Airsoft in Japan

Hello there, I don’t usually write my blog posts in english but I think this one deserved to be translated since I put a lot of work in investigating the birth of the thing we know as « airsoft » in a post-WWII Japan and the place it have nowadays in Japanese culture.

Japanese culture as well as Airsoft are two things I really enjoy and I always wanted to cover those matters but didn’t since I used to think wasn’t relevant enough on the subject. But it came to a change after I decided to move in Japan for a whole year with a work holiday visa. Since then, I went to a lot of events and met a tons of people : players, shop keepers and a companies from all around Japan.

Just for context, I’ve been playing airsoft for more than 10 years in my home country of France so a lot of comparisons and parallels will be with the french airsoft culture since it’s what I’m used to but I will try my best to keep it simple and as generic as possible. So buckle up, you’re here for a long one !

Table of content

• A brief history lesson
  • Form Model Guns to Soft Air Guns
  • The infamous Type BV system
  • What’s kicking ?
  • The electric revolution
• Japan laws and regulations
  • Plastic Love
  • Unlimited power
  • Won’t somebody please think of the children!
  • Do you have 5 minutes to talk about ASGK ?
  • A brief talk about licensing and the lack of it
• Airsoft Fields
• It’s all about the game
  • Casual CQB skirmishes
  • MILSIM (Military Simulation)
• Players
• The general public perspective
• Japanese mediums
  • Blogging
  • Magazines
  • Content creators and « influencers »
  • Airsoft in Japanse pop culture
• Shops and stores
  • Major retailers
  • Airsoft dedicated stores
  • Internet !
  • Second-hand market
• Tokyo Marui
  • Clichés and stereotypes
  • Innovations and popularisation
  • Tokyo Marui in 2025
  • The international paradox
• The other Japanese manufacturers
  • The quest of realism
  • 2012’s airsoft gun pinnacle
  • The only one trying
  • The Baton round
  • Heavy is the Crown
• Japanese made gear
  • x115xTaylor
  • 3 MADE ISSUE
  • AEM01’s TacHoodie
  • Honourable mentions
• The contradiction with imported airsoft guns
  • The ostrich-effect
• Exhibits and other events
  • Model & Hobby Show
  • Tokyo Marui Festival
  • SHOT Show Japan, Mechasava and MiniMili
• And what about Model Guns
  • How it works
  • Model Guns in 2025
• Acknowledgements

A brief history lesson

We will go back de the basics and the origins of how airsoft and BB Guns are born. It’s 1958 in a post World War II Japan, after the defeat of the Axis which the Japan Empire was part of, the country is under the United States of America supervision and plenty of rules will be established to avoid the people going rogue and among those is the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law (銃砲刀剣類所持等取締法, Jūhō Tōken-rui Shoji-tō Torishimari-hō) which prevent civilians to posses any weapons.

Numerous guns collectors are against this new set of rules and thus a new market for firearm replicas starts to emerge. Until then, only toys looking crudely as guns were imported from the USA by some Japanese companies which, realizing the growing demand, started to produce replicas themself : first by modifying the US made toys to make them more realistic looking before making their owns. Brands like MGC, Tokyo CMC or Kokusai will then stop importing american toy guns and focus on producing their models, making them more and more convincing looking and integrating new functions to furthermore improve their realistic aspect : the Model Guns were just born.

First anecdote of many to come, a collector by the name of Tazō Kobayashi who was dissatisfied with the finish and realism of MGC produce at that time sent a letter addressing his frustration to the company with a package attached containing a hand carved wooden gun with a removable metal magazine. Tsutomu Jimbo, MGC founder and at this period CEO of the company, was impressed by the replica’s craftsmanship and decided to hire the talented Kobayashi-san. I think will here again from that man in the future ! (foreshadowing at its finest)

Form Model Guns to Soft Air Guns

A few years pass by and a lot of people start to modify Model Guns to make them capable of shooting harmless projectiles propelled by compressed air but still obeying to the firearms regulations.

Those « Air Guns » didn’t shoot BBs at first but small projectiles named Tsuzumi Bullets, vaguely resembling current Wadcutter pellets, were recognizable by their shape similar to a Tsuzumi Drum which will end up in becoming their name. For those more versed in japanese culture, they look a bit more like the Teru teru bōzu (てるてる坊主) rain dolls. By then, no standard was set and each manufacturer was producing their own version of the pellet with sometimes variation in size or head shape.

These first guns replicas with shooting capability were mainly used for target shooting or reenactment as their effective range was very limited. To improve on the matter, Tsuzumi Bullets were replaced with little plastic balls named BBs, Maruzen was the first manufacturer to offer a « BB Gun » using 6mm BBs followed by Marushin which produced BB Guns shooting 6mm and 8mm BBs.

In the early 80s, after a japanese military magazine published an article showcasing paintball games in the USA, the use of BB Guns also known as « Soft Air Guns » slowly evolved from target shooting to a game similar to paintball with players going on small skirmish games on closed fields and kickstarting what’s now called Survival Games or サバゲ (written Savage but pronounced Sabaguey).

The infamous Type BV system

At that time, BB Guns were mostly manually cocked spring powered firearm replicas that we now simply call Spring or Springers until the Type BV system was invented by Saburo Aotani and the Asahi Firearms, a branch of Asahi Shoji Company (not related to the Super Dry beverage) and with it the first BB Guns capable of shooting in automatic with an external pressurized air tank similar to today’s HPA systems.

The Type BV system, BV for Bullet Valve, will use the BB as a valve to pressurize the chamber and shoot it : when the trigger is pressed, pressurized gaz will be released in some sort of nozzle and sometime in the mag to push the BBs and put one in the chamber. This chambered BB will be blocked by a O-ring in the entrance of the inner barrel result in sealing and pressurizing the chamber and pushing the inner barrel forward. The diameter of the front part of the chamber is bigger than the middle section and once the inner barrel reach it, the O-ring will expand and let go of the BB which pushed by the air will accelerate in the inner barrel. Once the pressure is gone, the inner barrel will reset its position thanks to a spring. That’s a quick and crude explanation of the Type BV but to help you visualize it better here some illustrations of the different steps.

This new propulsion system, as innovative as it was on its release, came with a handful of issues :

• It was really gaz inefficient, more so on the first versions without an automatic cutoff : as long as the user kept the trigger pressed the gun continued to release gaz in the chamber wasting most of it in the process
• A lot of consumable were necessary for the system to run, gaz obviously but also oil as the O-ring needed a lot of it to prevent it for wearing too fast
• As the system is pressurized, it was somewhat common for some of its parts to explode, even more so for those where the gaz was used in the magazine to push BBs

The Battlemaster was the first BB Gun relying on the Type BV system and an original design from JAC that loosely looked like an actual gun. The first one based on an actual firearm was another JAC product : the Sterling L2A3. Asahi Firearms then commercialized their FN FNC with introduced an improved version of the Type BV system with a gas cutoff between each shot solving the high gas consumption issue and giving the gun the capability of 3 rounds burst shooting.

The Type BV system may have improved usability, those BB Guns still lacked on precision and effective range. Players took the matter in their own hands and started modding their guns, with a focus on lengthening of the inner barrel thus increasing the power output and performances of the Type BV guns but causing a lot of injuries on players targeted during games and starting what’s been called the Evil High Power Era or « 極悪ハイパワー時代 » (Gokuaku haipawā jidai).

What’s kicking ?

Let’s rewind to the beginning of the 60s. The young enthusiast I mention two paragraph prior, Tazō Kobayashi, was now working at MGC and in 1961 have the though of making Model Gun even more realistic looking by adding a reciprocating slide and ejecting cartridges mechanism. In 1965, he achieve that goal creating the first ever Blow Back Model Gun in the process.

20 years later, in 1985, as the Airsoft Guns are getting more popular than Model Guns, MGC which until that point was reluctant to work on BB Guns finally step into that market with their own design : the M93R semi automatic Non Blow Back pistol whose pressurized air reservoir was contained in the magazine and needed to be fill manually with a pump.

One year later a small company named Tokyo Marui created the first Gas Blow Back Airsoft pistol (or GBB) with their own, very complicated, system requiring a small removable gas tank inserted in the pistol grip where the magazine used to be. The BBs were stored in a long and thin cylinder with a capacity of 15 rounds which then was slipped in a small opening on the rear of the slide. But it doesn’t end there ! In its resting position, the slide was always « pulled » because of the piston spring. Once a gas tank was inserted, the gun will pressurize, filling the chamber, pushing the piston and compressing its spring, pulling the slide forward. The shooting operation is quite similar to a modern GBB with the Blow Back Housing replaced by a Blow Back Chamber. I mean it works I guess but damn its complicated, those guys at Tokyo Marui will not go very far if they still engineer things like that (it pain me to point it out but since we’re on the internet I have to : it’s obviously sarcasm).

The first GBB with what I can call a conventional mechanism will come in 1989 with the Tanaka Works 1911-A1 which will still use a gas tank separated from the magazine. It will be fixed with the release in 1991 of the MGC Glock 17 which was the first to put the gas reservoir and BBs funnel in what’s look like an actual gun magazine. This Glock was a revolution : improving of the GBB system making it more realistic looking and efficient but what set it appart was the fact it was the first ever Glock replica ever ! At first it wasn’t to its advantage, nobody knew what Glock was and a lot of Japanese players and collectors though it looked like a water gun or some sort of cheap toy but after a showcase of its performance and gas efficiency during a Hobby Show where it was put in a device that made it shoot during the whole duration of the exhibition convinced players of its capabilities and the release of the first Die Hard movie will greatly help it getting some momentum.

By the way, the person behind that MGC Glock is non other that the good old Tazō Kobayashi who will end up leaving the company after the release of the Glock 17 and a few year prior MGC bankruptcy to create his own brand : Tanio Koba !

The electric revolution

In the meantime GBB started becoming a thing, a small model kit company that had some hard time finding their place on the market try their luck at airsoft gun making a gas powered Blow Back pistol with an experimental mechanism that will pave the way for the GBB category. But it was years later that their will make their first hit and change the landscape of airsoft guns with an all new propulsion system using a motor powered by NiCd batteries and driving gears to make compression in a pneumatic chamber : the Automatic Electric Gun, shorten as AEG, was here to stay ! You’ve guessed it, that small company is Tokyo Marui and we will of course get in more details later in this blog post.

But it wasn’t enough and few years later Tokyo Marui will patent a new airsoft system based on the Magnus Effect to improve the effective range of the BB guns and named the Hop-Up system. Type BV guns will soon become obsolete and outplayed on a lot of aspect : reliability, skirmish abilities and most of all outright performances. They will inevitably start to fade out and only collectors and enjoyers of weird things will be on the lookout for these.

The next part of the story is quite obvious : airsoft will gain momentum in Japan and the rest of the world, new brands and actors will appear and a lot of them will downright copy Tokyo Marui’s AEG and Hop-Up System to create their own products.

Japan laws and regulations

As any new sport or hobby, at first Survial Game and Airsoft guns had no real set of rules or dedicated regulations : no power output limits or standard on personal protective equipments appart from mandatory protection goggles or mask on most of the fields. But as time passed airsoft guns and Survival Games rapidly grow in popularity and with this an come an increase in incidents and case of BB Guns being misused, the Japanese law was revised numerous times and manufacturers started to ponder on solutions before it went to far.

