Learning from the Picture Book 'Karasu no Tenpura-ya-san': What Does It Mean to Be Indispensable?
In corporate management, unforeseen circumstances are inevitable.
However, if a business is hit by an unexpected trouble and hits rock bottom, how will the customers react?
The picture book 'Karasu no Tenpura-ya-san' (The Crow Tempura Shop) is a story about ultimate crisis management and the customer loyalty that supports it.
The protagonist, the tempura shop owner, loses everything in a fire and faces the crisis of his family being torn apart.
This is truly the same kind of 'despair' that modern companies face with disasters or unexpected pandemics.
What is important is what happens next.
Even in an era without modern mechanisms for raising reconstruction funds, the customers who loved the shop voluntarily provided materials and ingredients, eagerly awaiting the shop's revival.
Why was a single for-profit business recognized as an
indispensable entity like infrastructure or a temple?
We will delve into the three lessons derived from this picture book:
overwhelming product power
reproducible teaching methods (qualities as an educator)
and
process economy
, and further consider the permanence of a business truly loved by its customers, while incorporating the surprising case of 'succession by fans' at the modern long-standing soba restaurant 'Daikokuya'.
1. The overwhelming bond with customers that made reconstruction from rock bottom possible
The opening of 'Karasu no Tenpura-ya-san' is shocking.
It starts abruptly with a scene where the tempura shop burns down in a fire.
When Lemon-san the baker and Omochi-kun came to offer their condolences for the fire, Kyube, the master of the tempura shop, and his successor son Iwa-kun, who had injured his eyes due to the fire, were left homeless. To make matters worse, the wife was missing, and they were in despair.
However, encouraged by Jiro-kun, a friend of his son Iwa-kun, Lemon-san and Omochi-kun decided to learn how to make tempura, and the shop began to rebuild.
Above all, the traditional fans sincerely awaited the shop's reconstruction, provided materials and ingredients, and it achieved a magnificent revival.
After escaping rock bottom, the missing wife returned, the son's eyes recovered, and a virtuous cycle began, including the marriage between the son and Lemon-san.
2. Three points to learn: Why did customers refuse to accept that they would 'never eat it again'?
Point 1: Overwhelming product power becomes infrastructure
First, one point.
The tempura made by Kyube was supported overwhelmingly.
Unfortunately, the tempura shop was hit by a fire, but the customers could not accept that they would never be able to eat it again.
Therefore, they voluntarily provided support for the reconstruction in various ways.
In modern times, one might crowdfund to raise donations, but even without such a mechanism, it can be inferred that they provided products of a quality that made people think, 'I want to eat this again!'.
A tempura shop is not infrastructure.
It is not a temple or shrine. Basically, it is a for-profit business.
However, for the people, it is an indispensable existence.
Point 2: Qualities as a leader who turns craftsmanship into 'science'
Next, Kyube's qualities and charm as a person (crow?) can be mentioned. He has high qualities as an educator and successfully imparts the secret techniques of tempura making to his successors in a reproducible way.
Rather than the intuitive guidance often found among craftsmen of 'stealing with your eyes', he is skilled in the ability to scientifically explain his own experience, which is why he was able to teach three successors at the same time.
Point 3: Process economy that shares the state of reconstruction
The third is the introduction of marketing using a process economy.
Even while he is teaching his successors, customers who are looking forward to the reconstruction gather.
And even though the tempura was made during class, the customers want it. The customers end up supporting the growth of the successors, and when they are recognized as craftsmen, cheers of 'Hooray, congratulations!' go up.
It is unclear whether this was intentional, but by making the reconstruction process public, customers were able to support them, and they were able to further heighten the feeling of it being 'their own shop'.
3. Ultimate customer love: Toward an era where fans inherit the shop
It is rare for a shop to be so beloved by the people.
Providing better products and services.
Devoting oneself to this is more important than anything else.
The story of 'The Crow Tempura Shop' continues to be passed down today in different forms.
Take, for example, the case of the long-established Kyoto soba restaurant 'Daikokuya', which has been in business for over 100 years. When it closed its doors—much to the regret of many—due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors, it was the 'passionate fans' who had frequented the shop for years who mourned the loss of its traditional flavors and storefront.
These fans went beyond mere financial support; they took the baton of the business themselves and inherited the shop, realizing the desire to 'eat there again' in the ultimate way.
This goes beyond the conventional framework of 'donations for reconstruction,' and can be called a case where customers transformed into 'entrepreneurs' who took on the responsibility of preserving the 'shop' as a cultural asset. case.
When beloved shops recover from 'rock bottom'—whether due to fire, disaster, or management difficulties—they have the power to involve fans not just as consumers, but as partners in reconstruction, or even as continuers of the business.
'Quality,' 'humanity,' and 'sharing the process.'. When these elements come together, the shop is no longer just a for-profit enterprise to the customer; it becomes
'an indispensable presence in their life,' and exerts tremendous power during difficult times.
Of the five books in the 'Crow Bread Shop' series, this is the one that left the deepest impression on me.