One topic that often goes overlooked when discussing the history of fumos is Gift's past and its origins as a company.
For those unfamiliar with it, Gift is a well-known Japanese company dedicated to the manufacture and sale of figures, anime-related merchandise, and collectible plushies.
The company was founded on December 27, 2007, by Genji Kaneko, known as "Kanegon," who continues to serve as Gift's director. The company gained widespread popularity thanks to the creation of its Fumo plushie line in 2008, known for featuring a wide variety of Touhou Project characters. Over the years, its catalog has expanded to include characters from other anime and video game franchises.
However, fumos were not Gift's starting point. Initially, Kanegon wanted the company to focus primarily on the collectible figure market. In fact, one of the first figures produced by the company was Saber, a character from the Fate series.
This decision was no coincidence, as before founding Gift, Kanegon had worked at Solid Theater, a company operating in the same industry. During that time, he frequently published blog posts on AkibaBlog about figures, collectible merchandise, and company-related news.
Among all his projects, one in particular would attract considerable attention. On August 4, 2007, Kanegon published a blog post featuring a plushie of Amico-chan, AmiAmi's main mascot. The plushie wore the classic outfit that characterized Amico at the time, along with a pair of dark blue pantsu.
Initially, only 100 units were planned for production for that year's Wonder Festival. However, this quantity proved insufficient, as every plushie sold out.
Following the success of the first version, Solid Theater released a second Amico-chan plushie on October 1 of the same year. This time, the mascot wore a maid outfit, giving her a different appearance from the first version.
Today, both plushies are extremely difficult to find due to their limited production, making them very rare collector's items.
The existence of these two Amico-chan versions allows us to highlight two important aspects:
1) The relationship between Kanegon and AmiAmi.
The production of these plushies suggests that Kanegon had a good relationship with the store, which could help explain why AmiAmi continues to be one of the main retailers of fumos.
2) Kanegon's first steps into plushie production.
These projects represented some of his earliest experiences in this field. Although there was still a year to go before the appearance of fumos, the experience gained from producing the Amico-chan plushies may have served as a stepping stone toward Gift's future projects.
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