Plastic Love

A limitation in the use of metal parts for manufacturing pistol replicas already existed in the 70s due to the use of metallic pistol reproductions in various crimes (armed threats, robbery, etc) : manufacturers couldn’t use metal to make external visible parts such as the slide or frame which needed to now be made of plastic. Only exceptions were models where the barrel was filled, at least partially, like for deactivated firearms and that the path most of the Model Guns makers followed. For the companies making airsoft gun who still wanted to produce metal replica, they were required to paint the entire surface of the metallic parts in white or yellow. However, those regulations only applies to pistol or revolver replicas and not to shotgun, SMG or other full size rifles replicas which could remain as faithfull as their counterpart in the material used to build them.

Unlimited power

In the early 90s, with the popularity of modified Type BV guns causing the Evil High-power Era a lot of players, fields and airsoft related companies started setting up rules regarding airsoft guns power output before the Japanese Government get involved and the first proposition came from Arms Magazine who proposed to limit all guns to 1 Joule. It was widely accepted by players affecting greatly Power Up kits sales and the focus was set on external customization instead.

Even if the 1J proposition was respected by the vast majority of players, it wasn’t official or well enforced and some still used high power airsoft guns they modified themself with Power Up kits or bought already with a kit already fitted, causing even more accidents. The Japanese Government had enough of this and updated the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law (銃砲刀剣類所持等取締法) with new regulations on airsoft guns‘ trades, ownership and use. The most important and famous one being the officialisation of the power output limitation to 0.98J for BB guns shooting 6mm BBs and 1.64J for those shooting 8mm BBs. Another major rule was the limitation of buying, selling and owning airsoft guns to people over 18 years old.

Won’t somebody please think of the children!

Younger ones can also play if they are 10 years old or older but must use 6mm airsoft guns that are 0.135J. A lot of fields will allow them to take part on dedicated games where all players, no matter how old they are, use with 0.135J BB Guns.

Do you have 5 minutes to talk about ASGK ?

If you have or had in your possession an airsoft gun made in Japan, its most likely that you saw those 4 letters engraved on it. It’s one of three organisations in charge of the regulations regarding Airsoft and Model Guns in Japan :

• First the ASGK or 日本遊戯銃協同組合 that loosely translate to Japan Toy-guns Cooperative
• The STGA or Safety Toy Gun Association
• And the JASG or 日本エアースポーツガン振興協同組合 for Japan Air Sports Gun

Each of these three entities gather some manufacturers under one umbrella to create regulations on toy gun (airsoft and model) conception, manufacturing process, distribution and end usage. They have all created their owns certifications in form of seals of approval which will be display on the product targeted to show its conformity to the organisation standards and comply with the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law (銃砲刀剣類所持等取締法). And those certifications doesn’t stop to airsoft and Model guns, there also some for protective gear, accessories and even BBs !

As I mentioned it prior, these organisations were founded by various airsoft brands and manufacturers, big names as well as small companies. The ASGK is the older one as it was created in 1974 and brands like Tokyo Marui, Tanaka Works and Western Arms are part of it. Marushin and Tanio Koba (the company not our good old pal Tazō) are members of the STGA while in the JAST we find companies like KSC Japan, Maruzen and Laylax. Those two later organisations, STGA and JAST, were created after some manufacturers had various disagreement regarding CO2 airsoft guns regulations following Arms Magazine published an article about the use of this as a Freon Gas alternative, at that time all manufacturers were more or less members of the ASGK. Until 2019, the three organisations had very different visions on how to regulate CO2 guns but finally end up finding a common ground making things easier for players and fields.

With three big organisations consisting of manufacturers working on regulations we might ask ourself is they’re might not be some conflicts of interests and a way to circumvent the law but contrary to a lot of countries as for exemple France which I’m too well aware of its politics and how its full of white-collar criminals, Japan is far less into skulduggery moves (not than I’m saying there isn’t, far form that) and those groups are officially mandated by the Japanese Government to ensure airsoft longevity and manufacturers survival : we’re talking about firearm replicas in a country where guns possessions by civilians have been ban for more than 70 years and the use of hunting rifles is carefully monitored by authorities, any BB Gun related scandal can bring airsoft down really bad.

A brief talk about licensing and the lack of it

Like a lot of asians airsoft gun makers, Japanese brands don’t give that much of a though about licensing and their toys being considered as « knockoff« , BB Guns as well as Model Guns were always created to reproduce the appearance of real guns for a country that couldn’t possess them no more. Also I want to point out something really important regarding two types of airsoft guns : the replicas and the others, the first one being as its name imply as reproduction of an existing rifle or pistol, the later being an original design that could have bit of inspirations from actual firearms without replicating it.

When the first Model Guns were made in Japan (and only in Japan), firearms manufacturers didn’t mind much of the plastic toys vaguely resembling their guns. But when airsoft started gaining momentum and spreading around the globe, airsoft gun manufacturers number exploded and with them the amount of toys faithfully looking like existing weapons, a lot of gun makers started sulking and thinking it was time to keep under control those replicas using their names and logos without their consent.

With this though the first resellers or « repackers » as we also know them where created, trying to be a bridge between asians toy gun manufacturers and actual gun makers sorting out licensing deals. You know a lot of them : Umarex and its Elite Force child company, Cybergun that’s now been replaced by EMG, those companies that are the first to whine about « knockoff » produced by asian companies of gun they have the licence for while simultaneously ripping off existing designs from, let’s say a Japanese company based in Tokyo, asking Chinese companies manufacture to those and then selling them for far cheaper than the original airsoft gun because they did no R&D whatsoever… sorry for that, let’s get back on track with these licensing matters.

First thing first regarding intellectual property and furthermore licensing there are two important aspects to differentiate :

• Trademark for brand name, their logo and thus markings of the gun
• Trade dress for the shape and global look of the gun, in one word the design

On a side note, there’s often a big difference in markings for a licensed product and a knockoff with the later being more « faithfull » to the real product and the licensed one replacing or adding legal markings. The reason behind this is that more than often the real manufacturer want to avoid confusion between his actual product and its replica for airsoft, that’s why it’s so common for a « 5.56 Cal » to become a « 6mm BBs » or a « Licence provided by XXX » engraving added to the airsoft version. That’s also without taking countries like Germany and their regulations into account like the mandatory markings and seals they impose on airsoft guns. A typical case of this is the well know Unity FAST Micro Mount produced under licence by PTS and counterfeited by WADSN among others : there’s a big difference in marking, the PTS adding a « For airsoft use only » on the bottom of the mount but also the first batch the screw were different replacing the Torx head with an Allen one. The WADSN product doesn’t bother with all that jazz, it’s a carbon copy of the real one. But to be fair, I used to got both of them and the anodisation and markings engraving quality is far better on the PTS than the WADSN.

To sum things up, an airsoft gun based on a real gun design is still considered as a knockoff even it doesn’t have the markings. The Tokyo Marui Five-Seven GBB have markings resembling the FNH one with a different text but the gun itself have the same design of the actual FN5-7 thus it is considered as a knockoff. On the other side of the spectrum, the WE GP1799 GBB take design hints of the Glock 17 and the Walther P99 without copying any of those and will not be considered as neither a knockoff or a gun replica. Those licensing matters reminds us of the « Glock Drama » that took place few years prior, around 2018, that I covered on this blog in an article in French (sorry not sorry).

In Japan for the year 2025 we have a bit of everything regarding licences : companies playing more or less by the rules like Laylax who is the official distributor for SigAir and Krytac licensed guns in Japan, other that are caught between two stools like KSC Japan selling airsoft guns replicating real ones with and without licences and finally those that tread carefully like Tokyo Marui who, at the moment, doesn’t have any partnership with any gun makers to build and sell licensed products.

Licences are not an issue for them as long as another Japanese airsoft gun company got the right to produce and sell licensed products for the domestic market like its the case right now for Laylax with SigAir, Marushin with FN Herstal and Cybergun for the Five-seveN and it the past Western Arms and Beretta. That’s the reason Tokyo Marui Five-seveN has fake markings that ressemble in style the real one or their P320 GBB released in October 2025 lack Sig Sauer logos. And you might ask yourself « does it really matter, they will not go on court for something like that » let me tell you it already happen in the past when in 1997 Western Arm and Beretta took legal actions against KSC Japan for making airsoft gun wearing Beretta markings and thus being a knockoff of their products.

For the rest of the world, Japan airsoft guns are designed and made solely for their domestic market therefore manufacturers don’t bother much with licensing and if they should or not put markings even though they’re fully aware that exporting companies will do it for them.

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Now the history and legal lessons are done, let’s get to the heart of the matter : what’s airsoft culture looks like in 2025′ Japan !

Airsoft Fields

Most of the airsoft fields in Japan are privately owned and managed, more than often by small companies as it is the case for a lot of countries. Even if a small portion of those field are owned and handled by shops like SFBC Battlecamp in Ōsaka Nipponbashi area, most of them will be managed by really small team and some by one person only as it is the case for Borderzone Survival Camp, a field in the mountains at the west of Kyoto.

The big difference here is the space available : Japan is known for its cramped cities and optimizing the best they can the space available thus most of the fields are on the small side, one of the biggest one being around 2 to 3 acres and located in Chiba prefecture. Hence almost all fields here are CQB (Close Quarter Combat) or CQB oriented with action focusing on small range skirmishes making the use of the Japanese airsoft guns « low » power output easier, mid range to long range fights being pretty rare if not nonexistent at all.

A lot of places being really in tight environment, a new type of field and games appeared : Ultra-CQB where fighting distance rarely exceed 5 meters on fields designed as labyrinth almost similar to something we all know as Speedsoft. A lot of fields in other countries try to recreate this Japanese style Ultra-CQB games such as Takoyaki CQB, a indoor field near Paris that closed after the Covid pandemic.

There are two types of fields : outdoor and fully indoor. The outdoor fields are for the most part on cities outskirt or deep in the countryside / in the mountains, offering a bigger playable area (to Japanese standards) but requiring a vehicle to get there. Fully indoor fields are more common in cities in dedicated structures or in the basement of buildings and will often be Ultra-CQB fields.

Most of those fields are open almost all week long, closing for 1 or 2 days. To be able to play on open games you’ll have to book time slots for 1h, 2h or the whole day. You can also rent the entire field for similar span to play with your mates. Obviously, it will get expensive the more you want to play.

By the way for the vast majority of fields open on week days, the only available option will be the field rental one, open games mostly take place on weekends. That’s espacially true for fields located in city centers where group of pals, newbies without any gear or experience as well as regulars armed to the teeth, will come to play a few games between them after a day of work. All of the fields have equipment rental options from the basics like airsoft guns and protection googles to some nice things to have like mouth protections and gloves.

It’s all about the game

Gameplay-wise, how are things in Japan ? Well we can divide game types in two categories : classic games which are on the casual side with video-games/FPS like modes and then MILSIM oriented games which is kinda totally different from what we used to.

Casual CQB skirmishes

Nothing out of the ordinary here, it’s the usual team-deathmachtes, search & destroy or capture the flag modes with a lot more funky variants. It’s as standard as it get but it works and has been played since the first Survival Game matches so why bother, furthermore it pairs really well on the small airsoft fields Japan is full of.

