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The story
On September 6, Kura Sushi cancelled its collaboration campaign with the popular character “Chiikawa” after it emerged that an employee had improperly taken campaign prizes. The chain posted apology notices at the entrances of every store, and as a gesture of apology began offering 10% off all items starting on the 6th — but many customers who had come specifically for the merchandise turned around and left without even entering once they learned the campaign was cancelled, and reservation cancellations piled up as well. On 5ch, discussion ranged from comparisons with the string of scandals at rival conveyor-belt sushi chains like Hama Sushi, Sushiro, and Kappa Sushi, to debate over how far the prize theft could be pursued as a criminal matter, to criticism of the chain’s lack of anti-scalping measures and flaws in its reservation system.
Sponichi Annex, delivered 9/7 (Mon) 5:30
Kura Sushi cancelled its collaboration campaign with the popular character “Chiikawa” on the 6th. On the 5th, the company had announced that an employee had embezzled campaign prizes. The following day, every store put up a notice at its entrance reading, “Due to the discovery of misconduct by one of our employees, we have decided to cancel the campaign. We deeply apologize.” The company also began offering 10% off all items from the 6th “as a token of our apology.”
At a store in Tokyo, staff stood at the entrance all day dealing with customers. Many people who had come for the Chiikawa merchandise turned around and left as soon as they heard the campaign had ended. A staffer sighed, “Even though it’s lunchtime, quite a lot of people are turning away without coming in.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Kura Sushi — Chiikawa merch embezzlement
Hama Sushi — dish soap dumped everywhere (viral staff-prank clip)
Sushiro — the soy-sauce-bottle-licking incident ("sushi terrorism")
Kappa Sushi — kappas forced into underground labor
Which one's the worst?
In the basement of Kappa Sushi, captured kappa (the mythical water-goblin the chain is named after) are forced to make sushi while crying.
Their pay is a single cucumber a day.
Kappa Sushi's full-time staff keep constant watch so the kappa can't escape or slack off.
To keep them scared, they're randomly given pointless electric shocks.
Most of the kappa are children, always crying, "I want to see my mom and dad!"
They're barely allowed any sleep, and talking back gets their cucumber ration cut.
By slashing labor costs like this, Kappa Sushi is able to bring you all cheap, delicious sushi.
Kappa Sushi's really is the worst one, I think.
You could call the other three unintended, one-off incidents the company never planned for.
But with Kappa Sushi, the crime is baked into how the business itself is run.
Kappa Sushi's former president literally committed a real crime — he took a USB drive full of business data from Hama Sushi, his previous employer. That's no laughing matter.
Expecting part-timers to have some kind of strict work discipline is asking too much to begin with.
No customers, so you don't need to bother coming in tomorrow, then.
If they're Gen Z, scold them and they'll never show up again.
This isn't scalping, it's theft.
So that's how a man with a criminal record thinks.
Definitely not like ordinary people.
It's genuinely hard for a normal person to adopt the mindset of "as long as I'm fine, who cares who I inconvenience."
This is what happens when you build your pricing and sales method around relying on scalpers.
When the Chiikawa Happy Meal stopped relying on scalpers, the toys ended up sitting unsold too.
Exactly this.
Scalpers were rushing in, paying for sushi plus a little extra just to flip the merch.
They never took anti-scalping measures and never prioritized actual families with kids.
I see, so in the end the scalpers were just after free food. First time those guys have ever looked almost endearing lol
Guarantee the merch once they hit the point threshold.
Ship it out later.
Why can't they manage something this simple?
Exactly.
Using a gacha-style random-draw system that preys on gambling instincts is just the wrong call.
That would actually be the fair way to do it, but shipping is a hassle. Mail quality has gotten worse too, so more packages would end up lost or undelivered.
Do that and you end up like McDonald's, where you've got the points but no merch left to redeem them for.
Amazing they can even run a company.
Impressive how they keep torching their own credibility one incident after another.
Isn't it a family-run business, if I remember right?
Same as Big Motor (the used-car dealership fraud scandal).
Even after screwing up this much, they're still the industry's #2 behind Sushiro. That's saying something.
The type of guy who tosses his receipt without taking it has exactly the face of someone who'd still complain about not getting a refund.
And here comes Mr. "My Stomach Remembers," ready to upload his rebuttal.
Absolutely wild lol
There's a print misalignment on this one lol
This is a theft case, right?
The article mentioned that since these weren't items being sold — just freebies — coming down that hard on it might be a stretch.
The reason it's hard to charge this as fraud or embezzlement is that, practically speaking, there's no actual "monetary damage."
So stealing anything that isn't merchandise for sale doesn't count as theft?
What a novel legal theory.
It's Kura Sushi's own in-house term "no-add" (a limited version of "additive-free") — not the standard meaning of "additive-free" lol
What's "no-add" even supposed to mean?
Apparently it means they don't use "chemical seasonings, artificial sweeteners, synthetic coloring, or artificial preservatives."
So they're free to use any other additives lol
Meanwhile some people who didn't bother becoming a sushi-eating machine just got in line and walked away with a teacup anyway.
This is going to have staying power because it ticked off parents with kids, not just anime otaku.
Even at a cheap chain like this, order the pricier cuts per piece or the eel and you can easily hit around 10,000 yen.
It's not even sushi.
It's awful, inedible.
Tomato soup and potage.
For what it's worth, everyone standing in that line was a Chiikawa fan — people who couldn't get a reservation.
There's a real problem with Kura Sushi's reservation system.
Stores close at 11pm, but you could still book a slot at 10:20pm.
Honestly, given how crowded they knew it'd get, they should've cut off reservations by around 9:30pm.
Chiikawa merch is sold literally everywhere.
Guess it has to be the Kura Sushi version specifically lol
A lot of people are just suckers caught in the loop of: scalpers swarm in and buy it all up → it gets scarce → now everyone wants it!
Well, to someone with zero interest, "it's all the same stuff."
But if you go down that road, collab merchandise wouldn't mean anything at all.
It's a limited-time item — the kind that will absolutely never be reissued.
Kura Sushi's prizes are honestly the best. Coco's ran three rounds of their own and they were pretty lame by comparison, though the parfait was tasty.
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Kura Sushi is the industry’s second-largest conveyor-belt sushi chain behind Sushiro, and it has previously sparked debate over issues like the accuracy of its “no-add” labeling and changes to its shareholder benefits program. This latest controversy began with an employee improperly taking campaign merchandise, and since no actual money was stolen, thread discussion centered on how far this could realistically be prosecuted as theft or embezzlement. Because merchandise tied to the popular character Chiikawa is an easy target for scalpers to buy up in bulk, commenters also criticized the slack in the reservation system (which allowed bookings right up until closing time). At the same time, the incident tends to get lumped together with past scandals at rival chains — Hama Sushi’s detergent incident, Sushiro’s customer-misconduct “sushi terrorism” case, and Kappa Sushi’s trade-secret theft case — but the circumstances behind each and the standing of those involved (rank-and-file employee versus executive) differ, so it isn’t quite accurate to simply lump them all together as “every conveyor-belt sushi chain is the same.”
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Kura Sushi Cancels Chiikawa Collab — 10% Off Everything, But No One’s Coming In… Reservation Cancellations Pile Up Too.”
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