Mahaposha
A chain of computer shops run by Aum Shinrikyo, and the company that operated it (Mahaposha Co., Ltd.). It was founded on January 14, 1992, and had shops at six locations in Japan, beginning with Akihabara, selling computers under its own brand and other goods. All the staff were believers, and believers also did the assembly, so labor costs were extremely low. After the Tokyo subway sarin attack of 1995, all the shops had closed by the end of that year.
Overview
The head office was in Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo, and the shops were in Akihabara, Minami-Aoyama, Nipponbashi in Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Sapporo. The president was Shoko Asahara, the leader of the cult, who also named the company. The computers it sold were so-called white-box machines, assembled from parts imported from China and elsewhere.
Why the prices were low
Because believers assembled the computers without pay in the name of religious training, labor costs were extremely low, and it is said that the shops could undersell others and still have a high profit margin. On the other hand, an IT and consumer-electronics journalist who knew the period at first hand testifies that although the prices were certainly low, they were not markedly lower than at other shops; the difference was at most a few hundred yen.
After the attack
Following the Tokyo subway sarin attack of 1995, all the shops had closed by the end of that year. Successor shops opened afterward had also all closed by January 2000. In July 2000 a computer shop called Y2PC opened in Taito-ku, Tokyo, with the film director Eizo Yamagiwa and Yukio Yamanaka as representative directors, for the purpose of compensating the victims. Y2PC switched to internet sales only in 2002 and continued selling until January 31, 2005.
To verify
- The origin and meaning of the name "Mahaposha" (it is said to have been rendered as "great prosperity" at the Taiwan branch)
- The legal relationship between Y2PC and Mahaposha Co., Ltd.
- The scale of sales
References
- Mentioned in
- none
- Similar