MILSIM (Military Simulation)

On the other hand MILSIM is something else. Since Japanese airsoft guns are really low powered and a lot of MILSIM players use GBBRs to emphasize on realism and immersion, the rules are a bit different and laser devices similar to those used in laser tag games are fitted to player gear to make medium and long range fights more doable (as much as the field size enable those « long range » skirmishes).

What was that now, lasers ? Yep, each player will be equipped with one emitter, often dressed up as suppressors and triggered after a shot, and multiple receptors placed on the head and torso of each player.

For al lot of people in Europe and in the USA, it will seems closer to a large scale laser tag match than an airsoft game but in Japan it’s a needed compromise to be able to enjoy the few scarce games on bigger fields lent for a given period by municipalities or private owners and often located in forest or in the mountains. BBs will then be benched to avoid accidents with unwary hikers and keep garbage to a low.

All in all, it’s still reenactment or LARPing then can be considered as MILSIM, the day will kinda go the same with maybe less vehicles than something like Border War but not every MILSIM event has to be a large scale airsoft mega game with 10 tanks and 4 choppers you know.

Players

Japan counts a lot of airsoft players that’s for sure, sometimes some of them group up to make what we can call teams whereas they’re just a bunch of friends with a similar dresscode or people forming an unit with MILSIM events and reenactment in mind. It’s hard to list Japanese player profiles as there’s a really a lot of resembling yet different ones but I still managed to spot some similarities on players’ expectations and habits.

Airsoft guns : form before function

Let’s start with a shocker (or not if you read the historical part of this article) : upgrading the internal parts of the guns is not a common thing along Japanese players. A lot of shops offer a wide variety of upgrades parts even including brushless motors or MOSFET in some stores but for the most part, Japanese people don’t meddle that much with their guns, only a small part of mechanics and mad scientists will spend a lot of time and money to turn their anemic AEG into a proper blaster (still shooting around 0,98J tho).

New anecdote, the first brushless motor dedicated to an airsoft use was produced and sold by Option No.1, a Japanese brand, oh the irony.

That comes to no surprise when we take Japanese regulations into account : you can’t do anything that will increase the muzzle velocity neither changing the spring to a stronger one or increasing the length of the inner barrel. And after adding fields size to the equation, it makes out of the box performances enough to play and have some fun on most Survival Game fields.

And what you’re supposed to do with all that unspent money, save it ? WRONG ! You throw it all on external parts and various accessories. And on that exercice Japanese players are full of ressources bringing out a lot of builds, sometimes focusing on realism with accessories and parts made for real guns costing more than the airsoft gun itself and on the other hand one of a kind builds inspired by movies, shows and video-games or totally made up. You can get of good glimpse of it in the Guns section of the photography blog sg-fashion-snap but we will come back to that later.

Gear : no compromise

To stay in the throw the money mood, let’s talk about gear and once again when it come to tactical equipment some Japanese players spare no expense and pick products from some renown brands like Ferro Concept and Crye Precision. Of course a lot a replicas (or knockoff, call it how you want) are available and all the Japanese airsofters don’t wear a full G3 set, with a LBT-6094 plate carrier and a OPS Core Fast ceramic helmet but I noticed some kind of trend among players, LARPers as well as casual ones : they tend to buy high-end products for the alleged quality aspect instead of going cheap that will wear faster. And that’s not only the case for airsoft, I saw a similar behavior on a lot of other outdoor activities such as camping, hiking, mountaineering and even in motorcycle gear !

Outfits : from LAPD to Gundam

Regarding the kits they source and put together, Japanese players are once again very resourceful. In the same fashion that for the custom realized on airsoft guns they can go any route from pretty realistic kits to weird ones, from really simple look outfits to « why this dude has two miniguns mounted on his shoulders », to a LAPD officer to OMAGAD IS THAT A GUNDAM ?!?

Okay I may have overhyped the thing, it’s true that there’s a fair amount of player putting a big effort in making their kits but that’s not the whole picture most of them will have a far simpler gear, sometime just the bare minimum just to play. But overall I must say it’s kinda refreshing, the current trend in Europe and the North America is « Tacticool Operator » kits made by people that think very high of themselves because they watch a -random operator turned instructor-‘s videos on YouTube and now feel more qualified to talk about actual firearms but spend most of their time taking picture in their Gucci-tier gear than actually playing and using it, afraid to wear it out… Well I’m kinda acting like an old fart here, what really matter is that people enjoy airsoft the way they like it as long as they’re not a nuisance to the other and I think Japanese players are a good exemple of that mindset well summed by french airsoft blogger and YouTuber Ding Chavez’s motto : « Play seriously without taking yourself too seriously« .

What about HPA ?

HPA became a must in the North America ans Europe since the first Polarstar engine hit the market more than 10 years ago and now there’s a lot of different systems from various brands, from AEG gearbox drop-in ones to GBBR magwell adapters that can convert your gas airsoft gun to HPA without losing blow back and changing all the valves on your mags. That’s why for a lot of people around the Atlantic ocean it would be unimaginable that an entire country mostly composed of CQB fields would leave such an incredible system aside.

Well guess what, Japan is that kind of country ! Yeah no shit, you saw that coming after all that build up. Even though it’s not that uncommon to find HPA kits and accessories in a some shops as well as players using HPA converted GBBs and GBBRs it’s only a small percentage of the Japanese airsoft community, this mean of propulsion being banned by a lot of fields due to some bad memories of the Evil High-Power Era.

It’s because of that period and some events that happen around the beginning of 2000 and involving some heavily modified airsoft guns running on CO2 in various criminal actions that HPA has a bad reputation and considered a dangerous and used by cheaters system so much that all devices relying on an external tank (CO2 or HPA) were closely monitored by the authorities and three regulation bodies (ASGK, STGA and JASG). Nowadays CO2 is back on the Japanese airsoft menu after some revisions to the Firearm Possession Control Law allowing players to use the gas again as long as it is contained in small canisters, the laws now focusing on airsoft guns using external tanks and regulators that enable player to adjust the power output of their BB gun which HPA systems heavily rely on.

Except for a few fields that allow players to use HPA systems at the expense of restrictive rules and controls, the use of such tech as scarce as airsoft guns upgrade, maybe even more, for the same reasons : if on our side of the globe HPA systems are idolize as being the apex of outright performance and consistency against other means of propulsions, the same cannot be said here in Japan where those don’t really matter since fields are cramped and power output limitations quite restrictive. A lot of players won’t bother which such devices that are either far more expensive than a basic AEGs for beginners or lacking realism because of the cord for LARPers. And disregarding players experience, a lot of them don’t want a system as constraining and kept under surveillance as HPA is in Japan and that will stop them to play on a lot of fields.

And the rest of the world ?

Some may ask themself : okay but what about the rest of the world ? What airsofters in Japan think of the way we play it in [insert any country other than Japan here] ? Well at first nothing much. I mean it’s not like the majority of players from other countries give a damn about Japan’s Survival Game, some like myself do but we’re not the norm. It doesn’t mean they’re not interested though, quite the contrary in a lot of conversations I had with players and people that revolve around Survival Game they were really curious to know if airsoft was popular outside of Japan, if Tokyo Marui was a famous and renown brand and of course how we play and if the rules are the same.

It was funny to their reactions when told about the power output limit in different countries of Europe like the 2J limit in France and the fact that some countries play above that, crazy mechanics making build as stupid as they are effective and of course the size of the fields we are so used to and take for granted. They’re a bit worried by the muzzle velocity being above the 0.98J their used to but were relieved to hear that most of the field (at least in France) have rule regarding the distance you can shoot people depending on how hot is you muzzle velocity.

Long story short, they’re do like anyone else would do in that situation : if that down to them they’re not likely to dig informations on how airsoft is enjoyed outside of Japan but if they meet an airsofter from another country they will have a lot of question. By the way, the people I talked to seem really glad to the a player from another country having an interest in Japanse airsoft and we’re happy to answer a lot of my questions even though my Japanese was not that great.

The general public perspective

And what the rest of the country think about those people and their plastic toy guns shooting 6mm plastic pellets ? That they’re a bunch of kidults who better get over this idiotic hobby ? Or maybe that they’re frustrated military wannabes ? Dangerous individuals looking forward the next civil war even ? Wait no that how the mainstreams mediums saw it in France, my bad…

No in Japan many of the people not playing don’t care or don’t think much of it. In a country where a lot of hobbies revolving around model kits exist and there’s a ton of subcultures it’s not that surprising. For the most part, Survival Game will be seen as what paintball or laser-tag are in other countries : something you do once in a while with a bunch of mates. An for the more involved players, they’re will be just more people dumping a lot of cash in yet another money pit hobby.

Of course, it’s not a norm and every Japanese have their own thoughts on airsoft and some may share the views I’ve listed in the first paragraph of this part but they’re clearly outnumbered. We’re talking about the country that created Survival Game and produced the first truthful firearms models a few year after WWII was over, Airsoft and Model guns are well established in Japan while in my homeland of France where it landed during the 90s and grown massively in popularity in the 2010s which can explain why people find it weird or disturbing, maybe both.

Japanese mediums

There’s a subject I cannot avoid when talking about airsoft in 2025 : it’s the different mediums that revolve around it. YouTube obviously but also blogs, magazines and two things that Japan is well known for : Anime and Manga.

Blogging (because it’s always fun to write things on the internet)

Let’s start with what I know best : blogs. And if there is one Japanese blog known all around the world it’s hyperdouraku ! That’s a name you saw here and there on this blog post already but also on some old articles. Hyperdouraku is a website where you’ll be able to find news, reviews and events reports for all that is airsoft and Survival Game related. For the nostalgic or the curious ones, there’s a « Vintage » section with old BB guns reviews and that will teach you a fair bit on Japanse airsoft history. They will often work with illustrators for other part of the website like the « Storytime » section that talk about firearms seen in movies and shows and often available in a 6mm BBs shooter version but also « Airgun review » that will briefly present an airsoft gun if the form of a comic. And that’s just a few part of that incredible website ! Though the blog is only available in Japanse without any translation module available, the only alternative is your browser’s built-in translation engine that will more than often do the trick even if they prone to break the web page layout.

I’ve mentioned it on few occasion but now let’s talk more about SG-Fashion-Snap, a photo blog dedicated to players gear and custom and whose headline is « Make yourself look neat even when you are in the combat« . It’s managed by a lot of photographers that go to most of the big Survival Game events, mainly around Tokyo, to shoot (with their camera) players with well made outfits and nicely put together airsoft guns. That website and its content is liquid Survival Game for me, representing the essence of Japanese airsoft.

But I doesn’t end with those two, blogging in Japanese culture is really popular and play a major role in airsoft mediums. A lot of enthusiasts have blogs updated daily on various subjects such as Survival Game, Model Guns, tactical equipment and sometime all of those like EVOLOG does. Shops are also on the blog ship often linked directly on their main website whereas they have an actual store or just an online shop: take a look at MIL-FREAKS, AIRSOFT97, pradva or even ORGA Airsoft for exemple. A lot of blogs share a common feature : they are using the Military Blog platform, a web solution that hosts and indexes blog created by its users allowing them to post their content without the fear of it being take down or their account to be banned (those who post airsoft content on Meta social networks I feel you).

