For those unfamiliar with Animate, the chain is the largest retailer of all things anime in Japan. The store began in 1983 in Tokyo, and Animate has grown well beyond its Ikebukuro boundaries since.

For 36 years since it started its business in 1987, Right Stuf has been among the top hubs for everything about Japanese anime, back in the time when it was hard to source in the United States.

Ahead of launch, Japanese manga and anime news outlet Futaman (via Yahoo News Japan) asked some of Japan’s biggest retailers about their plans for selling the Switch 2 in stores.

2. Eyes on anime Tokyo’s Animate Ikebukuro flagship store, one of the world’s largest anime shops, celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2023 with a facelift.

The global market for anime is now expected to almost double from $31.2bn in 2023 to $60.1bn by 2030, the investment bank Jefferies wrote in a 2024 report. “This could be the peak of Japanese ...