Pop Mart opens its first Chugoku-Shikoku store, taking a floor at Hiroshima Parco

Pop Mart will open its first store in Japan's Chugoku-Shikoku region on 28 August, taking a second-floor unit inside Hiroshima Parco's main building, according to a release from Pop Mart Japan.

The new store, Pop Mart Hiroshima Parco, will open daily from 10am to 8.30pm at the Naka Ward address, the company said, carrying the collectible art-toy retailer's usual mix of blind-box figures and vinyl collectibles across IPs including Dimoo, Skullpanda and Crybaby, alongside Pop Mart's Pixar collaboration line.

Pop Mart is running an opening-week incentive, offering a limited-run Crybaby file case with purchases over ¥10,000 and a limited-run Crybaby cap with purchases over ¥30,000, while stocks last, according to the release.

The choice of anchor tells its own story. Parco has spent the past few years turning character and collectible-toy retail into a core tenant category rather than a novelty corner, and Pop Mart — now present in more than 30 countries via over 630 directly run stores, according to the company — has been one of the fastest-moving brands taking up that floor space. A first foothold in Hiroshima, rather than a second or third Tokyo or Osaka location, is a bet that the format's pull with younger, gift-buying shoppers travels well beyond Japan's two largest retail markets.