Magazines

You think blog are outdated ? Well Japan has more in stock in term of old mediums : magazines ! Yup, you read it right, the good old piece of plastified paper. Some of you may say « Well in my country too there are airsoft magazines available » and fair enough but that’s probably a niche. If I take France for exemple, back in the day we had some different titles available in shops and newsagents, titles like RED DOT Magazine, Airsoft Addict or even 0’20 Magazine. But with internet growing and a shift in consumer habits, all of those titles have been axed except 0’20 Magazine that still exists in an online and global version translated in multiple languages.

But things are quite different in Japan where magazines existed almost since the beginning and are still getting printed. That’s the case for the mythical Arms Magazine, created in 1987 and released monthly, it treats subjects like airsoft guns, gears, fields or events but also share the last trends in the tactical world, for the civilian market as well as the military stuff. The main target being men, the magazine will feature a gravure photos section with models posing in tactical gear. The magazine released its 450th issue in October of 2025 !

Another famous name in the Japanese airsoft magazine scene is Peace Combat, it’s kind of the same recipe as Arms Magazine with maybe more gravure content, at least I would say so. Luckily for the prudish ones, 0’20 Magazine is there to get thing back to macho-man in full gear… wait 0’20 Magazine ? Yeah as I was saying in the first part of this section, after a first attempt at making localized physical magazines the spanish editor behind 0’20 Company relaunched the magazine in an online version available in English, Spanish and French. And in the collaborators list of this new rendition we can spot SG-Fashion-Snap who have their own section in the last pages of the magazine in where they share photos and player profiles that can often also be found on their website.

The collaboration between airsoft magazines and other content creators is quite common : obviously there the SG-Fashion-Snap and 0’20 Magazine one but the people running the photography blog also works with Peace Combat and Combat Magazine (which feature more around military and tactical than airsoft). In a similar matter a lot of Hyperdouraku writers work with various magazines, what a small world !

Content creators and « influencers »

« Influencers », even though I hate this term it’s quite self-explanatory in telling the impact today’s content creators have on people. Of course there’s plenty of those in Japan too, making videos or posting pictures on various social networks.

And the first and probably most famous Japanese airsoft content creator is none other than MachSakai who you might know his smiley face if you’re often watching airsoft videos on YouTube, the website regularly suggesting his content. So MachSakai is the head honcho of the Japanese airsoft YouTube game and he does know it, posting review of newest releases as well as old and out of the attic BB guns while also testing airsoft replicas targeting the 10 years old players : as long as it pick his « interest » he will do a video on it.

But of course he’s not the only one reviewing airsoft guns and gear, there’s a load more people producing similar content like for exemple Osumi-mama (おすみママ). Behind that name is the person managing the 41PX store chain and posting on their YouTube channel overview videos and coverage of a handful of events. Sasugo is also on this train but also releasing VLogs more ore less talking about Survival Games. There’s also Japanese videographers making more tactical, firearms or hunting oriented content such as Sato Hunt who lives abroad in the USA and is often invited as a guest to a lot of events such as Mechasava. Numerous shops and stores also post content on YouTube on their own channel.

Last but certainly not least we have another category of content creators as particular as they are popular and common on a lot of video and livestream services : VTubers ! I will not go into much details and explain what is VTuber but here’s the Wikipedia page for the curious ones. And in this special category there is Irodori Mayoi (彩 まよい), a « Military » VTuber or « ミリタリーVTuber » as her channel name suggest even though it’s more like a lore than her actual job. So this content creator has a virtual approach to Survival Game, using VR to enjoy airsoft or making event report videos, she also produce classic VTuber content. And keep her name in the back of your head, it will come back later in this article !

Most on my focus went on YouTube but there other video services exclusive to Japan, the most famous being NicoNicoVideo (ニコニコ動画), on whose we can also find airsoft and Survival Game related content but most of the Japanese airsofters will use YouTube to watch and publish videos. As for streaming services like Twitch, Kick or YouTube (again) it didn’t seems like there’s a lot of airsoft content produced on those platforms.

For the people who may ask for TikTok I’m sorry to say I don’t have the answer : I didn’t really checked the service for answers neither I wanted to since I don’t have any interest on that social network. Speaking of social networks, a lot of content creators, shops and blogs also have accounts on most of them, TikTok yes but also Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, the later being the most popular and used of the bunch.

Airsoft in Japanse pop culture

Let’s end this mediums section with a massive part of Japan Pop-culture which are manga and anime. If you’re into those, you may have saw BB guns here and there on some known titles but those focusing on airsoft or Survival Game are quite uncommon. In this niche the more popular titles probably are Aoharu x Kikanjuu (Aoharu x Machinegun), Sabage-bu! (Sabagebu!: Survival Game Club!) or even Stella Jogakuin Koutou-ka C³-bu (Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C³), this last one including Tokyo Marui as a member of its production partner committee.

That’s for the big titles that have already achieved significant commercial success. However, within the amateur and self-edited scene more commonly known as doujinshi the volume of work is exponentially larger. It is virtually impossible to provide an accurate count or document every single collection that exists. Finally, unlike other mediums I mentioned previously, these works are not necessarily the primary drivers behind the airsoft popularization in Japan. Nonetheless, Survival Game is frequently featured across various titles, whether it serves as the main theme or just a brief segment where the protagonists engage in a game.

Shops and stores

As you might expect, buying airsoft guns and gear in Japan is not complicated at all. Naturally, there are dedicated physical shops as well as online stores packed with a massive selection of BB guns, accessories and equipment. However, it’s actually quite common to find replicas even in large chain stores like Joshin or Don Quijote. You can even order them directly from Amazon Japan. And the greatness doesn’t end when it comes to the second-hand market : it is entirely possible to buy or sell used gear on a handful of dedicated websites or in specialized second-hand stores !

Major retailers

As mentioned in the introduction, it’s possible to find airsoft sections in certain large chain stores such as the two I cited above: Joshin especially in stores featuring a Hobby/Kids Land section or Mega Don Quijote (by the way, be careful if you’re staying in a Donki for too long, the store music might drive you crazy!).

However, these sections are often quite limited and rarely offer a varied selection : you will primarily find BB guns for kids aged from 10 to 18 years old (spring, revolvers, and sometimes even AEPs or AEGs), gas blowback pistols (GBBs) and a few conventional AEGs and GBBRs. Naturally the most widely stocked brand is Tokyo Marui but you might occasionally stumble across KSC Japan, G&G Armament, or even Arcturus. As for accessories and spare/upgrade parts these aren’t typically the places where you’d find them but it’s not entirely impossible either : the Joshin near my place of residence offers a decent selection though it is one of the rare locations to do so among the dozen stores of the chain present in Kyoto. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive catalog or one oriented toward a more adult public and able to play with a power output exceeding 0.135 joules it will be more relevant to visit one of the many airsoft dedicated stores in Japan.

Airsoft dedicated stores

Okay now that’s something else, Japan is on another level for this one as a lot of dedicated stores have a massive inventory. When I was in Tokyo for the Hobby Show and TM Festival, I jumped on the chance to explore a load of shops in Akihabara and was blown away by what I saw there, especially in the 41PX store where the parts catalog was quite impressive. Of course I visited Echigoya, a shop as old as airsoft itself. Two stores located one on top of the other (on different floors I mean) leaved a mark on me for their friendliness and nice inventory despite their small size, those stores being Military Shop MAITRI and AIRSOFT97. But there are some awesome shops even outside of Tokyo, like for exemple a shop named Pravda located south of Kyoto specialized in Eastern Bloc replicas and accessories while also offering a good variety of accessories and upgrade parts of all kinds. They were the only store offering LCT airsoft guns among all the shops I visited. Still in Kansai area, Strike Force Back-up Company is largely present in the Namba/Nipponbashi part of Osaka with a lot of stores, a Survival Game field, a shooting range and even a café ! One last one for the road, situated just steps away from Suehirochō Subway Station in Tokyo, MIL-FREAKS offers a wide range of real gear as well as reproductions complete with authentic markings !

You get the idea, many of these airsoft dedicated shops offer a much wider selection than the mainstream chain stores : in term of available airsoft guns Tokyo Marui is consistently far in the lead (understandable, as they are on their own turf) while G&G and Arcturus also remain part of the selection. I was able to see many Krytac, VFC, Double Eagle, or Archwick replicas as well. Some stores even offered the very recent Salvo Precision MCX GBBRs (whose internal is yet another copy of the ZET System) and E&C MCX Airsoft AEGs ! On the other hand there was almost no sign of Maruyama which is quite disappointing for a brand that claims to be ‘Japanese’ (yes, I know it’s VFC dressed in a kimono calm down fanboys).

The upgrade parts selection was not lacking either with Laylax and all its satellite brands (Nineball, Prometheus, etc.) easily available as well as other Asian brands like Maple Leaf. Regarding spare parts those from G&G Armament were the most frequent on the shelves, well ahead of Tokyo Marui ones.To stay on the topic of upgrades I was a little disappointed to see very few MOSFETs or brushless motors. The small number of shops that did offer them usually only had a couple of items from a single manufacturer, with Gate leading the pack but I did manage to find some Perun V2 Pro for 22,800¥ at AIRSOFT97 which stocked a small part of that brand’s catalog. I could continue to list all the cool things I found in these shops but they are not the norm and represent only half of what available in Japan.

The other type of shops closely resembles what I consider as the vast majority of airsoft stores are outside of Japan (well at least in France) with a catalog limited to just a few brands often being the same ones. Here it will still be the manufacturer with the blue oval logo that occupies the shelves (and I’m not talking about Ford). As a foreigner you find this cool at first but after visiting two or three stores with the exact same items in the displays the novelty quickly wears off. The lack of variety makes itself cruelly felt to the point that you might almost start thinking that the shops back home aren’t so bad after all… well, that is until you see the prices being charged and remember that the exchange rate between Euro/Dollar and Yen is stupidly in our favor.

While less specialized in airsoft and more focused on gear, particularly old military equipment, you can find many surplus stores in Japan. They stock equipment of the Jieitai (自衛隊, the Japan Self-Defense Forces), as well as gear from other countries covering different historical periods. This is a good opportunity to reiterate on a brief historical point: Japan was part of the Axis alongside Germany and its dismal and small-mustached leader. Therefore it’s quite common to come across clothing featuring insignia where eagles are perched on top of black symbols. This is generally not an issue for anyone there which can feel completely out of step with our occidental perspective where the wearing and display of such symbols are formally prohibited and closely monitored in a lot of countries.

To conclude this part, some of those stores have a second hand section where you can find used airsoft guns, various parts and even some gear.

Internet !

I’ve talked a lot about physical stores but we are in the year 2025, most people do their buy their stuff online and airsoft is no exception. However, one well-known fact about Japanese websites is they are very ‘Windows 98’ looking and their User Experience (UX) is straight from the Stone Age. Unfortunately this is also true for airsoft and the numerous Japanese web shops which fall into this same shameful category. Even if many of them have made an attempt to modernize, prioritizing form over function, and the user often ends up facing a convoluted mess hidden a falsely contemporary design. And I won’t even mention how they perform on mobile devices.

