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The story
The “Chiikawa” collaboration run by conveyor-belt sushi chain Kura Sushi was called off on September 5 after misconduct by an employee came to light. The problem: as early as September 3 — apparently before the collab had even begun — merchandise that hadn’t been distributed yet was already showing up for sale on the flea-market app Mercari. On September 7, Mercari officially responded to these listings, stating it “will not collect any selling fees” on them, but reports say that as of September 10 — three days later — plenty of matching listings were still up. On 5ch, opinion split over whether waiving fees alone actually stops the listings, and what responsibility Mercari bears for leaving suspected stolen goods up once it knows about them.
September 12, 2026, 7:00 AM
Searching “Chiikawa” on Mercari’s site on the afternoon of September 10 still turns up numerous listings for “this” merchandise — three days after Mercari publicly addressed the controversy on its official X account on the 7th.
“Conveyor-belt sushi chain Kura Sushi had been running a ‘Chiikawa’ collaboration campaign scheduled from August 21 to September 30, but announced its cancellation on September 5 after misconduct by an employee came to light. On the major flea-market app Mercari, listings for merchandise that hadn’t been distributed yet were already confirmed as of the 3rd, and suspicions that an employee had been skimming stock had been circulating even before Kura Sushi’s announcement.” (IT journalist, same throughout)
Source: news.livedoor.com / Original article here
What people said
The government needs to hurry up and regulate this stolen-goods marketplace already
Imagine if this were an actual licensed secondhand dealer (kobutsushō) — this would be a massive deal
Everything else is legitimate resale
'Legitimate resale'?
Sorry, I have no idea what you're even trying to say
It always either ends like this or turns into scalper bait
Though the salaries there are pretty good
And they do it with a totally straight face too
That's terrifying
Scalper: 'Wait, seriously? My margins just went up, guess I'll flip even harder now lol'
That's exactly what's gonna happen, you idiot
Meanwhile Hachiware's saying 'This isn't about money — just turn it into a proper criminal case.' (Usagi and Hachiware are Chiikawa characters)
???: 'I just wanna sell the stuff I stole!!'
https://hayabusa9.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/mnewsplus/1788850896/
'Tokaido Shinkansen Tsutsu-Ura-Ura Journey' mini tote bag
– Limit: 1 per person per day
– Reselling or transferring the bonus item is prohibited
↓
Only about a week since the campaign started, yet
the same account has listed around 60 of them on Mercari
and every single one has sold
↓
People are speculating someone's been skimming stock
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JR Central: 'We're ending on-site redemption and switching to mail delivery instead'
i.imgur.com/KGtvP36.jpeg
Background and key points of the debate
“Not collecting a fee” is a separate measure from pulling listings down or issuing refunds — it just means Mercari is giving up a slice of the revenue it would otherwise have earned. Kura Sushi’s “Chiikawa” collaboration began on August 21 and was called off on September 5 over employee misconduct, but reports say that on Mercari, merchandise that hadn’t even been distributed yet was already listed as of September 3 — before that announcement — and that listings believed to match the stolen goods were still up on September 10, three days after Mercari’s official response. Thread opinion split two ways: one side argued that merely forgoing fees doesn’t actually stop the listings or cut into scalpers’ profits, while the other raised the regulatory question of what liability applies under the Secondhand Goods Business Act for knowingly leaving listings of stolen merchandise up. Worth noting — something easy to miss from the replies alone — around the same time JR Central’s Shinkansen collab goods were also reported mass-listed by a single account, framing this as a structural problem with flea-market-app skimming and resale that goes well beyond any one company.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Mercari says it “will not collect selling fees” on transactions involving stolen Chiikawa collab goods.”
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