Fender Japan

Fender Japan, Ltd. was the joint-venture between Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Kanda Shokai (神田商会) and Yamano Gakki (山野楽器), which operated the Japanese business of Fender musical instruments from 1982 to 2015. The venture involved the domestic production and sale of Fender instruments for the Japanese market.

The venture ended on March 31, 2015 and Fender itself (through its company Fender Music Corporation (Japan)) took over the Japanese business effective April 1, 2015 with Fender-manufactured product line. The Japanese-made Fender guitars sold by Fender Music Corporation (Japan) have since been categorized as the "Japan Exclusive" series.

In the late 1970s, Fender was facing competition from lower priced Japanese-made guitars. The higher priced Fender guitars were made in the United States and could not compete with the lower prices of Japanese-made Fender copies. In Japan, Fender was also losing sales to Japanese guitar brands such as Tōkai, Greco and Fernandes. Since Japanese labor and production costs were much lower than in America and to compete with the Japanese made guitars, Fender moved the lower priced Fender guitar production from America to Japan. Fender began negotiations with several Japanese musical instrument distributors.

In March 1982, Fender Japan, Ltd. was officially created as a joint-venture between Fender, Kanda Shokai (神田商会) and Yamano Gakki (山野楽器).

Kanda Shokai is a musical instrument wholesaler with no retail outlets of its own. It also owned the Greco brand name and one of the conditions of the Fender Japan agreement was for Kanda Shokai cease production of its Greco Fender copies. Yamano is a musical instrument wholesaler/retailer with its own retail outlets and was once a part of Orville by Gibson venture. These two companies do not manufacture guitars, they order them from Japanese guitar factories and distribute them through retail outlets. Yamano distributes through its own retail outlets and also various other retail outlets, while Kanda Shokai distributes through various retail outlets, including the Ishibashi chain of music stores in Japan.

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