However the online catalogs remain very well-stocked and varied, even more so than in the physical stores. The catch is that if you want to order you will either need to learn Japanese or interpret the approximate transcriptions of translation engines. But the real challenge of ordering from abroad often lies in shipping options as most of the eshops require to have an address within Japan. Fortunately, some package forwarding services like Tenso exists and recently Impulse101 also offer that kind of support though I would recommend to contact them beforehand, they will often be able to find what you want for a better price by looking in the right places.

As I mentioned in the introduction, you can also order a lot of gear and airsoft guns on Amazon.co.jp ! Yes, you can purchase Tokyo Marui, Marushin or KSC Japan stuff on the Japanese version of Jeff Bezos website. But once again the delivery is restricted exclusively to addresses within Japan.

Before going onto the next and last section of this shops and store part of the article, I must mention Impulse101 again. This site was founded a long time ago by a Frenchman (the veterans among you might even remember ‘Pulse Japan‘) and specializes in exporting Japanese airsoft products, particularly Tokyo Marui replicas. It has enabled many Europeans and Americans airsoft players to access products from different Japanese manufacturers as well as other rarities found only in Japan such as the Marushin Mateba revolver that I reviewed here 8 years ago.

Second-hand market

Here again we can see how notable the difference in perception of airsoft is between Japan and some other countries : the second-hand market. As I mentioned in the last part of the section on stores, some of them offer second-hand sections and will buy back your old equipment. There are also quite a few second-hand dedicated websites and stores where airsoft guns and gear can be found.

For the websites there is the classic Yahoo Auctions which works like eBay but the company also offers a Vinted-like service called Yahoo Furima (for ‘Flea Market’). There is also Mercari a sort of Japanese equivalent of Craigslist. As a foreigner though you can forget using these sites : to buy or sell things you have to create an account and verify it via an application that can only be downloaded from a Japanese App Store or Play Store, you also have to meet other criteria such as having been a resident for more than 6 months or possessing a residence card. In any case they are not accessible from abroad without using a VPN.

Regarding physical stores and outside of the specialized shops there is a store chain in Japan named Book Off. Mainly specialized in the sale of books, DVDs, CDs, video games or goodies related to Otaku culture, they have eventually diversified by creating many other stores focusing on other niches such as the second-hand clothing stores Mode Off, Off House for everything related to furnishings and household supplies, Liquor Off for more or less prestigious alcohol, and Hard Off … where you can find absolutely everything.

I don’t know for other countries but in France these kind of stores don’t necessarily have a great reputation, between the prices charged which are often far too high and the bad general condition of the items sold, they are rather poorly regarded and rightly so. But this is not the case at all for the items you can find in Book Off which are quite popular stores with both locals and tourists for their wide selection, very attractive prices and above all prices that are aligned with the actual condition of what is being sold. Speaking of condition there again it has nothing to do with second-hand stores I’m used to in France : either we (French people) are rough with our belongings or the Japanese are quite careful with their possessions (probably a bit of both).

If you’re looking to buy second hand airsoft stuff, focus on those three franchises within the Book Off group :

• Hard Off stores, where it is sometimes possible to find replicas but that’s not a given
• Hobby Off which, as the name suggests, specializes in everything related to models can also include airsoft guns.
• Book Off Super Bazaar which like Hard Off offers a bit of everything and anything (but with a larger focus on Pop-culture related items).

Some Off House stores might occasionally have airsoft guns or gear for sale. Generally I recommend to take a look I you come across one of these stores when you visit Japan, they truly have everything and you can sometimes stumble upon great surprises (and end up buying something you hadn’t necessarily planned on).

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I think we’re done talking about stores and other shops, let’s now take a lot at a big part of Japanese airsoft landscape with the manufacturers and surely I have to start with this brand, the one without whom airsoft may not be there today, I’m obviously talking about…

Tokyo Marui

Oh Marui… it’s the new tread for airsofters to badmouth Tokyo Marui and prove they’re better than all the TM enjoyers or « fanboys » as they call them. And it’s quite easy for them to do so now that VFC finally makes reliable GBBRs, Silverback produces bolts that far above the iconic VSR platform and the quality/price/performance ratio of Cyma AEGs is very hard to beat in Europe at least. And let’s face it, the brand seems to have lost momentum in terms of innovation in past years… or is it really the case ?

Clichés and stereotypes

Let’s kick thing off by correcting some misconceptions : first off you need to know that in Japan, Tokyo Marui is considered mid-range. Yes outside of Japan their pistols are often available over 100€/120$ in load of shops and their AEGs/GBBRs easily exceed the 400€/500$ mark tricking users in thinking they’re paying for high-end airsoft guns but the reality is that they cost much less on the Japanese market especially given the state of the Yen rate in 2025. The issue is the import process which inflates the price significantly : between the margins of the various middlemen (exporters, resellers, etc.) and some countries VAT you shouldn’t be surprised to see such high prices. So no it’s not high-end and Tokyo Marui does not claim to be a manufacturer aiming for the high-end market, at least not up until now (but will get back to that).

« They have the best out of the box performance » : this might have been the true 10 years ago for some countries and even then their performances were average but nothing to brag about. However given how much the airsoft world has evolved in recent years this statement is no longer valid, this is especially true in an era where many new players have emerged democratizing systems that used to be quite niche and expensive (MOSFETs, for example) and pushing technologies that were previously not widely used in airsoft such as brushless motors which were already well known and used in the remote-controlled vehicles world.

I saving the best for last : « Nah, it’s just full plastic crap… » You really have to be the last moron on earth to say out loud that kind of nonsense in 2025. If you have read the section on airsoft regulations in Japan you know that this assumption is only true for some external parts of handgun replicas : pistols and revolvers. The rest of the airsoft guns made in Japan are conform to the materials used on the reproduced firearm : if the real thing is metal the parts will also be metal. Right, I see you coming that doesn’t necessarily mean the metal used is top quality or even truly matching the material use on the real one and it’s absolutely true (I’m looking at you TM AKM ZET GBBR and your aluminium body).

Innovations and popularisation

As we saw in the previously, Tokyo Marui didn’t cut corners when they decided to switch from RC and train model to airsoft guns : a first attempt at GBBs with the M-59 which was the first BB gas pistol to have a blowback cycle but especially by creating the first AEG (Automatic Electric Gun) which was a revolution upon its release and kickstarts the airsoft modern era. And since that wasn’t enough they introduced another revolution that would put them at the top of the food chain : the Hop-Up system. It is important to realize that without Tokyo Marui, airsoft as we know and practice it wouldn’t exists or it would be radically different.

They subsequently improved or popularized other systems starting with the Gas Blow Back pistols on which they had already experimented in the past. They drew inspiration from the MGC Glock 17 mechanism to produce a first version of the Desert Eagle .50AE in 1994 (which would be completely revised 10 years later) offered various models including the famous 10″ version. This will be followed by the 92F and other M9/Samurai Edge/Tactical Masters in 1999, then the Glock 26 and 18C in the early 2000s before bringing the legendary Hi-Capa platform to the market in 2004. They also tried their luck with bolt-action rifles, a segment created by Maruzen and its APS-2 which Tokyo Marui drew inspiration from the mechanism (or rather copied) to create the VSR-10.

Surely we have to talk about their Next Generation Recoil Shock range, AEGs equipped with a recoil simulation system using a weight linked to the gearbox piston. This system will gradually evolve and eventually reproduce the bolt movement as well as the firing stop mechanism once the magazine is empty which will lock the dummy bolt in the rearward position and require pressing the bolt catch after changing magazines to be able to fire again. A revolution for some and a pain in the arse for others, this line of AEGs created a new market and is the origin of numerous EBBRs (Electric Blow Back Rifles) much to the dismay of those who like to tinker with their BB guns as they are quite a 1000 pieces puzzle.

Over the years, Tokyo Marui tried many attempts at making the next revolutionary airsoft gun, with some innovations more significant than others. In all of those we find the Electric Blow Back Pistols or EBBP, the gas shotguns with adjustable 3 to 6 BBs fired each shot, the Automatic Electric Shotguns with triple adjustable Hop-Up, a Next Gen machine gun and more recently the automatic gas shotguns with the Saiga 12 range. But obviously, the one that sticks out way more than the other is their GBBR range featuring the ZET-System (or MWS since everyone knows it by that name even though it was never the system’s actual name just the abbreviation for Modular Weapon System one of the first M4 variants). It prioritizes skirmish performance over realism while other Taiwanese brands continued to copy a more realist but aging system based on another Japanese manufacturer’s design. Luckily VFC thought it would be a great idea to modernize it a bit over the last few years, outshining GHK in the process.

They are not stopping there either and have just announced the brand new EVOLT system available in two versions, Standard and Recoil Shock, which I presented in my article on the Tokyo Marui Festival 2025. In that article I gave my immediate reaction to this new architecture which draws inspiration from Systema’s PTW line, complaining repeatedly about its proprietary nature and complexity of the system. Regarding complexity and the number of small parts I stand by I said : the more parts you add the more it will create reliability issues over time. On the proprietary aspect however, I am reconsidering my stance after thinking about it for a bit and realizing a simple thing : before a standard is officially or unofficially established the technology is inevitably proprietary. The ZET System for instance was a new mechanical approach to the AR and then AK GBBR platforms and was therefore completely proprietary before being copied by many other manufacturers despite being labeled as « unrealistic and thus nobody gonna buy it » according the so called « specialists » of the social networks when the M4 MWS ZET System was announced in 2014.

So we may think whatever we want but Tokyo Marui remains one of the sole brands that continues to innovate and try new things even if sometime it doesn’t find commercial success. Because outside of TM which other manufacturer has tried to challenge the paradigm on AEGs, GBBRs, or GBBs with genuine new proposals even at the risk of them failing ? Not many. They all play it safe by improving existing designs and don’t get me wrong I ain’t saying that’s a bad thing, we need that just as much if we want airsoft guns to keep moving forward, but in that case we should consider it as what it is : an evolution instead of an innovation.

Tokyo Marui in 2025

Where are we now ? In the introduction part of this section dedicated to Tokyo Marui, I wondered about a potential loss of momentum by the Japanese brand. First I have to mention the fact that all the innovations from the previous paragraph did not came on the airsoft market all at once and there was quite a lot of time between each one. Moreover not all of these innovations are equal, many were not necessarily commercially successful and it remains to be seen what the new EVOLT platform will achieve both in Japan and internationally.

Over the past 30 years, their flagship technologies like the AEG, the Hop-Up system or more recently the ZET System have been copied, improved and/or made more accessible by many other manufacturers to the point of becoming an unofficial standard. Some might say that the engineers at Tokyo Marui should feel honored by all of this, after all « imitation is the sincerest form of flattery« . However as beautiful as this saying is, it doesn’t bring in much money that will allow a manufacturer to continue innovating or even survive. Even so in TM‘s case they don’t really seem too concerned by this, acting as if the rest of the world doesn’t interest them… I think there is definitely something worth exploring there.

Speaking of innovation there is another important point I want to raise your attention onto : airsoft replicas have evolved a lot and I mean A LOT, especially in recent years and with them players’ expectations have evolved too. There are still proud users of airsoft guns that focus on the fun factor instead of pure efficiency and performances but the majority of airsoft players prefer to have an ultra-high-performance replica rather than something original. It may sound like a criticism but I really mean it as a plain observation of 2025 players’ expectations though I would be lying if I didn’t say it saddens me a little : nowadays I feel like people only enjoy airsoft as if it’s a competitive FPS were the more important thing is to stomp over the « other team » and achieved a huge killstreak while camping with a AEG or and HPA that has an crazy rate of fire and shoots « up to 70 meters » instead of pulling off great plays with your mates and having a good laugh during games. Saying this makes me feel like an airsoft boomer… oh well, I’ll get over it.

