The signing of Shinji Kagawa has not only delighted the fans in Dortmund, it has also sent a wave of excitement through the midfielder’s home country.

On their current tour of Asia, a BVB delegation led by marketing director Carsten Cramer were Japan to get a first-hand look at how popular BVB’s products of our new No7 have become.

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In Kagawa’s home country alone, more than 3,000 black and yellow shirts with the name of the 60-time capped Japan international have been sold so far, while BVB’s jersey has even been the most sold jersey of all European clubs at “Kamo Sport”, a Japanse shop specialised in football apparel, in the past two weeks. Accordingly, Kamo has started to display BVB merchandise more prominently in their 21 stores around the country to further increase interest in Borussia.

The huge interest in Shinji is noticeable both on BVB’s Japanese online shop as well as on their Japanese website which has seen the number of visitors increasing on a daily basis since his signing shortly before the transfer window closed.

And the return of the attacking midfielder is causing a stir all over the place. BVB’s trademark “full-throttle football”, for example, is hugely popular among young footballers in Japan as BVB’s delegation, which also included representatives from BVB’s kit partner PUMA, discovered for themselves when they paid a visit to BVB’s EVONIK Football School in Tokyo. What they saw were scores of enthusiastic children in black and yellow colours emulating their great idol under the guidance of Japan-based BVB coach Manuel Laurijssen.

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Shinji Kagawa’s shirt, by the way, is also available here.