“The Japan team is free to create guitars with a fresh perspective”: Fender Japan remains a mystery to the western world. I went behind the scenes and found out why its guitars are so radically different – and what’s stopping them reaching the US

This Custom Silver Sparkle Telecaster takes its finish and pickup cues from Gretsch and was released in 2023.

Fender is a historic American brand and many of its most prized instruments are still built in California. Yet some of its most hotly discussed releases originate from the other side of the world.

Fender Japan is unafraid to toy with US outlines old and new, while drawing from traditional Japanese culture, videogames and Fender’s own rich catalog to produce electric guitars that are reliably much more than ‘just another Strat or Tele’.