As a result in the rest of the world we might get the impression that Tokyo Marui is behind all of this and being gapped by other brand, well at least according to some players highly vocal with their strong convictions without trying to understand why. For them TM is stuck in the past with airsoft guns using aging technologies and performances from another era, offering only proprietary solutions that are disconnected from the standards shared by other manufacturers (most of which TM actually created or popularized) acting as if they didn’t care about the Western market and players consumption trends outside of Japan.

The international paradox

And that is ultimately the case. Yes they sell quite a bit internationally and there was what we can maybe consider as attempts to make airsoft guns that could be exported more easily without licensing issues (the SGR-12 or the M4 Patriot for example). But the reality is that Tokyo Marui is not trying to reach markets outside of Japan and does not possess any official or affiliated distributors beyond its borders, which is why export companies like Impulse101 exist.

« Yeah but their products are available in physical stores and online in the US, in Canada or in Europe, that must mean they export their products… » Are you familiar with the concept of exporters ? Because that is exactly what is happening here, most stores outside of Japan do not source their inventory from Tokyo Marui directly but rather via an intermediary that’s in charge of the export process. Most of those who claim to get their inventory directly from the Japanese manufacturer are purely and simply lying and stores like tokyomaruiairsoft.com have no official link with the brand, they are just one reseller/exporter among many hiding behind some shady practices to camouflage themself to mislead the buyers.

So if we keep in mind that Tokyo Marui is only targeting the Japanese market, it actually makes a lot of sense and explains many of the criticisms against them:

• Their airsoft guns aren’t powerful enough : it’s because Japanese law prohibit the distribution and possession of airsoft guns exceeding 0.98J.
• The internals parts are too weak and break as soon as you put in a stronger spring : well obviously they were not designed to handle more than 0.98J and the choice in materials for the inner parts reflects this.
• They « only » have 30-40m of range : that’s true but the majority of Japanese Survival Game fields are CQB arenas and have very short engagement distances.
• They are fully proprietary which makes upgrading a pain : most Japanese players rarely upgrade their airsoft guns beyond the basics like the Hop-Up bucking and the inner barrel so why bother.

The list goes on but these are the points that come up very (too?) often because a lot of players are unable to see further than the end of their noses. All this is to say that they are not as bad as many are thinking, they’re simply not adapted to our Western standards, at least for a good part of the Tokyo Marui catalog, and thus cannot be considered as good airsoft guns for our way of playing because they are first and foremost designed for an audience with radically different expectations.

Tokyo Marui only has its own market in mind and therefore offers airsoft guns that comply with Japanese laws and meet the expectations and consumption habits of local players. Of course there are stores that sell upgrade parts and some players do crazy builds but this is simply not the case for the vast majority who will solely focus on modifying the appearance of their gun and that’s it.

Furthermore between the strict power limits and the size of the fields, upgrading a replica is not necessarily relevant or simply useful and you can very quickly find yourself limited in what you can do. In short, Japanese mainly play with « out of the box » airsoft guns, Marui understood this perfectly and does not overthink when producing their BB guns which for people who have already disassembled one of the brand’s guns explains a lot, especially for the AEGs : there is no real standard and almost everything is proprietary.

And it pays off : they are the leader in Japan sales-wise and by a big margin, their products available in the majority of stores of the archipelago where they represent on average 80% of the airsoft guns for sale on the shelves and some shops only sell Tokyo Marui products. For that reason Tokyo Marui is not ready to change its approach to the airsoft market, their domestic market is more than enought for the company to thrive while continuing to develop their line-up, they are not really concerned by sales in the rest of the world which are handled by exporters so they don’t feel the need to invest in that area.

We might then wonder what the brand thinks of the copies of systems and replicas they designed such as the ZET System, which is more or less becoming a standard for many brands and players, or the SGR-12 and KSG copied by Cyma and Double Eagle to then be distributed by EMG. The answer ? They do not seem to care nor they feel worried, knowing they’re the one behind those but mainly because these airsoft guns do not really represent any danger to their sales on Japanese market and this is for three reasons :

• Tokyo Marui is the airsoft benchmark in Japan, they are the cornerstone of Survival Game and the reference in terms of performance, usability, accessibility and innovation for most of the players.
• The vast majority of Japanese players prefer to buy replicas made by Japanese brands which are guarantees of quality and compliance with the country’s current safety standards and laws.
• Foreign airsoft guns (often from Chinese or Taiwanese brands) have a reputation for being unreliable and require tinkering to work out of the box. Also they’re often more expensive than their Japanese equivalents, here’s a quick example I saw in a store to illustrate this trend:
  • Tokyo Marui STANAG ZET magazine = 5,300¥*
  • Double Eagle ‘MWS’ STANAG magazine = 5,800¥*
  • VFC V3 STANAG magazine = over 7,500¥*

*Note: Prices observed in the AIRSOFT97 AKIBA store in Tokyo during november 2025

One last point which may surprise many of you : despite its place in the imagination of the average airsoft player Tokyo Marui remains a small company that does everything on its own with its offices on the outskirts of Tokyo, a few factories in the Saitama and Ibaraki prefectures and around 130 employees back in 2012 (these figures are starting to get old though), therefore it’s not a large manufacturer with thousands of employees and 50 gigantic factories across the country keeping Japanese industry and the economy afloat, far from it.

The other Japanese manufacturers

Even if Tokyo Marui represent a big part of the Japanese market they’re not the only renown Japanese brands, there are plenty other manufacturers doing their own thing. And in terms of what they are offering it’s quite eclectic, ranging from models prioritizing realism at the cost of the skirmishable aspect to airsoft guns designed purely for performance at the price of a kidney without forgetting the cheap plastic spring-action BB guns.

The quest of realism

First I’m going to talk about Tanaka Works and Marushin as they both making airsoft guns as well as Model Guns. They aren’t necessarily aiming for skirmishable and high-performance replicas but instead creating rather realistic and well-finished models while still complying with Japanese laws, most of their products are Model Guns that have been transformed into BB guns. Tanaka Works primarily offers revolvers, pistols and a few bolt-action rifles while Marushin focuses almost exclusively on handguns. There is a third and more discreet brand in this niche : Hartford (or HWS) which, like Tanaka, mainly offers old, very old, revolvers.

I haven’t much to say about these manufacturers, they continue doing their own thing releasing new models every now and then but mostly updating existing airsoft products, their efforts are mainly directed towards the Model Gun market. As I mentioned earlier, Marushin still holds the rights for the FN Herstal license in Japan.

Another brand that was well-known in the past for its GBBs and GBBRs with unparalleled finish but was gradually forgotten by airsoft collectors even though it still exists : I’m obviously talking about Western Arms. This name will bring back memories for some of you and rightly so : much like Tanio Koba they’re another top dog in Japanese airsoft history. They greatly improved the GBB recipe established with the MGC G17 invented by good old Tazō Kobayashi when designing their Magna GBB system. How ? By moving the Blow Back Housing (BBH) into the slide instead of on top of the frame. It may sound obvious today but before Western Arms the BBH was usually positioned on the rear of the frame like for a lot of NBBs.

Thanks to this advancement they made GBBs even more realistic in many aspects. They were also the first to experiment with ‘Heavy Weight‘ plastic by mixing plastic fibers (duh) and metal particles giving the parts a more metallic appearance, a cold feel similar to a ferrous material and a bit more weight all while continuing to comply with Japanese laws. This Heavy Weight plastic is however a little more fragile than fiber-reinforced nylon for example.

Because of this, their 1911 and 92FS replicas were highly regarded for their realism despite a plastic body, a very high price point and their rarity. But that is not the only evolution we owe them : the internal mechanism of the Western Arms M4 GBBR remained a standard for a long time notably used by G&P and Inokatsu and as a base for the design of the first GHK and VFC AR-15s GBBRs.

2012’s airsoft gun pinnacle

Again with a familiar name for those playing since 2012 of before. It was a brand that was constantly bring up in airsoft discussions for a while and some players even worshipped it : Systema and its Professional Training Weapon (shorten as PTW).

For those unfamiliar with this line of airsoft guns, they were « state-of-the-art » AR-15 based AEGs with a price tag often in the four-figure and aiming to be as faithful to their real counterpart in every respect. That’s for the spec sheet, the reality being that they were ahead of their time completely proprietary AEGs released in an era where conventional AEGs struggled to compete in terms of performance. One of the unique features of the PTW was the quick power change using different « cylinders » similar to split-type gearbox uppers.

However they were quickly forgotten with the release of the first HPA systems which were far superior in terms of outright performance while being slightly cheaper and more reliable. The progress and democratization of GBBRs eventually won over the last remaining players who chose these airsoft guns for their realistic aspect and conventional AEGs ended up catching up in terms of performance while remaining way cheaper.

The brand tried to bring new projects to the table : first by offering a range of MP5 PTWs (TW5) as well as a Type 89 PTW (PTW89) aimed at training the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). They then offered new versions of their AR-15 system with a PTW EBBR (Electric Blowback Rifle) and more recently the Monster range which uses a brushless motor. They would try to revolutionize the genre with the Infinity Engine by integrating the motor directly into the gears but it was already too late : the brand had fallen into oblivion in Europe. It still exists in Japan and continues to release new products ! Also I learn recently a lot en British and US players still use and like the PTW platform, the more you know.

Fun fact : a few years ago Ares had teased a new type of gearbox that purely and simply copied the principle of the Infinity Engine with the motor integrated directly into the gears but didn’t gave any update on it ever since.

The only one trying

In all of this only one brand truly seems to confront Tokyo Marui using its own means : KSC Japan. But first you need to know that even if they’re sharing the same name, there’s a huge difference between KSC Hong Kong and KSC Corporation (which I will continue to call KSC Japan) as they are two entities : KSC Hong Kong belongs to KWA and merely sells products based on plans supplied by KSC Japan with whom they have a partnership. These KSC HK airsoft guns are intended for markets outside of Japan which allows KWA to make their own choices on the materials used as well as their own quality control explaining the blatant difference in finish between KSC Japan and KWA/KSC HK products.

As for KSC Japan, the company was born from the ashes of MGC and were very productive in the early 2000s producing a great number of airsoft guns, particularly GBBs based on MGC’s technologies while also attempting to slightly copy the ones from Western Arms. This earned them a lawsuit with the other Japanese brand which they (KSC) ultimately won.

Some might know them for their Electric Motor Drive range, launched in 2005 and mainly composed of HK33s and 53s whose mechanism is actioned by the motor like a classic AEG but also by the charging handle just like a spring-action BB gun !

At that time they were fighting on level terms with Tokyo Marui and were even ahead of them in certain categories. But between the complicated collaboration with KWA and questionable choices regarding their catalog they started losing ground in 2012. The brand still exists today and offers some nice airsoft guns but are not trying to innovate that much and their production is quite limited : far are the days where they were competing toe-to-toe with the giant from Tokyo.

