Megane Super Brand Guidelines: An Odawara Glasses Chain, a 2014 Reset and a Zoff Sister

From Odawara to a national chain.

Megane Super began in Kanagawa Prefecture, south-west of Tokyo. Japanese Wikipedia says Hachiro Tanaka founded its predecessor, a small company called New Shonan Megane, in Odawara in 1973, and in 1976 set up a company named Megane Super in what is now the city of Saitama. In 1980 the business was reorganised as Megane Super Co., Ltd., with New Shonan Megane as the surviving company. The company’s own profile gives its establishment as May 1979, so the dates differ by source. Counting from 1973, it marked its 50th anniversary in 2025, Japanese Wikipedia says.

The chain spread from Odawara to cities across Japan, selling glasses and contact lenses and, over time, hearing aids and other goods, according to Japanese Wikipedia, which says it listed on the JASDAQ market in March 2004 and had about 540 stores at its 2007 peak. For decades the head office stood in Odawara; from 2006 to 2016 the Odawara relay point of the outbound leg of the Hakone Ekiden, the university road relay, was in front of that building, Japanese Wikipedia notes. The head office moved to Nihonbashi in Tokyo in March 2019, and the old building became the hall of the Odawara-Hakone Chamber of Commerce and Industry from February 2021. In July 2026 the head office moved again, to Shin-Yokohama in Yokohama, the address the company now gives.

Its advertising leaned on familiar faces. Japanese Wikipedia lists the composer Asei Kobayashi and the singer Kenji Sawada among the past figures in its television commercials, and gives the chain an owl mascot called Fukutan, with a younger sister, Fukurin.

Losses, funds and a new strategy.

The 2000s were hard. Japanese Wikipedia says the chain struggled to match the low set prices of newer chains such as Zoff and JINS and posted operating losses for several years from 2008. Lower-priced formats aimed at younger customers, Hatch and Megane Senka, were closed or turned into standard shops. In 2012 the founding family’s executives stepped back, and investment funds led by Advantage Partners took charge of a turnaround, Japanese Wikipedia says.

The new direction had a name. In June 2014 the company declared itself an “Eye Care Company,” introducing a new corporate identity at the same time, according to Japanese Wikipedia. Looking back in April 2019, a Visionary Holdings executive told Newswitch, the news site of the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, that the move was a way to break away from discount competition with newer chains by building on the company’s long experience in eye testing and fitting. The company returned to an operating profit in the year to April 2016, both Japanese Wikipedia and Newswitch report.

That strategy reshaped the shops. In November 2017 the Takadanobaba main store in Tokyo was refitted as what the company calls a “next-generation store,” with private testing rooms and a relaxation room, Newswitch reported; work on the concept had begun in spring 2016, and by 17 April 2019 the format had reached 45 stores. In November 2026 the company’s site listed services such as a repair and remodelling centre, home visits and a contact-lens delivery plan, alongside frames from brands including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Burberry and Samurai Sho.

Design and documentation.

Optical retail chains present themselves above all through the shop sign. The name over the door has to work at street level, on a shopping-centre fascia and on a phone screen, and many chains in this group run more than one name at once. In the Nordic countries, Synsam trades as Synsam in Sweden, Norway and Finland but as Profil Optik in Denmark and Iceland, while Finland’s Instru Optiikka runs Instrumentarium, Nissen and Keops side by side.

Ownership is part of the story these companies tell, and it varies widely. Some chains began as alliances of independent opticians or as co-operatives and buying groups; others grew from a single founder or a family business; still others now sit inside listed groups or private-equity portfolios. Corporate pages on founders, owners and dates are often the most useful material for a designer, because they explain why one network carries several names or why a sign has outlived the company that created it.

Own-label frames are the second constant. Chains in Japan, Brazil, Spain, France, the Nordic countries and the Gulf sell frames under their own range names next to outside brands, and those names are given here as the companies publish them, collection by collection. Store formats follow the same pattern: flagship shops, outlet or second-hand formats, franchise stores and online sales are each described in the companies’ own terms.

The guides in this group set out each chain’s published history, ownership and store network with dates, and then offer an unofficial palette and a type stand-in for reference. They make no claims about eye care, lenses or examinations, and no logo or shop sign is reproduced.

A holding company, a fund and a new parent.

The group behind the chain changed shape several times. In 2017 Megane Super took over Megane House of Toyama and, through a new company, the business of Shimizu Megane of Osaka; on 1 November 2017 Visionary Holdings was formed as its holding company, and the old company’s shares were delisted on 27 October 2017, according to Japanese Wikipedia. Visionary Holdings gives its own establishment date as 1 November 2017. The Tokyo company M3 became its biggest shareholder in February 2020 after a capital tie-up, Japanese Wikipedia says. In October 2019 the group added Otsuka Megane of Shiga Prefecture, which was merged into its Kansai business in February 2020. In November 2020 the operating company was renamed VH Retail Service, and in May 2022 it absorbed Megane House; on 1 May 2025, for the 50th anniversary, it took back the name Megane Super.

Ownership then moved twice. In October 2023 Horus, a company set up by an investment fund, announced a tender offer for Visionary Holdings; the offer succeeded on 22 November 2023, and the shares were delisted on 29 January 2024, Japanese Wikipedia says. On 2 September 2025 FASHIONSNAP reported that Zoff’s parent, Intermestic, would buy Horus HD and Horus, making Visionary Holdings a wholly owned subsidiary from 1 October 2025. Japanese Wikipedia records the transfer as completed on that date, and Megane Super’s own site now points shareholders to Intermestic.

FASHIONSNAP gave Megane Super about 300 stores across Japan as of April 2025 and said the chain focused on contact lenses, with many younger customers. Visionary Holdings listed 299 group stores and 1,590 group employees as of October 2025, with Megane Super, VisionWedge and VISIONIZE as its group companies.

For a design guide, Megane Super shows how a store name can outlast changes in the companies behind it, from a family firm to a listed holding company, a fund and a new parent. Compare Zoff, now its sister chain under Intermestic, and JINS. For this guide we use a deep red, a warm sand and an ink with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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