Cultural Fascination Leads to Growing Media, Retail Firm

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Cultural Fascination Leads to Growing Media, Retail Firm





By CLAUDIA PESCHIUTTA

Staff Reporter

There comes a point when what’s outside the mainstream finally comes in.

It’s often a subtle kind of transition, like the one that leads Eric Nakamura to describe himself as “president, I guess,” of Robot Factory Inc.

What started as a hobby 200 copies of a magazine dealing with underground Asian culture produced on a home computer has evolved into a holding company with a retail operation, e-commerce site and Giant Robot, a glossy, 40,000 circulation quarterly publication.

Nakamura said that Robot Factory is profitable, and while he wouldn’t give specific numbers, he noted that “it’s not this big pile of money.”

Where other entrepreneurs made calculated efforts to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of Asian pop culture, including Pokemon, Tamagotchi (a “virtual pet”) and boba drinks, Nakamura, who collects toy robots that prompted the name for business, is more likely to find it “awesome that people like it. It was a lot of hard work.”

The mini-empire started with Giant Robot in 1994, shortly after Nakamura graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies. Living at home and making little money at his mother’s restaurant, he produced the first issue on a home computer and sold 200 photocopies for $2 each at local shops.

Nakamura, 32, was joined by co-editor Martin Wong, 33, who he had befriended on the local punk rock scene, by the third issue.

“There were other Asian American magazines and they had a voice and that voice definitely wasn’t mine,” Nakamura said. “The punk rock ‘zines had a really good voice, but they didn’t have the subject matter I was interested in.”

Hands-on

Wong and Nakamura provide most of the content for the magazine as well as overseeing art and graphic design. They write about people, books, music, movies and products they like, and complain about things they don’t like, peppering their stories with the appropriate amount of slang and obscenity.

Nakamura was happy to scrape by on the few dollars Giant Robot generated in the beginning. Wong continued working as an editor at McGraw-Hill Companies’ publishing division until a few months ago.

But in 1999 Nakamura moved onto the Internet, setting up giantrobot.com selling books, clothing and music that was all a part of the pop and underground Asian culture scene.

The Giant Robot store, a 750-square-foot shop on a strip of Sawtelle lined with Asian restaurants and stores, opened last fall.

The shelves are filled with colorful T-shirts emblazoned with designs by Nakamura and others, including Tokyo pop artist Yoshitomo Nara. There are dolls, stickers, bags and other products featuring such characters as Afro Ken, the dog with the ever-changing hair-do.

Ryan and Laura Romero were happy to discover the store on a recent evening and decided to do some gift shopping. The couple from Hollywood also signed up for a subscription to the magazine. “It seems like everything is a mascot,” Laura Romero said.

“The hold that Pokemon has on our next generation of Americans is kind of indicative that this is part of our pop culture,” said Jeff Yang, creator of now-defunct aMagazine, which chronicled Asian-American culture. “This is not just Japanese pop culture anymore.”

Less pressure

The successful retail ventures have helped keep the magazine afloat.

Despite an advertising downturn that has forced many larger and better-known magazines to close down in the past year, Giant Robot, which has only 20 percent of its pages devoted to advertising, has weathered the storm through cash generated by the stores.

The magazine has grown “organically,” selling as many copies as are printed, Nakamura said. Giant Robot doesn’t advertise but has a loyal fan base that helps spread the word about the magazine and its shop, he said.

“They were out there early and they just put out this great product,” said Yang. “Giant Robot was the torch bearer in a lot of ways.”

There are other publications about Asian-American culture, such as Yolk Magazine or Monolid, but Giant Robot stands out because of its unorthodox coverage and casual and edgy style. Many advertisers and shops that carry the magazine don’t know how to classify it.

That makes it a tough sell with some advertisers but it also helps the publication appeal to people outside the Asian American community, Nakamura said.

Yang said, “This stuff has moved out of the space of cult appeal and into the mainstream. Now, soccer moms and suburban teens are going to Jackie Chan retrospectives and watching Japanese animation on TV.”

While the business is not generating huge profits, Nakamura is proud to say he’s never missed a bill, bounced a check or taken out a loan for Giant Robot. He has gotten offers to sell the magazine but hasn’t seen one he liked. Investors “just don’t get it,” he said.

And true to its non-traditional origins, the growing Robot Factory conglomerate hasn’t developed a long-term growth plan. But Nakamura would kinda like to open another Giant Robot store.

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