The Baton round

Well that’s one name I’m sure almost all of you heard of, Gunsmith Baton or Baton Airsoft are a Japanese distributor and importer who only operate in the Land of the Rising Sun.

We will start with the parent company where it all began: Gunsmith Baton is an import and modification service for airsoft guns coming from Taiwan, Hong Kong or China based brands they work with. Once the order is placed they will import and modify its content if necessary so it comply with the various requirements of the Firearms Possession Control Law (銃砲刀剣類所持等取締法) and then have it certified by the JASG of which Baton is a member. They source their inventory from brands such as Modify, APS, King Arms, SRC and ICS. Gunsmith Baton are also a distributor for Maruzen and offer many sport shooting-oriented airsoft guns and parts from this brand which is well known to players using bolt-action replicas.

In order to expand their business and be present on store shelves they eventually created their brand Baton Airsoft which mechanized the import and modification process of Gunsmith Baton to be able to send stock to the shops they work with. Following a partnership with Umarex they obtained the rights for the Glock license in Japan and since then « produce » Glock 17 and 19 MOS replicas in CO2 and by produce I mean import and modify the models from SRC. Baton Airsoft mainly offer CO2-powered handguns, almost all of those are modified SRC GBBs, but also a few AEGs based on APS products.

They also opened a shooting range called Baton Range which is dedicated to target shooting and competitive shooting using airsoft guns but not exclusively. It’s located in the Saitama prefecture right next to their workshop. And to diversify even more they created another business, Baton Bikes, which sells accessories and parts for motorcycles and is the Japanese distributor for Kove Motorcycle.

Let’s be honest I struggle to understand how the brand is still running. In most of the stores I saw their products I was also able find the airsoft guns upon which theirs were based such as the SRC Glock-type handguns that are licenced by Umarex too or even those from the competition like the EMG Staccato P and C2. Price-wise they were even, though some of Baton Airsoft products were sometimes a little more expensive. To be clear, I’m not questioning their relevance because unlike my two previous examples the products offered by Baton Airsoft are the only ones adapted to the Japanese market and possessing certification from the JASG. However does that justify the price difference ? Oh my favorite Health & Safety Manager is whispering me that yes it does, to the next one then !

Heavy is the Crown

Another name more likely to be known by a few even though it’s been in Japanese airsoft scene for a long time but very much in the background compared to the others : let me introduce you to Crown Model. I’m feel obligated to ask you to lower your expections : here we are going to talk about spring airsoft models and by that I don’t mean bolt-action rifle but manual cocking replicas of all kinds. They also offer a few rare AEGs and gas airsoft guns but their catalog consists of spring-action replicas for the most part.

Now that a lot of you are quite dubious about the point of such a brand and from a western airsofter point of view it is true that springers don’t really sell the dream. But as a reminder in Japan access to real firearms is still impossible and finding deactivated weapons is complicated and very expensive, however many enthusiasts don’t necessarily want to play Survival Game but just collect replicas and among them some aren’t necessarily ready to put large sums of money into plastic bits or are less cautious about the finish. It’s for these people that Crown Model make their models (how original).

« Yes but Tokyo Marui also offers spring replicas that seem quite inexpensive » you might say and even if most of the handguns in the Tokyo Marui Air Cocking line-up hover around 4,500¥ (manufacturer price) for the pistol-type replicas, for revolvers you will be between 6,000¥ and 7,000¥ for the basic range and over 16,000¥ for the Pro range where we find the M1851 Marine sold at 24,000¥ ! And even if Marui airsoft guns offer a good finish for that price range, Crown Model handguns compete in a different category :

• From 1,600 to 3,200¥ for handgun replicas
• Around 4,200¥ for revolvers available to kids 10 years old and up
• Around 4,700¥ for those available from 18 years old

All of that highlight a significant difference and I’m only talking about the air cocking pistol ranges here. I should point out that all the prices mentioned come from the manufacturers’ websites and doesn’t represent the price they will be sold by shops.

The two brands also differs on another point : Tokyo Marui offers a few replicas aimed at younglings while the rest of their catalog targets players 18 years old or over. For Crown Model it is quite the opposite with a majority of products accessible from the age of 10 which explains why they prioritize a low price rather than high manufacturing quality or a high degree of realism. The same applies to the mean of propulsion of their airsoft guns where you will primarily find spring-action BB guns or some ‘AEGs‘ that run on regular batteries.

By now you all understood that Crown Model is not fighting on the same ground as Tokyo Marui at all. It exists as a gateway to the Survival Game world with cheap products at an attractive price point, primarily aimed at the Japanese public and particularly minors. Furthermore they don’t seem very interested in exporting nor we, western collectors, are either in buying those : I asked Julien, the manager of Impulse101 who offers a few Crown products in their catalog, if he happened to send any to out of Japan from time to time, and the answer yes but mainly went to South Korea or other Southeast Asian countries.

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Some of you, maybe the more passionate enthusiasts or the old guard, will tell me that I am forgetting a lot of Japanese manufacturers, that I haven’t mentioned Maruzen, KTW, Top Japan, Tanio Koba, Laylax, or [insert the name of an obscure Japanese brand here] and you would be right. The fact is that I have covered the biggest and/or most active ones, I would need to write a dedicated article to go through every single manufacturer of airsoft guns and accessories in detail as there are so many of them and things to say about each one. Who knows I might explore that subject in the future but to prevent this article from becoming even longer than it already is, we will stop here.

Japanese made gear

There is one thing you will have understood by reading the part about Japanese players : they are truthfully gear enthusiasts ready to put incredible amounts of money into equipment also used by the professionals. This was confirmed by the inventory of many surplus stores such as MIL-FREAKS or Willy Peet in Akihabara which offer, alongside more or less cheap replicas, a wide variety of plate carriers, clothing, and pouches from renowned brands.

But for some this isn’t enough and they end up designing their own products with much higher standards than one might expect for an airsoft use. I’m talking about people driven by pure passion and the desire to offer products that make them proud. And to prove my point I want to showcase some of them I have been following for years on Instagram and Twitter and whom I was very happy to be able to finally met.

x115xTaylor

x115xTaylor a small company based in the inner suburbs of Tokyo where they design their own gear and offer plate carriers, chest rigs, belts and various pouches from the designs they come up with and manufactured in their workshop located in the Kita ward, in the northwest part of Tokyo.

Coming from the fashion world, they offer gear that genuinely combines style and functionality unlike a lot of products made to be pretty before being efficient. And after discussing with the person behind all this, I quickly understood that this is a given for them as they continue to play airsoft, primarily in CQB where easy and quick to use gear is essential.

3 MADE ISSUE

Like x115xTaylor, DJちゅう the creator of the brand 3 MADE ISSUE is still an active airsofter but his thing is MILSIM. His workshop is also located in Tokyo, on the outer part in Akishima City.

His thing is on small tactical and outdoor-oriented gear : all kinds of pouches, various carrying systems as well as slings and straps, all of this in highly varied colors ranging from conventional black, coyote brown, and ranger green to more exotic patterns and camos.

And like any good gear enthusiast, he is also hooked on patches and regularly designs new ones available on his site or at the events he attends at.

The TacHoodie from AEM01 x Moonshot Gear x Mikami HIC

As I own of all three versions I had to talk about this top AEM01 came up with before being re-design by Moonshot Gear and produced by Mikami HIC.

AEM01 or Jeremy is a very well-known illustrator on the tactical drawing scene with his OC Alma for whom the Combat Hoodie was designed before being produced as an actual piece of equipment.

Moonshot Gear is a kinda confidential brand that designs gear for airsoft. They were involved in the V2 and the Summer Variant of the TacHoodie to refine the design and make it more grounded thanks to their experience in this field. They do not really have a website or catalog, you will need to contact them to buy their equipment.

Finally, Mikami HIC is a small Tokyo-based manufacturer that took care of the production of the TacHoodies. They also offer some equipment of their own design but rarely in large quantities.

Upon my return to France I might tackle the review of the TacHoodie collection which I already promised in the feedback article of my Armatus-like plate carrier.

Honourable mentions

Before moving on to the next subject I wanted to mention a few other brands and small companies whom I met at an event and who are worth checking out. If you read my article on the Mechasava you will see familiar names starting with those behind the convention : Urban Region, a manufacturer of rather funky accessories based in Kyoto. To stay in the area Stardust Gear is an craftsman also located in Japan’s previous capital and specializing in custom kydex holsters for airsoft use. In Europe and the North America there are quite a few companies that make kydex gear (especially for professionals) but in Japan they aren’t that common. Finally, we take the train to Osaka and Volk Tactical Gear‘s workshop where they design and manufacture a lot of MILSIM-oriented equipment built to last as well as their own merchandise with really cool looking designs.

The contradiction with imported airsoft guns

The Japanese market is very particular one because of the regulations revolving around airsoft guns. Therefore for foreign manufacturers to be able to sell their products in Japanese stores they must comply with those.

Regarding muzzle velocity this is the least complicated modification to make and many brands like G&G, VFC, or Arcturus / C.A.T (in short MOS Manufacture) offer Japanese versions tweaked to shoot under 0.98J so they can be sold without issues. Some stores source foreign airsoft guns and perform those modifications themselves but it’s quite a few. Outside of these two cases the majority of airsoft guns coming from other countries are sold as is and it will be up to the players to make the modifications, otherwise they will not be able to use or even keep them.

As we saw previously with Gunsmith Baton and their Baton Airsoft brand, there are Japanese companies that handle the import and modification process of airsoft guns from foreign manufacturers so that they comply with the Firearms Possession Control Law. I will quickly mention another smaller one with Carbon8, who import GBBs, mostly KJW models, then replace the metal body parts (slide and frame) with some they manufactured in Heavy Weight plastic and tweak the inner parts to reduce the muzzle velocity before having them certified by the STGA to be able to distribute them legally. And it’s quite something to see on a regular basis Carbon8’s modified versions of KJW GBBs that comply with Japanese legislation next to those licensed by ASG (ActionSportGames) which are exactly the same except for their slides which are not really plastic and the output power is probably beyond what is required on Japanese fields.

The ostrich-effect

To continue with GBBs as they are one of the most litigious point, manufacturers abroad hardly produce a dedicated version for the Japanese market and outside of companies like Carbon8 and Gunsmith Baton to make the modifications their distribution becomes more contentious : in theory the law only applies to Japanese manufacturers and buyers while stores fly under the radar and, to add salt to the wound, rarely display a notice specifying that the GBBs they’re selling are not « legal », worst some even shirk this point by saying that it’s the buyers’ responsibility as they’re the ones who acquired it knowingly and need to do the required modification.

As a result, apart from the muzzle velocity which is often measured during games, most of the foreign made airsoft guns falls under the logic of « If you don’t get caught, you can’t get done !« . This is what’s funny about the metal slide kits for many Marui handguns sold by a few stores : it’s as if in a country where weed is forbidden there were shops selling all the equipment and seeds to grow cannabis but « it’s for collection purpose only m’kay ?« 

In short it’s possible to possess GBBs with a body partly or completely made of metal even if it’s not legal, as long as they don’t get controlled or arrested with those in their possession everything is fine, but the day it happens I wish them the best of luck. But it get worse with GBBs based on modern handguns with a plastic frame but a metal slide (Glock, HK45, P22X, etc.) made by foreign manufacturers as many distributors, stores and even collectors play with a gray area relying on the predicate that as the whole replica isn’t metal and it’s just a small part hence it falls within the legal framework… yeah after putting myself through all the research on said legal framework to write this article I am not so sure about this but hey, they must know what they’re doing.

