Scroll through a visual timeline of highlights in the history of TOM!
2011
March 24, 2011
Tokyo Otaku Mode started out as a simple Facebook page.
These are the original 6 logo designs we were debating between.
August 2011
A mere 5 months later, our Facebook page reached one million likes!
Wow. We sure weren’t expecting that!
December 2011
2012
April 10, 2012
About one year after the launch of our Facebook page, we registered to become an established company!
July 2012
March 24, 2012
Our very first event was Japan Expo, a convention for Japanese pop culture in Paris, France.
The TOM Shop didn’t exist yet at this point, and we printed the TOM logo on can badges and handkerchiefs to bring to the event.
Our “booth” was just a table. Half a table, actually.
2013
January 2013
Our Facebook page hit the big 10 million mark!
This collaborative video was created in celebration, featuring artwork by Japanese illustrator John Hathway (JH Science) and music by artist Kz from the group Livetune.
April 2013
With 10 million likes, Tokyo Otaku Mode became the largest Facebook page for otaku culture.
At this point, we launched the official TOM news website.
July 2013
We collaborated with famous Japanese clothing brand, BEAMS, releasing a line of Tokyo Otaku Mode T-shirts, mugs, and a variety of merchandise featuring artwork by TOM Special Creators.
The staircase at the BEAMS store lined with Special Creator artwork.
TOM Special Creator tote bags and phone cases.
July 2013
Our very first year at Anime Expo!
September 2013
The birth of the TOM Shop!
This is where the TOM shopping experience you know and love all started.
September 2013
We tie up with Tokyo Game Show, running an International Lounge where attendees from overseas can chill out, look at art, and get their questions answered.
We also hosted a live-painting panel featuring Japanese illustrator and designer redjuice, best known for the original character designs for Guilty Crown.
October 2013
Our first year hosting a booth at New York Comic Con!
2014
January 2014
The memorable month when the explosively popular and adorable alpaca plushies, known as Alpacasso, were first sold on the TOM Shop!
We didn’t have a warehouse yet, or even a real office for that matter, and our friend’s basement was turning into an avalanche of merchandise…
February 2014
Finally, we couldn’t fit anymore, and we moved to a new office in the classy Omotesando area of Tokyo.
May 2014
We had the honor of participating in Hatsune Miku Expo in Indonesia as a media partner!
July 2014
Compared to the half table at our first Japan Expo, in 2014 we had an official industry booth, complete with an art gallery, rows of merchandise, and a proper register.
Two short years sure made a big difference!
August 2014
This is when we acquired our warehouse in LA! Whoo!
Shipping to the US became much faster from this point forward.
2015
February 2015
We finally moved from rented storage space to our very own warehouse in Japan!
The TOM Team came together to assist the move and build our new warehouse together.
Imagine a “factory” where happiness is born and then delivered to fans around the world.
That is the concept upon which our Japan warehouse was built. To this day, our warehouse is referred to as “factory” within the TOM Team.
Another Fun Fact: Our warehouse shares the same subway stop as Tokyo Disneyland!
May 2015
We opened a store on the Chinese shopping site Tmall Global (run by Alibaba, the largest ecommerce company in the world!) as part of our effort to bring authentic merchandise from Japan to fans worldwide.
September 2015
In 2015 we hosted a Live Stream Hut smack in the middle of Tokyo Game Show, streaming content straight from the event to viewers around the world.
October 2015
Our very own Alpacasso was born! TOMpacasso has been bringing fans around the world rainbows of joy since then.
2016
March 2016
Shibuya is home to the famous Hachiko statue, Shibuya crossing, and now, the Tokyo Otaku Mode office.
April 2016
Craving candy?
Skoshbox is the original monthly subscription for candy from Japan!
In 2016, Skoshbox joined the TOM family, and we’ve been proudly
shipping tasty Japanese snacks to hungry fans ever since!
May 2016
May 2016
We’re always trying to connect fans with what they enjoy!
In May we launched a special
fan site for Resident Evil.
May 2016
We came a long way since our first Anime Expo.
Check out our gleaming booth and glistening display cases.
This was also the year we offered the new One Punch Man Saitama figure, available first exclusively from TOM!
September 2016
4 years ago, at our first event, we hosted half of a table.
In 2016, we co-hosted Animaga Expo in Melborne, Australia.
September 2016
Your dream is our dream.
We launched TOM Projects, a crowdfunding platform where fans can communicate with project owners to develop the products of their dreams together.
© khara
September 2016
Our North American warehouse moved from LA to Portland, Oregon, a change that would help us serve fans better and faster!
Look at all that glorious storage space, soon to be filled with shelves upon shelves of otaku merch.
October 2016
We launched the Beta version of the TOM Fan Club Facebook group, a friendly community for otaku to interact, share their hobbies, and have their voices heard by the TOM Team.
*The TOM Fan Club has left Beta as of April 2, 2017! Join the club here!
October 2016
We hosted a booth at anime convention ANI:ME in Abu Dhabi, and we brought the super-jumbo Rainbow Alpacasso with us, too!
November 2016
We hosted the Official Guild for the upcoming SAO movie, Ordinal Scale, serving as a source of news, updates, and exclusive content for fans overseas.
https://otakumode.com/sp/sao-movie
2017
February 2017
© 支倉凍砂/アスキー・メディアワークス/「狼と香辛料II」製作委員会
We were proud to have created our very first figure: a wedding dress version of Holo from Spice and Wolf!
We hosted an industry booth at Wonder Festival (the world’s largest figure exhibition) for the very first time, and opened pre-orders for Holo!
March 2017
At last, we have crafted the supreme TOM experience.
Premium Members can enjoy otaku life on a whole new level, with exclusive content, discounts, rewards and more!
July 2017
Continuing from 2016, we once again held a booth at Anime Expo. This year, we had on display TOM original Sword Art Online products along, of course, with the popular TOMpacasso. We were also giving out free Pocky, and we gave way over 25,000!
July 2017
Thanks to everyone’s support, we surpassed 20 million likes on our Facebook page. We will continue curating fun otaku content for our Facebook page.
September 2017
Official partners of the event once again this year, we held a live stream for the fifth consecutive year. The stream featured guests including video game creators and popular streamers and brought TGS to the world.
November 2017
We had a booth for the first time at Anime NYC, one of the US’s biggest anime events. With help from local students who volunteered, we were able to meet many fans of Japanese anime.
2018
March 2018
©Kizuna AI
Virtual YouTuber Kizuna AI is taking countless media by storm, and we planned and sold her very first scale figure. Due to its popularity, it will be re-released in 2019!
April 2018
We released a plushie of the adorable Ninja-kun that run all over the TOM warehouse. It’s a mystery how they became a plushie.
July 2018
This year, our booth focused mainly on virtual YouTubers Kizuna AI and Siro, and reaffirmed their popularity not just in Japan but worldwide.
September 2018
At this year’s live stream from TGS we invited a wide range of guests from video game creators to animators and voice actors.
November 2018
©Siro Channel
In November we began accepting pre-orders for the Dennou Shoujo Siro 1/7 Scale Figure, which will be released in June 2019. This is our fourth original figure. The figure also comes with a TOM-exclusive bonus “smug” face!
November 2018
We had our first booth at Animate Girls Festival, an event hosted by Japan’s largest anime goods retailer, Animate. At our booth we had original Attack on Titan and Bungo Stray Dogs goods for sale.