yamashiron-merchandise, so please don’t miss out! Entries end on Monday May 16 at 7:59 pm!

CHECK HERE FOR GIVEAWAY DETAILS

Prize Set