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Is there demand for merch of our stylish reporter? Let’s find out with the Ikuna Acrylic Standee

Casey Baseel May 2, 2025
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Attention, Ikuna fans! SN24’s most photogenic fashion reporter has made her merch debut.

We’re not a particularly shutter-shy crew here at SoraNews24, but among our reporters ready to regularly step in front of a camera it’s no secret that Ikuna Kamezawa is among the most photogenic. Especially when there are cool or cute fashions to model, whether darkly cute yami kawaii styles, foxy throwback gyaru accessories, or magical girl cosplay, Ikuna is always happy to strike a pose.

Following Ikuna’s fashion shoots, she’s even had some readers ask if she has any Ikuna merch available, with more than one saying they ”definitely buy some” if they could…so Ikuna decided to see if they were really ready to put their money where their mouths were.

Just like we did in 2024, SoraNews24 took part in this year’s Subculture Market, a festival of quirky creators that takes place annually in Tokyo’s Daikanyama neighborhood, one train stop over from Shibuya. Ikuna realized this would be the perfect opportunity to make her merchandise debut, but unfortunately she didn’t have this revelation until just nine days before the event. She’d have to scramble to get everything ready in time, and while she could have just repurposed a photo from an old article to slap on a T-shirt, she wanted to go the extra mile for our readers, and so she took roughly 2,000 brand-new pictures for this project.

She then stayed up until the wee hours of the morning narrowing that down to the two best shots of all. It was a tough decision, and this one almost one out…

…until Ikuna ultimately decided that her laugh lines in it were just a bit too prominent for her liking.

So she settled on the other of the top two, but now she was faced with another decision: What kind of merch was she going to make with her likeness? Like we mentioned above, a T-shirt would be the obvious choice, but she also considered producing an Ikuna zippered pouch, But the more she thought about it, the clearer it became that the current king of idol/character goods is the acrylic mini standee. Finding a company, Fun-Create, that will manufacture them via online design, Ikuna uploaded her photo, finalized the specs, and placed her order, with just eight days left until Subculture Market.

The deadline was tight, but Ikuna’s standee shipment arrived on April 18, just one day before the event. Excitedly she opened up the box, peered inside, and for the first time laid eyes upon…

…the Ikuna Acrylic Mini Standee!

Blessed with nice sunny weather on the day of the event, Ikuna, in maid cosplay, was on-hand at our Subculture Market booth as her debut merch went on sale.

If you’re wondering how much it costs to make your own acrylic mini standee, Ikuna’s came at a cost of 2,370 yen (US$16.35) each, before shipping and handling charges. That might sound like a lot if you’re used to the prices for standees for popular anime characters, but mainstream big-hit franchises can benefit from economies of scale, while we only cautiously produced 15 units of the Ikuna Acrylic Mini Standee.

▼ So yes, the Ikuna Acrylic Mini Standee is a rare, limited-edition collector’s item!

Ikuna decided to set the price for her standee at 3,000 yen, which is in the ballpark of the price of standees for the visual kei rock musicians she’s a fan of. But now that she’d made them, would the fans come?

Yes! Or at least a dozen of them. In total 12 fans, 11 guys and one gal, purchased the Ikuna Acrylic Mini Standee at our one-day booth. And to Ikuna’a great joy, they all showed genuine enthusiasm for the purchase, none of them flashing a smirk as though they were buying it as some sort of ironic joke.

As online writers, we here at SoraNews24 don’t get many opportunities to directly interact with fans, so Ikuna’s had an extra spring in her step ever since the event, and she extends her thanks once again to the new owners of her standees, while also wondering if maybe she could have found buyers for all 15 of them if she’d had the items ready to go and put the word out a little earlier. As for what to do with the remaining stock, Ikuna is looking for some special way to make use of them, and maybe at some point in the future we’ll see the Ikuna Acrylic Mini Standee-Laugh Line Ver. too.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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