Interest
Company's 6 Million Yen Ita-Taxi Barred from Service
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
A labor of love (and potential profit) is sitting in a dark garage after its colorful appearance was found to not abide by local ordinances.
Mutsuo Nakazawa is the senior managing executive of Gojyo Taxi company operating out of the Kinshicho area in Tokyo's Sumida ward. The ita taxi was his idea. Nakazawa thought it would appeal to the large influx of tourists that will come to Japan for the 2020 Olympic Games. He special ordered the London taxi cab in April 2016 and dropped over six million yen (US$54,000) in paint costs to transform it into the vehicle it is today.
He even had a game application Gojo World designed that trains unique characters according to the distance passengers traveled inside the taxi. Sora News 24 wrote about the game application in 2016. The app allows riders to evolve magical girls and Gojyo Taxi headed to Comiket 91 to spread the word.
Nakazawa's plan has hit a pretty large speed bump.Tokyo has laws in place that restricts advertisements on vehicles. Nakazawa's taxi can have images across the doors on the side, but wrapping the entire car violates safety laws for outdoor advertisements. For now, he can't operate his taxi in Tokyo.
Gojyo Taxi Service is the same company that offered itasha taxi rides at Comiket 90 in 2016. Those taxis only featured character images on the side doors. Condor Taxis previously offered Kinmoza! taxis in Tokyo and Choei-Taxi wrapped some of its cars in Madoka Magica to attract customers in Sapporo.
Source: Asahi Shimbun (松本俊), Gojyo Taxi blog, via Otakomu
