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Sunday, 07 January 2007 |
 | | ▪ | PUBLISHED BY: | | DIGITAL MANGA PUBLISHING | | | ▪ | ART/AUTHOR: | | NAOMI KIMURA / TADASHI KATOH | | | | ▪ | FORMAT/COLOR: | | JAPANESE FORMAT / BW | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 190 | | | ▪ | RATED: | | ALL AGES | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 10/18/2006 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 01/08/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | CHRISTOPHER SEAMAN |
I love the blurb on the back of this manga. “Feeling hungry…? Out of Toothpaste…? Or just need some aspirin? Run down to your local corner store…you may find it’s a 7-Eleven. They’ll have just the thing you’re looking for and more.”
Just like this manga. I remember when receiving the first manga in this PROJECT X series and going “Okaaay. No giant robots. No BESM girls. No vampires. No lowbrow humor. This will make an interesting change,” and finishing it saying, “That was really FUN.” After reading the third manga in this series, SEVEN ELEVEN: THE MIRACULOUS SUCCESS OF JAPANESE SEVEN ELEVEN STORES, I find myself flipping around the back of the book and wondering, “Is that it? Are there no more? Noooooo…!”
Let’s hope there are because this series from DMP is a gem. Unlikely subjects for manga stories are given a flattering treatment, with lots of extra goodies thrown in to show how basically true to the facts writer Tadashi Katoh is in telling the story. Apparently a great success in Japan, these books are now making their way here for us to enjoy too.
This manga goes to great lengths to simplify for a general audience the process of how Seven Eleven came to be in Japan. Apparently born from the need for a supermarket chain to diversify in a crowded market, the concept of the convenience store was quite radical in Japan in the early 1970s. However, a partnership with the American parent company owning Seven Eleven was developed, and after the manuals were read, tours were taken and training was complete, the convenience store division of the Ito-Yokado company, (which started in a closet sized office with two staff), was ready to go. Of course, there were problems along the way. American convenience stores were bigger than Japanese ones. The Japanese store had to be remodeled to suit the environment. Refrigerators had to be redesigned in Japan with back doors for rearward re-stocking- an innovation now adopted in convenience stores the world over. Just in time shipping had to be created in Japan to keep the stock moving on the shelves in a timely manner (an average Seven Eleven in Japan has 3,000 products on its shelves). And of course, the concept of the convenience store had to be marketed to the Japanese people.
It reads like a whirlwind; great for young people; simply written and cleanly illustrated. Timelines putting events in historic perspective are available . Photos and testimonials from actual personalities portrayed in the manga bring the book to life. Especially touching for readers is an essay by Kenji Yamamoto, owner of Store Number One, and willing guinea pig for the whole convenience store concept in Japan. This book is surprising in how it respects all parties involved in this initiative, even painting the Americans in a more neutral tone that that found in many other manga I’ve read. There is even a section outlining the basic products sold in the stores ranging from American Slurpees and burritos to more traditional Japanese fare like onigiri, bento boxes, and jyagamaru-kun. Pictures from the various television ad campaigns from the 1970s through the 1990s are also featured, along with catch phrases that became popular in Japan after airing. All said, this is a comprehensive record for the reader on an institution many of us take for granted.
IN SUMMARY:
PROJECT X: SEVEN ELEVEN. THE MIRACULOUS SUCCESS OF JAPANESE SEVEN ELEVEN STORES is another triumph for DMP’s Business Manga series. It is a tribute to outside the box thinking and global co-operation in the retail sector. Educators looking for a straight forward story to use as a literacy tool in Business Entrepreneurship classes would be well advised to invest in this manga.
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