Japon Brand

Japon Brand is a non-profit organization, an collective of Japanese indie designers of board and card games.
Apart from handling the collective annual trip to Essen Spiel, Japon Brand also acts as an intermediary agent when foreign publishers want to license Japanese games without running into the language barrier.

The Japon Brand booth at Essen each year is (in)famous for being crowded at the opening day, as the games brought are limited in quantity. As Japon Brand isn't a publisher per se, each year's lineup will be different, as the participating indie designers vary from year to year.

Most of the games that Japon Brand represent are small-print indie games that are (almost) only available at the Game Market fair in Tokyo and Osaka each year, and are thus generally hard to get by, unless the games are licensed by a foreign publisher. Some of their games, however, can be had at one of these places:

Japon Brand's booth each October at the Spiel game convention in Essen, Germany
Gamestore Banesto, a game store in Nagoya, Japan that carries some Japon Brand titles
BoardGameGuru, a UK-based online retailer
Bambus Spieleverlag, a German publisher that also distributes select Japon Brand titles




About Japon Brand Logo
The logo of Japon Brand is designed with a same concept as the project itself. That is "Being Japanese" in mind. The usage of calligraphy easily depicts Japanese or Asian origin and the handwritten style displays "Expansion and Strength". The logo is painted in vermillion, a color used in Japanese seal or stamp and are considered lucky color if combined with white background.

Microbadge available: