Manga Spot in Bloomington, IL
Kadokawa has created a new corporate structure to support rapid expansion of its brick-and-mortar retail chain, and appointed a well-known CEO with substantial retail experience to run it, the company announced. The retail chain is Manga Spot, which started with one store in New York in October 2023 and has now reached 10 stores spread across the U.S. The new structure is the creation of Kadokawa Retail Ventures, LLC, spun out from Kadokawa World Entertainment, which oversees Kadokawa’s North American operations, including Yen Press, Anime News Network, and M12 Media LLC.
The CEO of this new company is Kurt Hassler, who is also publisher at Yen Press, which he co-founded in 2006. Hassler spent eight years early in his career as a buyer at book chain Borders Group, where he championed the expansion of their manga sections to high-impact levels.
Manga Spot carries manga, and anime-related merch, and offers store-exclusive merchandise, autograph sessions, and events linked to anime.
Kadokawa has retail experience in Japan, where its Arclight subsidiary operates the Hobby Station tabletop game stores (see “Kadokawa Buying Arclight Games”).
Source: ICv2
