THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Chinese tourists swarmed over the Yorozu and Nagomi duty-free shops at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture on Oct. 7, the final day of a holiday period to celebrate the founding of their nation.
 
Many were drawn to a corner selling a mainstay of generations of Japanese elementary schoolchildren: hard-sided backpacks. The shops carried them in colors such as blue, dark brown and pink, in addition to the ubiquitous black and red.
 
“High-class school bags for children made in Japan,” read a sign in Chinese. Another touted, “These bags will last until children graduate from school even if they are used every day.”
 
These satchels are finding fans in China and even in Hollywood, buoying domestic makers trying to secure new markets in light of a dwindling number of schoolchildren in Japan.
 
Among the customers at Kansai International Airport on Oct. 7 was Liang Yunting, a 23-year-old employee of an apparel company in Guangzhou, southern China.



“I am glad to find one I like. I am going to buy it since the price is reasonable,” the woman said of the red satchel with a bargain price of 12,000 yen ($112).
 
She said she was looking for one for her 8-year-old sister.
 
Liang learned about such backpacks through a Japanese TV drama aired in China.
 
“Many people in China talk about them as heavy-duty bags all Japanese elementary schoolchildren have on their back,” she said. “I am not going to buy one unless it is made in Japan.”
 
Cai Hao, who was visiting Japan along with her family from Beijing, selected a pink backpack for her 4-year-old daughter.
 
“She will use it when she starts going to elementary school,” said Cai, 31. “The design is nice.”
 
The two duty-free shops at the airport sold 16 backpacks altogether, including one with a price tag of 60,000 yen, on that day.
 
Since hitting the shelves in June, sales of school satchels have exceeded the expectations of shop managers. In August alone, more than 200 were sold.
 
Yasujiro Omura, manager of the two duty-free shops, said red backpacks are popular among Chinese shoppers, regardless of gender, since the color is considered auspicious in China.
 
“Some customers ask us to make sure whether the products are made in Japan,” he said. “They seem to like them because they associate Japanese products with high quality.”
 
The popularity of Japanese school knapsacks is spreading even beyond China.
 
A flurry of images of grown-ups in the United States and Europe carrying Japanese-style backpacks as a fashion accessory went online after a U.S. media outlet showed a Hollywood actress sporting one in spring.
 
Late last month, a Hong Kong daily and CNN also covered them as a popular souvenir item from Japan.
 
One customer at the Amazon.com website, which offers Japanese school backpacks, said in English that a daughter is using one. Another rated it as a five-star product, while still another said such a backpack has no trouble holding all the necessary school items.
 
The budding popularity of the school satchels comes as uplifting news to manufacturers and dealers seeing a steady decline in the birthrate at home.
 
There were about 1.09 million Japanese children who began attending elementary school this spring, almost half of the 1.99 million in 1981, when the second generation of baby boomers entered school.
 
According to Yano Research Institute, the market for backpacks for fiscal 2014 is estimated at 25.4 billion yen, down from 26.3 billion yen in fiscal 2009.
 
As the domestic market becomes saturated, retailers are turning their attention to non-Japanese for new customers.
 
The Shinjuku outlet of Isetan department store featured backpacks in a catalog aimed at foreign customers for the first time this month.
 
Seiban Co., a leading manufacturer of backpacks, is considering hiring staff who can wait on foreign customers at its directly managed store in Tokyo's posh Omotesando district.
 
Ikeda Chikyu, a backpack dealer in Osaka, plans to showcase 60 units at a trade fair to be held at a department store in Shanghai from Nov. 3. It is the first time the company will participate in the event.
 
The decision came after the company received a positive response at a similar event in Paris two years ago, where it sold 28 backpacks over a five-day period. Half of the buyers were adults who bought them for their own personal use.
 
“There is a big potential demand (for backpacks) overseas, from children to adults,” said Motonobu Okuda, a 48-year-old who heads Ikeda Chikyu's backpack business department. “I hope that the practice of carrying backpacks will take root in huge markets such as China.”