TSUTAYA

Tsutaya (蔦屋, often written in katakana as ツタヤ) is a chain of video rental stores and bookstores across Japan, managed by the company Culture Convenience Club (CCC).

Founded in 1983 in Hirakata, Osaka, Tsutaya now operates over 1,000 stores in Japan and South East Asia, with 90% of them managed through a franchise model. As the company’s original name, “Tsutaya Books,” suggests, it began as a simple bookstore but over the years, it has expanded its services to include different businesses. The most notable ones include:

• TSUTAYA RECORDS: a CD, DVD, Blu-ray retail chain
• TSUTAYA GAME: a game software store chain
• SHARE LOUNGE: a co-working space and café lounge.
• BOOK&CAFE: the concept of a coffee shop merged with a bookstore, opened under a licensing agreement with Starbucks Coffee Japan,
• TSUTAYA CONDITIONING: a yoga studio and fitness center.

Coming to what interests us, Tsutaya’s cover variants can essentially be divided into two categories.

The first includes those originating from its bookstores, numerous, pretty common, and always made of paper. These are typically offered as bonuses with manga purchases and are often released alongside the announcement of the anime adaptation of the specific series.

The second category features variants from the Tsutaya Records brand. These are among the rarest and most sought-after variants on the market, gifted as preorder bonuses for anime-related DVD/Blu-ray box sets, movies, etc…