What is “Japon brand”?

Now, I’m in Essen and I’m enjoying the Spiel’17.

Perhaps some of the people reading this may know that "Japon brand" from Japan is exhibiting in the Spiel.

“Japon brand" is a mutual aid association of Japanese amateur board games designers aiming to exhibit in Spiel.  It was founded in 2006 and sends many board games to the Spiel every year.  Japanese board games designers such as Susumu Kawasaki and Seiji Kamai introduced their games to the world from “Japon brand” and became known abroad.  Seiji Kanai is also participating in Japon brand this year and is exhibiting "Laurel Crown".

I looked in the booth of “Japon brand” on the 26th.  This time, exhibition been 17 works, some of them is sold out already.  I have not played any of them, but they are probably a mixture of  wheat and chaff.  It is apt to be common in Japanese board games, their boxes are small in general.  Sometimes there are works of poor illustrations.  Unfortunately, there was no work that I wanted to buy in Japon brand this time.

It is true that Japon brand so far has given reasonable results.    However, there is a limit to the power of Japon brand.  When making Japanese board games known to the world, the financial burden of Japon brand’s method is too great.  I think that the time to make more profitable mechanisms has come by using the Internet and cloud funding etc.