The robot raccoon dog urges me to press his belly button. I oblige, and Ponta — the cuddly mascot for the point system of the same name — begins moving back and forth.
“You just touched my belly, didn’t you? Then I’ll tell you something nice,” Ponta, sporting sci-fi-style glasses meant to convey “the future,” says before offering up a “belly button proverb.” It’s really just a silly pun, delivered by an awkwardly moving stuffed animal.
This robo-Ponta sits near the entrance of what has been billed as the convenience store of tomorrow. It’s a Lawson outlet found on the sixth floor of Japanese telecommunications giant KDDI’s shiny new office off the Takanawa Gateway Station on the Yamanote Line. Dubbed “Real x Tech Lawson,” it’s a chance for the company — which acquired a 50 percent stake of the chain last year — to showcase its vision of what such stores can be, and offer a peek at what the very concept of “convenience” could become.
At least a type of convenience. Despite receiving plenty of media attention, the location of Real X Tech Lawson makes it feel more like an office experiment than something truly geared towards the general public. When the elevator up to the sixth floor opens, I’m in the lobby for KDDI, a space that most certainly does not feel like a place a rando looking for a snack should be at. The Lawson itself is down a hall to the right, shiny and new, but ultimately feeling like a fixture geared towards KDDI workers rather than the public (though no employee or robotic raccoon will stop you from going in).
It’s most certainly a playground for KDDI to try out new tech developments, perhaps better seen as something of a showroom. The most impressive (and arguably important given Japan’s shrinking population) happen behind the scenes, with machines automatically frying up packs of the chain’s signature hot offering Karaage-kun and robotic arms restocking drinks. Every register is self-check-out, with one machine featuring an anime-style Lawson employee avatar offering assistance, largely about how to use the terminal. Perhaps reflecting the demands of the working day, a cluster of coffee machines take up a large island on one end of the store. There’s no unique items here, save for one I had never seen before — a skewer of chicken nuggets, which paints a dystopian picture of what the world of tomorrow might look like. In an accelerationist twist, said item appears at my local run-of-the-mill Lawson several days later.
Many of the above touches, though, are already standard in Lawsons across the country. Self-check-out registers and coffee machines are standard in most outlets, while the chain’s existing Green Lawson series of stores utilizes the avatar assistants too (while also being the birthplace of another Real X Tech Lawson staple, which is doors helping to keep the cool food items fresher longer).
The bold new development on display is the use of cameras, screens and AI along every aisle to assist customers. Some of the displays allow you to press a digital button on a screen to play a short video explaining what the product is, but most offer in store information (details about a campaign centered around J-pop heavyweights Mrs. GREEN APPLE, a ranking of the most popular items at this outlet) until you pick something up. In theory, the cameras see what you’re holding and an AI-assisted message flashes coupons or recommended items to go with it.
It was hit or miss the day I visited. The first time I try it out — slowly grabbing and then lifting up a ham-and-cheese croissant towards the panopticon-light system around me — it glitches and the screen freezes on an image of coffee beans. Subsequent attempts with onigiri and sweets go better, the screen showing deals and suggestions for drinks.
It’s novel, but I’m not sold on how it changes the store’s central principle of convenience. I have never needed a video board to tell me “have you considered having a drink with this,” while many of the other bells and whistles, as mentioned, already exist in regular Lawson stores. Even the detail that struck me as most truly “convenient” isn’t new — tobacco and e-cigarette products sit out in the store rather than behind the counter, meaning customers can just grab what they want rather than have to tell an employee what number smoke they want. Green Lawson, which is more about sustainability, already introduced this.
Instead, Real X Tech Lawson feels like part experience, part ideal konbini for the office of tomorrow. Additions like the AI-assisted cameras, the giant video board showing massive digital packs of Kaarage-kun and the VTuber-lite customer support felt designed as spectacles rather than anything that truly redefined the shopping experience. Crucially, it worked in that regard — this place was packed when I visited in the early afternoon, with groups of people soaking in every detail and a gaggle of guests absolutely losing their shit to the belly button proverbs. It wasn’t hard to imagine this Lawson being the prototype for a kind of entertainment convenience store delighting tourists and bored salarymen across Tokyo.
The most convenient additions, meanwhile, were all geared towards workers. A “pick-up door” next to the hot box holding all the Kaarage-kun teased the opportunity for busy employees to quickly grab fresh-made eats, while the most intriguing development came outside. Walking in, I could see blue robots labelled “Lawson Office Delivery” milling about, later spotting a human employee loading the bot up with food. Later, it cruised through the lobby en route, presumably, to the office, to deliver sustenance.
These flashes of a store weaving further into the workplace ecosystem offered the strongest argument for Real X Tech Lawson as en experiment in actually developing the possibilities of “convenience.” The rest though, while interesting, felt like an experience bordering on a novelty.
Especially considering what was about five minutes away.
Head through the ticket gate into Takanawa Gateway Station and right away, on the left, is a small store labelled “Touch To Go.” One of several experimental stores operated by station-centric chain Newdays, this cozy outpost offered an image of a far more convenient future.
Customers walk in and enter a gate. They choose what items they want (from, admittedly, a smaller selection than what a normal Newdays would boast), then complete the loop towards the self-check-out register. Whereas the Lawson, a brief walk away, required users to scan everything themselves, the Touch To Go detects what items you have automatically and instantly puts them into the system. Pay and you are off.
I spent a total of two minutes in this store, compared to the 20-ish in the Lawson just looking around. The latter was fun and felt like something out of the ordinary…but the prior got me in and out and on to the next part of my day faster than most shopping experiences. Now that felt convenient.
