Introduction
Thank you so much for coming to Hareruya!
If you do not know the name Hareruya, I think you have seen our logo somewhere.
What? You don’t? Then,do you know him?
He is Tomoharu Saito, a Gold Pro Player that runs around the world. He is also the owner of Hareruya.
Image Copyright : Wizards of the Coast
I bet you know Marcio Carvalho. He played in the finals World Championship 2016, and in the finals of a recent Pro Tour. He has been playing many years as a pro under the spotlight. He is one of the best players now.
He is in our famous pro team, Hareruya Pros.
We Hareruya though do other…
We will talk about Japan’s largest Magic: The Gathering shop.
After you read this, you will know everything about Hareruya.
What is Hareruya?
Hareruya is positioned in Tokyo, Japan as a Magic: The Gathering Card Shop. We have 6 different shops throughout Japan and we also have a mail order service so not only Japan, but outside Japan can buy cards from us!
Hareruya is known as Japan’s number one Magic: The Gathering shop.
If you can see the Hareruya Tournament Center, you will probably understand why. A huge play area, and lots of players that have fun playing Magic. Also check the Jace that watches over the Feature Match Area!
At the Hareruya Tournament Center, lots of tournaments in all sorts of format is held every day, and for these tournaments lots of players come and gather at our shop. In those players, people from overseas come join and it is not a rare thing.
Hareruya is also one of the few shops that organizes Japanese Grand Prix. Also, as we said first, we Hareruya sponsors pro players! I bet you have seen our sponsored players Hareruya Pros somewhere.
Well, do you know Hareruya now? It’s alright if you only understood that Hareruya is the number one Magic: The Gathering shop in Japan. Do you have a doubt about it?
Let us explain how Hareruya became the number one Magic: The Gathering shop in Japan. If you hear the story behind Hareruya becoming the number one shop in Japan, you will probably understand why.
How it began. Hareruya’s start
It starts off as a same story as any other card shop has. The owner of Hareruya, Saito was an extraordinary trader. As he aggressively attended Grand Prix inside Japan, he kept on trading card as a hobby.
Before we get in to details, let us talk about what kind of personality Saito has. He loves the word “Happy” and he wants not only himself but everyone in the world to be happy as well.
Going back to the story, Saito started a web page called “Hareruya” and started selling and buying at his home. At that time, Hareruya did not have a shop, and was ran at his home selling cards as a webstore.
Trading with players overseas and selling cards in Japan. He found that this makes lots of people “Happy” and also himself.
As we said earlier, Saito loves to be “Happy” and with others too. Saito’s spirit to make people happy became how Hareruya stands today and the shop Hareruya became bigger and bigger.
So, what happens next?
Saito’s wish was to make players of Magic happy. He took no compromise plan, and he realized that his home was too small to bring the happiness to all players.
This is how the first Card Shop Hareruya was born.
The shop was made and lots of Magic players gather at the shop.
So, the Card Shop Hareruya gave happy to lot of the Magic players, and the story ends…usually but not this time! As we said so many times, Saito’s wants EVERYBODY to be happy and he was unstoppable! Unstoppable from way before Hareruya was made, in 1999 when he was a little boy.
Young Saito and the Tournament Center
A long time ago, there was a place in Tokyo, Japan called the DCI Tournament Center. They had Magic tournaments and lots of people came to play at the tournament center and it was like a dream to young himself.
His first time at the DCI Tournament Center was in 1999, when he was in high school. He came to qualify for the tournament “The Finals”
Image Copyright : Wizards of the Coast
During the early ages of Magic, “The Finals” was a tournament for the pro players to sell their name. The famous Magic Hall of Famer, Yuuya Watanabe attended “The Finals” back then and finished as a finalist winning his fame.
Just a note, Yuuya Watanabe lost to Katsuhiro Mori, a sponsored player in the Hareruya Hopes.
Do you understand how big a deal this tournament was?
To attend “The Finals” you had to be a pro player or play tough rounds and win your invite to “The Finals”.
Saito defeated lots of players and won his invite! Not only that, he won the whole tournament!
“When I won The Finals, I only had feelings that Magic is so fun to play. I really wanted to move to Tokyo and go to the DCI Tournament Center and play lots of Magic and get better at the game!” said young Saito.
To young Saito, the tournament center was a dream to play at. Lots of Magic players are there to have fun, improve, and battle at this facility. He wanted to go there all the time to play the game Magic that he loved.
Saito’s dream ends in 2002, when the DCI Tournament Center closed. It closed the year after Saito moved to Tokyo. The dream to play Magic at the tournament center that young Saito had never faded. One day this dream began to change from wanting to play to wanting to make the tournament center.
The foundation of Hareruya Tournament Center
Saito’s dream to make the tournament center became realistic as the Card Shop Hareruya grew.
Hareruya was able to run a real store with lots of players coming and being happy, but 50 seats was not enough to extend his happiness.
