Street talk Store talk

From the Edo to Meiji periods, Osaka flourished as a commercial and industrial city that was the center of Japan's distribution and economy. Then, in the Taisho period, Osaka City expanded twice, becoming the largest city in Japan with a population of about 2.11 million. People proudly called this city "Great Osaka." During this "Great Osaka" period, Semba and Yodoyabashi, located to the north, flourished as financial districts. There have been many merchants here since the Edo period, but the buildings have been modernized over time, transforming into state-of-the-art buildings with reinforced concrete structures that reflect the wishes and tastes of their owners. And even now, about 100 years later, buildings built at that time still exist, although in smaller numbers.
One of these is the Shibakawa Building, a reinforced concrete office building built in 1927 (Showa 2) by Shibakawa Matashiro, the sixth head of the Shibakawa family, a merchant family that has been around since the late Edo period and made its fortune in trading and real estate. The atmosphere of the glorious "Great Osaka" era permeates the entire building, making it a living document of modern Japanese history. In August 2008 (Heisei 18), KANEKO GANKYO-TEN opened across three rooms on the first floor of the building.

Togawa Atsushi, the current manager of the store, says, "The customer base at this store changes drastically between weekdays and weekends. On weekdays, people who work in the area often just drop in. On weekends and Sundays, people who can't come on weekdays make a special trip to come here. Some people even come from far away. One of our customer service roles is to connect these people with products and convey the passion of the makers. Above all, we put communication with our customers first."

The name of the store is "THE STAGE." This is not just one of the many stores across the country for KANEKO OPTICAL.

"What are our origins? What have we done so far and what should we do from now on? We faced many questions and issues that we had at the time, and this place was born as a result. Personally, I still don't feel like I've 'opened a store' in the Shibakawa Building. To be honest, I don't even think of it as a store. So what exactly is this place? I still can't find an appropriate way to describe it," says Shinya Kaneko, the current CEO and creator of the store, about "THE STAGE," a special place that feels like a store but isn't a store. We will touch on the background to its creation and its current location 14 years after it opened.

In 2006, two years before "THE STAGE" was born, Shinya Kaneko 's heart was still wavering. In the aftermath of the collapse of the bubble economy, China took the lead in eyeglass manufacturing, which could produce at low cost, and orders in Sabae City dropped significantly. All the factories in the production area were facing a management crisis. On top of that, there was a serious shortage of labor and successors, and on top of that, the aging of CRAFTSMAN weighed on top of that. The store management, which had already expanded nationwide, was hit by the headwind of the glasses boom, which was backed by price destruction, and sales dropped. In this difficult situation, Kaneko was convinced that providing Made in Japan glasses in Sabae was their lifeline and belief, so he rented a vacant house from a closed eyeglass factory and started an unnamed workshop to train CRAFTSMAN. It was in the midst of such adversity that the first "craftsmanship" in the history of KANEKO OPTICAL began. "It was really tough, but we had a strong sense of mission in terms of having to connect the culture of craftsmanship. After that, we spent several years thinking about how to create the 'behind the scenes' of making our own glasses and the 'front stage' of expressing and conveying that feeling." In 2006, they launched an unnamed workshop. In 2008, they returned to their roots and opened "THE STAGE" as a place to convey what they had to say. Then in 2009, they completed construction of their own full-scale factory, "BACKSTAGE." For KANEKO OPTICAL, those three years were a time of finding answers through hardship and giving them form.

It was a time when Kaneko decided to "return to the origins of craftsmanship and pass on that culture." The opportunity to create "THE STAGE," an important base for this, came in 2007. At the time, a close acquaintance who worked in real estate introduced him to a place in Osaka that Kaneko would like, and he went to the Shibakawa Building. Upon seeing it for the first time, he was overwhelmed by its presence, which still shines despite being built nearly 100 years ago, and was so moved by the weight and strength of the history behind that brilliance that he got goosebumps. And as a person who makes craftsmanship, he was inspired.
"We wanted to continue the tradition of craftsmanship that we should carry on for 100 years, just like this Shibakawa Building. And with unfading charm and strength. Glasses manufacturing in Sabae also began in the late Meiji period, so it was just around the time that we passed 100 years. I felt it was fate. In this place that has the weight and strength of 100 years of history, I want to convey the tradition of glasses manufacturing that KANEKO OPTICAL carries the same 100 years of history. I really thought so."

He created this place while worrying about management and worrying about the future of Sabae. He carefully considered the interior to match the prestigious Shibakawa Building, and thought carefully about everything from the fixtures to the detailed painting and aging process. That is why Kaneko loves it and has a deep attachment to it. For Kaneko, THE STAGE is a space where the culture of the building and the culture of KANEKO OPTICAL intersect and synchronize, and it has become a ``front stage'' that acts as a bridge between makers and customers. Kaneko himself says, ``I don't think of it as a store,'' and it is a place that seems like a store but is not a store. Perhaps it is a ``place to sell your soul'' that cannot be measured by the scale of whether it will sell or not.