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Saya no Uta, or The Song of Saya in English, is a notoriously graphic visual novel from the mind of Gen "Urobutcher" Urobuchi where a whole bunch of NSFW (arguably not safe for life, frankly) stuff happens. Its most iconic character is a disarmingly sweet-looking anime girl (and nothing else) named Saya. Little ol' Saya recently got a new Fumo-brand plush from longstanding Japanese visual novel publisher JAST, as the company flagged on Twitter, and it was such a success that it caused a frankly amazing storm of miscommunication.
"Since the Saya Fumo has made more money in 28 hours than all our visual novel releases for the last 28 years combined (including Saya no Uta somehow) we're rebranding to Dave's Fumo Emporium and focusing exclusively on Saya Fumos forever," said JAST's Dave Adams in a tweet sharing the $60 plush and $100 vinyl-and-plush bundle for Saya.
My reaction to this information was two-fold. My first thought was: man, people really like plushies. My second thought, after my higher brain regained control, was: wait, really? Assuming the whole thing was a gag but nonetheless intrigued by the fan stampede, I reached out to JAST to see exactly how successful this plush drop had been, and the response I got from Adams is print-it-out-and-frame-it gold:
"Yes, that post on X dot com was a hyperbolic joke and I am kind of terrified by how many people took it at face value. I may need your help and that of the gaming press at large to inform the world that I'm not changing the name of our company to Dave's Fumo Emporium to focus on one single product SKU to the exclusion of all others."
Since the Saya Fumo has made more money in 28 hours than all our visual novel releases for the last 28 years combined (including Saya no Uta somehow) we're rebranding to Dave's Fumo Emporium and focusing exclusively on Saya fumos forever. pic.twitter.com/Mz6vdRyebIApril 10, 2024
To be fair, it's not a bad plan. Within hours of the original post, the standalone Saya plush had sold out entirely, with only the vinyl bundle left standing. Saya fans remained unsated, and just under three hours after that, the bundle was gone too. (If you're wondering why I'm not linking to the plushies, it's partly because they're sold out, but mostly because even the shop's recommended products are incredibly NSFW because this is an R18 game and storefront. Look them up at your own risk.)
"And that's that. All gone, everywhere. None left in the world. Thank you all for your incredible support of Saya, the perfect wonderful girl who never did anything wrong," the JAST account said.
"Now we have the cursed knowledge that selling Fumos to disturbed egirls is far more lucrative than [visual novels]," concludes the publisher, which has since understandably changed its Twitter bio to JAST Fumo Emporium.
JAST Fumo Emporium says there were no "unusually large" orders that would indicate scalpers, so "at least on the hmarket [store] the real fans got them." Asked how many plushies were produced, the emporium responded simply: "All of them."
Here are the best visual novels sure to hook you for hours on end without dealing permanent psychic damage to your higher brain. For the most part, anyway.
