TOKYO—Gerson Balza remembers Uma Thurman wearing yellow and black Onitsuka Tigers in the 2003 movie “Kill Bill: Volume 1,” her character carving a trail of bloody vengeance across Japan.
More than 20 years later, Balza marvels at how popular the Japanese sneakers have become.
“It’s crazy. These are old shoes!” he said. He and his wife Lucy, a teacher, and twin daughters Isabella and Victoria, 23, bought four pairs on their trip to Japan. They spent $100 on each—about half
TOKYO—Gerson Balza remembers Uma Thurman wearing yellow and black Onitsuka Tigers in the 2003 movie “Kill Bill: Volume 1,” her character carving a trail of bloody vengeance across Japan.
More than 20 years later, Balza marvels at how popular the Japanese sneakers have become.
“It’s crazy. These are old shoes!” he said. He and his wife Lucy, a teacher, and twin daughters Isabella and Victoria, 23, bought four pairs on their trip to Japan. They spent $100 on each—about half of what they would expect to pay for Onitsuka Tigers back home in Oakland Township, Mich.
Tourists visiting Tokyo these days have a handful of must-see stops: the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, the scramble crossing at Shibuya—and at least one of the Japanese capital’s Onitsuka Tiger stores.
Tourists pack inside these temples of fashion to gaze at rows of sleek sneakers or show staff the pair they covet on their smartphones. Stores give those waiting in line outside a ticket so they can take their turn going in. Buyers have been spotted changing into their new shoes on street corners.
A weak yen means visitors can splurge on this slice of Japanese luxury for less than they would at home. Fans rave about the shoes’ vintage looks and lighter feel compared with the thick-soled sneakers popularized by other brands.
“They’re very comfortable,” said Michaela Castelo, visiting from the Philippines with her friend Samantha Luz to spend a little over a week exploring Tokyo. Castelo said she bought two pairs for herself, including a pair of Delegation EX, a modern twist on classic shoes worn by Japanese athletes in the 1960s.
The buzz has propelled sales and fueled profit growth at Onitsuka Tiger owner Asics, a Japanese footwear company whose shoes are popular with both serious runners and those who prefer comfortable “dad sneakers.”
Sales of Onitsuka Tigers rose 36% on the year in the six months through June to reach 89.5 billion yen, or about $574 million, powered by strong sales in Japan from inbound tourists, the company said in its most recent financial statement. Overall Asics sales in the same period hit $3.4 billion and profit jumped around 50%.
Asics said in June it would spin out the Onitsuka Tiger brand into a wholly owned subsidiary with the goal of speeding up decision-making at the fast-growing business.
Younger generations’ recent enthusiasm for “Y2K” fashion has given Onitsuka Tigers a tailwind, said Sho Kawano, who heads research into retail and consumer industries at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo.
But he added the company has managed the brand’s popularity well, limiting store openings and resisting discounts to preserve Onitsuka Tiger’s luxury cachet. In the U.S., there are currently no dedicated Onitsuka Tiger stores after a broader retrenchment by Asics in 2023. A new Onitsuka Tiger megastore is due to open in Los Angeles early next year.
“They want to keep this prestige image,” Kawano said.
For the tourists shopping for Onitsuka Tigers in Japan, buying for friends and siblings back home is common.
Nurdan and Metin Ertogan, visiting Tokyo from Turkey, bought a pair for Nurdan’s friend in Istanbul, where she said they can be hard to find.
Other brands of sneakers, like Nike and Adidas, look alike, said Metin. “Onitsuka Tigers are different,” he said.
Paweł Klimczuk, 22, bought a pair for himself and another for his 19-year-old brother, Michał, at an Onitsuka Tiger store in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza neighborhood. They heard about the brand from friends back home in Gdańsk, Poland, and said the two pairs they bought cost less than they would pay for a single pair of high-end sneakers in Poland.
Onitsuka Tigers started out as a basketball shoe. Kihachiro Onitsuka founded the brand and the company that would become Asics in 1949 after returning to his home in Kobe, Japan, following World War II. The firm sold its first pair of Tigers a year later, and soon its shoes were being used by Japanese athletes at the Olympic Games.
Oregonian Phil Knight traveled to Kobe as a 24-year-old in 1962 hoping to persuade the Japanese company to let him sell their shoes in the U.S. In a 2016 memoir, Knight recounted how he tried hard not to laugh when executives showed him some designs for an athletic shoe for discus throwers they called the “Throw Up.”
He left with an agreement to distribute Onitsuka Tigers in the U.S. After the meeting he got his father to wire the Japanese company $50 to seal the deal, he recounted in his autobiography.
Knight would eventually establish his own sports footwear brand: Nike.
Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com and Junko Fukutome at junko.fukutome@wsj.com
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