“I want the magic community to be happy!”
“I want to make the tournament center!”
Saito’s dream and his spirit lead him to…
300seats! Look at how free it is to play at the Hareruya Tournament Center.
At the Hareruya Tournament Center, we run tournaments starting at 11A.M. We got tournaments in Standard, Modern, Legacy, and Drafts every day!
300 seats for players was an absurd challenge. It was not just a risk, a huge risk. Saito never gave up the plan to have 300 seats. You must know by now why.
“I wanted to make people in front of me who like Magic to be happy. I just repeated this on and on, and we stand here. I know that if people get a chance to know Magic, their life will be happier. So, I want Magic to be known, and that is what the tournament center is for!” This is what Saito thinks.
Started from Tokyo, extends throughout Japan to make people happy!
With the foundation of Hareruya Tournament Center, lots of players were happy.
Saito wasn’t satisfied.
“With the Hareruya Tournament Center in Tokyo, players in Tokyo is happy. What about the rest of Japan? I want Japan to be happy! “Saito thought.
Saito’s move was to make Hareruya shops across Japan. Beside Tokyo, he made 4 Hareruya shops in cities throughout Japan and made Magic players out of Tokyo to be happy. To make Magic players happy Saito and Hareruya did everything he can.
First, Hareruya became an organizer of a Grand Prix! We didn’t just want to be an organizer, we wanted to challenge new possibilities for Magic players.
As a result, we made an online pairing application using your smartphone to receive your pairings, and at Grand Prix Chiba 2016, we made fees free for students who wanted to attend the Grand Prix!
Magic players respect the “tournaments” to be competitive and as a player, Saito understands this as well. He decided to make a Magic tournament with a new value which is cool, gorgeous, and premium.
“The Last Sun”,“God of X Format Tournament” became tournaments that represent Hareruya.
The foundation of Hareruya Pros.
Why we decided to sponsor Magic Pro players is because we thought we can expand the happiness by supporting the pro scene. Saito and Hareruya believes that by supporting the pros, this would increase the value that Magic had to a higher level.
We also started to support the ”Hareruya Hopes”. Hareruya Hopes are a group of players that starting to make waves in the Magic scene, or have great achievements in other card games. Hareruya supports not just players that attend the pro tours but players that aim to attend the pro tour.
This is how Hareruya tries to make Magic players in Japan happier. Did Saito fulfill his dream to make people happy?
Not yet, because Saito wants to make everyone who loves Magic in the world happy!
As a Pro he played all around the world, and watched lots of players and realized that Hareruya can make people happy worldwide.
Happy goes worldwide
To make Magic players overseas happy, we need to be able to send cards overseas. We receive numbers of order worldwide. Just think, cards are sent all the way to the opposite side of the earth! We are planning some great ideas to make Magic players worldwide to be happy! I hope we can bring this to you soon and if we are able to bring this to the world, I think the players worldwide will be happy, including you who is reading this!
Not just that, but we plan to run a shop overseas in the near future! Having shops across Japan made us confident that we need shops to make the Magic players happier. We plan to have Hareruya all around the world! That’s what Saito has in mind!
Hareruya also started to sponsor a tournament in Philippines. Just look, see how the participants look so happy! Doesn’t it look like are cute smiling face character?
We can’t forget the Hareruya Pros and Hareruya Hopes! In 2016, Hareruya Pros had the Pro Tour champion Jeremy Dezani join, and lots of talented pro players came to the Hareruya Pros from then on.
We had the finalist of the World Championship 2017 Javier Dominguez, the world-famous Pro from the United States of America, Christian Calcano, Grzegorz Kowalski and Marc Tobiasch joined Hareruya making the team evolving!
Javier Dominguez
Christian Calcano
Grzegorz Kowalski
Marc Tobiasch
Image Copyright: Wizards of the Coast
Not just that, this year we had amazing players from Brazil, Portugal, Argentina making a team Hareruya Latin!
Forming with one of the best players to be known Marcio Carvalho, topping first and second in the Brazil Nationals, Carlos Romao and Lucas Esper Berthoud, a strong player from Brazil Thiago Saporito, the standard master Sebastian Pozzo and his longtime friend Luis Salvatto makes the six of Hareruya Latin. We can’t take our eyes from them!
Image Copyright : Wizards of the Coast
We have more to come! Hareruya Hopes had only Japanese players first but we recruited 34 players from 26 different countries.
To make all Magic players happy
You know now what Hareruya and Saito thinks of today right? To make Magic players happy! Saito and Hareruya is always challenging new approaches to make Magic players happy!
This is one challenge we are running which we made a new company! A company that Magic players work, named Sekappy!
Sekappy is a company that will provide innovation to Magic and with great engineers we will try to make Magic players happy!
This Sekappy is one of Saito’s challenges and he will do whatever is needed to make Magic players happy!
Hareruya will challenge to make Magic players happy so please give us your support!
