Japan’s most economically important export is vehicles, representing more than $150 billion in 2023. Yet when a new Toyota or Subaru dealership opens it rarely has dozens of people standing outside its doors like the line outside Arisu in Fairfield when roughly 150 people were waiting for a planned opening at 9 a.m. on a recent Friday morning.
That takes anime.
When Arisu opened its new location in Fairfield on May 17, the line stretched around three sides of the red building on the corner of Kings Highway East and Villa Avenue, prompting doors to open slightly ahead of schedule before the crowd grew big enough to block the parking lot’s entrance.
While owner Ellie Greenberg was pleased by the turnout, she was not surprised.
“We have another location in Mystic which we opened last year and the lines to get in were insane,” Greenberg said. “We anticipated that it was going to be accepted very well in Fairfield and as you can see the lines are going around the building at this point.”
Greenberg is the CEO of Wonderlosity, an experiential retail company which has experience creating stores that are attractions in themselves. In an era when many niche products can be had online and hours upon hours of unboxing videos emphasize the joy of receiving a well packed parcel, Greenberg has found that the strength of retail is to provide a destination where a customer can be comfortable showing their enthusiasm and potentially meeting others who share their hobby.
Other Wonderlosity stores include wizard-themed The Cloak and Wand, an Alice in Wonderland themed tea-shop and “Alice’s Little Haunted Bookshop.” Keeping up the theme, “Arisu” is the Japanese pronunciation of the name Alice, and an anime inflected take on the literary character is featured on the logo.
“We can’t compete with places like Amazon,” Greenberg said. And I’m not trying to. Everybody can go to Amazon and buy a manga or a figure. However when you come to Arisu you feel like you’re being transported to Tokyo and you see everything, play the video games we have, use the gachapon [imported random prize] machines, and you take pictures with the figures.”
“We give you what I would say is equivalent to a Disney park experience. You go in and want to get something to remember it by. That’s what makes us different from other retail stores.”
Greenberg noted that she wouldn’t open the store if she wasn’t passionate about its product line herself. She became a fan of anime while growing up in the 1980s when Japanese produced cartoons with unique aesthetics and storylines typically aimed at teens started seeing their first international broadcasts. Manga, Japanese graphic novels that often share plot lines and aesthetics with anime, also excite her as they encourage reading in an era where many young people will sooner turn to TikTok or video games.
However the decision to open the store in Fairfield, the first free-standing location for a Wonderlosity property, was guided by more than passion.
“We did our due diligence and market research,” Greenberg said about siting the store in Fairfield. “We saw that people did travel to go to the store but the line where people say this is too far for them starts around Milford. People will drive to Mystic for a special occasion but they’re not going to do it on a regular basis.”
“I think what everybody is realizing is that anime has been around for so long that even if somebody doesn’t know much they know some of what we sell,” said Samantha DiLorenzo, Wonderlocity’s director of retail operations. “Hello Kitty, Dragon Ball Z, I think a lot of people are familiar with that, but now they’re resurging, and getting new seasons. New genres and themes are coming out and it’s just a much deeper segment where these character creations and the development go deeper, people feel they’re able to bring them to life and feel really connected to these properties.”
In addition to manga books and physical releases of anime series a wide range of collectables ranging from clothing and figurines to phone charms and utensils recalling favorite series are on sale at Arisu. Additionally, a section devoted to imported Japanese snacks offers a full sensory experience to diehard fans, letting them experience the canned coffee, delicate sweets, and savory instant ramen that they have so often seen their favorite characters enjoy.
Fairfield First Selectman Bill Gerber said he was surprised at the size of the crowd when he arrived for the ribbon cutting.
“I hadn’t heard of their company before,” admitted Gerber. But he explained that the opening of the store was well timed, fitting in with plans to improve safety and pedestrian access along Villa Avenue and Garden Street. “We’re going to be improving the sidewalk so that more people are going to be able to walk here safely, soon kids will be able to walk here.”
“This is a dream for this property,” Gerber said. “It brings a lot of possibilities for the town, not just in this block but for the whole neighborhood.”
