Japanese toy company Good Smile secretly funds 4chan

Wired has discovered new documents that reveal the Japanese toymaker Good Smile Company had been funding 4chan. This message board is controversial and filled with hate.

This toy company has a US business. It is most well-known for making anime figurines and other gaming figures. It’s Nendoroid and Figma lines in particular are are popular with collectors for their licensed figures: Good Smile has toy lines for games like Overwatch, League of Legends, Horizon Zero DawnPlease see the following: Cyberpunk 2077. Sega and Nintendo have licensed characters from their franchises, including Mario, Sonic, The Legend of Zelda and Kirby. Nendoroid toys have been licensed by the Walt Disney Company for dozens, as well as Marvel and Star Wars.

Good Smile was required to file documents with the New York General Attorney’s office during an investigation into 4chan’s role in the 2022 racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were killed and three were injured. This document outlines how Hiroyuki Nishimura, 4chan’s owner, purchased the message board from Christopher Poole, 4chan’s creator, in 2015. Wired reports that Nishimura contributed most of the funds for 4chan. Good Smile Company bought a 30% stake in an investment of $2.4 million. He has also been involved with the site for many years.

A Good Smile representative confirmed to Polygon in 2021 that the toy company was a “passive investor” in 4chan, but did not share the scope of the deal. News of the Japanese company’s investment was first alleged in lawsuit filings obtained by Polygon; Good Smile and two of its former employees counter-sued each other over a contract dispute related to a Stranger Things drive-in event. Guy Brand and James Young-sik Kim, the two former employees, also accused Good Smile of tax evasion, discrimination, and selling “over-sexualized anime figures depicting minors.” That’s where the 4chan connection came in, too — Brand and Kim called out the the anonymous image forum for its associations with mass shooters, Q-Anon, and white nationalism. Both men claimed Good Smile operated a 4chan branch in Tokyo’s headquarters. They also claimed they made money from it. The case was eventually settled in court.

The New York attorney general Letitia James will not pursue criminal charges against 4chan or its owners, but “at least one other law enforcement agency is still investigating the website,” Wired reported.

4chan was an unpopular site for many years. However, it came to the attention of the general public after the Buffalo shooting. The shooter’s 180 page manifesto references racism and antisemitism pulled from the site. Many also attribute 4chan to being a fertile ground for QAnon conspiracy theories, white supremacy and propagandism. Surface level, the forum isn’t only used for those reasons — it’s also got gaming, cooking, and entertainment boards. This influence, however, is dangerous.

According to reports, Good Smile may be looking to sell 4chan.

Good Smile’s connections to 4chan have made partners “anxious,” Wired said. Disney, one of Good Smile’s biggest partnerships, will not renew its deal with the toy maker after Wired informed the company of its involvement in 4chan, according to the report. Polygon has reached out to Disney and several other companies — Riot Games, Sega, Blizzard Entertainment, and Nintendo — that have licensed characters for Good Smile’s toys. We’ll update this story when they respond.

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