However the majority of Japanese airsofters play by the book and make do with plastic-bodied handguns and limited power across all their airsoft guns. In any case there are chrony checks to make sure that everyone play within the limits and many fields check GBBs and can refuse those whose body and/or slide are made of metal.

Exhibits and other events

When us westerners are talking about big events, it’s most of the time for major games, think American Milsim, Border War, Milsim West or BERGET. And even though there’s also airsoft conventions and festivals such as AirsoftCon in the US, National Airsoft Festival in the UK or Dark Emergency in Germany to name the most famous ones, there aren’t much of those and airsoft dedicated exhibits are not that common. Some of you will say that a lot of airsoft brands and manufacturers regularly attend events like IWA in Nuremberg (Germany) or SHOT Show in Las Vegas (USA) and as true as it is those are firearms focused exhibitions where big airsoft households (Umarex, Evike, G&G, etc) are not as highly regarded as other exhibitors.

But in Japan, Survival Game and airsoft hold a very different position than in the rest of the world and you can find manufacturers, stores or even fields at many events more or less focused on airsoft when it is not a brand itself organizing its own event.

Model & Hobby Show

The Model & Hobby Shows, which I have reviewed several times on this blog, are events dedicated to models in general : trains, cars, robots, planes, action figures, motorbikes, etc. There are two Model and Hobby Show events : one in Shizuoka which is by far the biggest and the one in Tokyo named « All Japan » for reasons I still trying to figure. Here you primarily find models and model kits manufacturers like Tamiya or Bandai and their numerous ranges of Gunpla.

But you can also find airsoft brands as Tokyo Marui regularly makes the trip to showcase their current line-up, even allowing visitors to handle and test the latest releases and on rare occasions unveil new products. You can also find a merchandise corner and some fun activities like shooting ranges at their booth. You might also come across Crown Model who also exhibit a fair bit of their catalog and offer the chance to buy their products on site at an better price.

Historically, this event was always quite significant for a lot of airsoft guns and Model Guns manufacturers. It was in fact at a Hobby Show that MGC and Tazō Kobayashi presented their ground breaking Glock 17, using the exhibition as an opportunity to demonstrate the performance and sturdiness of this brand new GBB by setting up an contraption that had it firing non-stop for the entire duration of the event !

If you ever want to know more about these events, I was able to attend the 2025 edition of the All Japan Model & Hobby Show and wrote a blog post about what you can expect to find and see there though the article is only available in French as most of my blog is.

Tokyo Marui Festival

Picture this : as the end of the year approaches the biggest manufacturer in the industry rents a venue to hold an event showcasing its products and where they will highlight their current range, talk about future releases and above all make major announcements. This event exists in Japan and was created in 2014 by Tokyo Marui with the 東京マルイ フェスティバル or the Tokyo Marui Festival in English.

Since then this is where Marui has announced most of its major airsoft guns : the M4 MWS ZET System GBBR in 2014, the AA-12 Tri-Shot AES in 2015, the Mk46 NGRS EBBR in 2018, and the AKM ZET GBBR in 2019. They continue to attending other exhibits like the Hobby Shows but the announcements there are generally less significant.

During the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that came with it, the festival moved online with the Marui Fest Online (マルフェス Online) hosted by Masaru Shimamura, Tokyo Marui’s Public Relations Manager, and sometimes in the company of the V-Tuber Irodori Mayoi (remember we talked about her in the Japanese content creators’ section). During this period there were nine editions of this event broadcasted live on YouTube where they announced the MP5 NGRS, the Saiga-12K GBBR, and the VSR-One.

If you are a regular of this blog (I highly doubt it because of a French-language issue), you know that I did cover the event from afar and for the first time (and probably the only time) I was able to do it directly on-site this year for the 2025 edition !

Mecha Sava, SHOT Show Japanand MiniMili

Smaller events similar to conventions and entirely dedicated to airsoft also exist and most of the exhibitors are manufacturers/brands, shops, small businesses/craftsmen and even fields. You can shop there, have a look and even try some airsoft guns and gear (after asking for permission of course), partake in some funny activities and have a chat with the many enthusiasts attending as exhibitors or visitors.

Some of these events take place indoors in a venue or a shop like a classic convention and others directly on fields like CasualWearTactics which combine within a day CQB games, tacticool photoshoots and a few exhibitors, all organized at the サバゲーパラダイス (Savage Paradise) field.

This is a good way to discover the local players of the prefecture you are even if some exhibitors can come from all over Japan (but let’s be honest most of them are from Tokyo) and it is a very cool way to get a glimpse at Japanese airsoft outside of the fields (more like without actually playing), by chatting with all these wonderful people.

If you want to know more about events like this I have covered two of those on my blog : the Mechasava and the Shot Show Japan both taking place in Osaka, but once again those blog posts are in French sorry not sorry.

And what about Model Guns ?

As we saw up until this point, airsoft guns have come a long way since their creation and are now part of the Japanese landscape. But what happen to the great ancestors of our modern BB guns : the Model Guns ?

Unsurprisingly they still exist and, like airsoft, many technical improvements have been made, albeit on quite a different scale. Here performance and reliability are not really the issues as the purpose of Model Guns being their faithfulness to their real-life counterparts, the improvements where focused on the fidelity in what is reproduced, better quality in the materials used, and functionality to provide an experience as realistic as possible when operating the model. Until now I have only talked about the model of the firearm itself but one of the other very important elements in the operation of Model Guns are the dummy cartridges which are the main component of the mechanism !

And as I said in the other Japanese brands’ section, two of them are still fully invested in this segment and continue to find new solutions and release new Model Guns : these are of course Tanaka Works and Marushin.

How it works

Right from start of this never-ending article I introduce you to Model Guns and the fact that they were a key component in the rise of airsoft guns but I haven’t explained how they work at all. We are going to remedy that as a last part for this blog post.

Early models as well as most recent ones rely on the same principle, similar to that of blank-firing guns. They’re using « caps« , a kind of small firecracker which are placed inside the cartridge to reproduce the operation of real ammunition without actually propelling any projectile. Inside the dummy bullets is a firing pin which, once activated by the Model Gun hammer, will trigger the cap and its detonation. The energy released by this small explosion cycles the mechanism, ejecting the used cartridge before introducing a new one in the firing chamber, exactly like on a real firearm.

Loading a Model Gun is quite simple : you first disassemble the dummy cartridges, remove the used cap if there is one, install a new one in its place and then put the whole thing together before loading them into the magazine.

Again, we are quite close to the operation that gunsmith or shooters who makes their own bullets might do with black powder and a bullet head. But unlike live ammunition all Model Gun cartridges are reusable as the only consumable item is the caps. Well not really, the barrel and its firing chamber are also regarded as consumable that will need to be changed a number of shots.

The dummy cartridges as well as the Model Gun itself need to be cleaned after being used to avoid them getting clogged up and maintain their smooth operation, fear not as they don’t require a specific detergent and dish soap is more than enough.

After reading these explanations you may be wondering that it must be quite easy to convert them into real firearms given the realism of its mechanism. But Japanese laws and manufacturers were well aware of this possibility and it is prevented it in smart ways : apart from the mechanism and certain small parts the majority of the model’s body is made of plastic so using a live round with result in the shooter being blasted with plastic shrapnel. And to put a final nail into that misuse coffin, the scale is not one-to-one as some proportions are truncated enough making it hard to notice the difference at first glance and maintaining its realistic aspect while strictly limiting the possibilities of harmful modifications.

Model Guns in 2025

As stated previously, it’s not that hard at all to get your hand on Model Guns in stores or online, from brands like Marushin or Tanaka Works of course, but also from Hartford and many others. In terms of firearms reproduced, there are mainly semi-automatic pistols and revolvers but a few bolt-action rifle or assault-rifles also exist.

I did mention it prior, the majority of the body parts of Model Guns are made of plastic, Japanese law requires this and it makes Model Guns harder to alter for despicable ends, for this reason many manufacturers started using the famous Heavy Weight polymer which incorporates metal or carbon particles to improve the visual aspect.

Machining processes have also greatly improved over time so the finish of recent Model Guns is more precise, cleaner if I may say so and allows manufacturers to make Model Guns that feature much more details. And regarding markings and licenses, as you can imagine it is still very much the Wild West !

I must confess : exploring this side of Japan’s « airsoft » culture and being able to test Model Guns really made me want to have one or a few at home, it’s genuinely fun and works as a great « fidget toy » for gun nerds. If I ever go down this rabbit hole (another one) would you be interested in a little review here ?

Acknowledgements

FINALLY FINISHED ! Well I imagine it was quite a ride for you all to read a paper like this but you cannot fathom the time I spent going place to place in order to gather the necessary information for writing this article about airsoft in Japan. Information I gathered while exchanging with a lot of people, often in awfull not quite N5 Japanese, that were then to be condensed, reread and sometimes rewritten as new informations came in. That sounds a lot like I’m complaining and I am truly sorry about that, to be honest I am really glad I done this. This article was merely an excuse to motivate myself and justify the interactions that I would difficulty have on my own. I am happy about all the people I met, all these discoveries about things I thought I knew and others that were completely unknown to me.

I would like to take a moment to thank all the person and entities without whom I wouldn’t be able to write this article :

• I’m going to start with my good friend Julien, the manager of Impulse101, without whom many of my questions would still be unanswered.
• Mr. Hiro Soga who was one of the best people I have met in Japan and was a great help during the events he attended as a member of Tokyo Marui’s staff.
• hyperdouraku, Ozashiki Shooters, EVOLOG, and all the other blogs and websites that allow me to use their content to illustrate some parts of this article (and would be very empty without them).
• All the people I met at events who granted me their time especially x115xTaylor, DJちゅう from 3 MADE ISSUE, Stardust Gear and a few people from Volk Tactical Gear.
• The various stores I visited for the very interesting discussions we indulged in and for letting me take a few photos of their shops.

And finally, to you who read me and have to read through this long, very long, perhaps too long (?) massive weeaboo nonsense about a way of approaching airsoft that is so different yet similar to our occidental own. If you learned a thing or two or had a good time reading it, that truly makes me happy. If you have any questions or want to leave a little message feel free to do so in the comment section. Finally, and this is something I rarely ask : feel free to share the article with your field budies or your weeb friends, who knows they might like it too (or not).

Right all of this being said, I just want to return to Japan with my own gear and attend a lots of events, go play on Survival Game fields in different prefectures and even better : do all of this with my pals ! While waiting for that to happen (because it will happen I don’t want to hear otherwise) I’m going to make a big effort to improve my Japanese level to not be another damn gaijin.

This article also made me realize I kinda like doing this repoter thing and want to do it in other countries, Taiwan or Hong Kong are of course at the top of the list, to discover how airsoft is practiced there and the impact it has but that won’t happen right away lol. Anyway I don’t know when I will post here again, even more so in English. I still have a few months to enjoy Japan before returning to France and see my friends again ! I may have some stuff in the pipeline but no idea when I can make an article about it. For now this was RedHot live from Kyoto, またね！