( trading as Takara Tomy in Asia and Tomy elsewhere) is a Japanese toy company. It was established in 1924 by Eiichirō Tomiyama as , became known for creating popular toys like the B-29 friction toy and luck-based game Pop-up Pirate. In 2006, Tomy merged with another toy manufacturer, Takara, and although the English company name remained the same, it became Takara Tomy in Asia. It has its headquarters in

Katsushika, Tokyo is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in the Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. It is known as Katsushika City in English. As of May 1, 2015, the ward has an estimated population of 444,356, and a population density of 12,770 people per km2. ...

History and corporate name

Before the merger

The company was named Tomy as an abridgement of Tomiyama, which was the founder's surname. Starting as a manufacturer, Tomy had the largest product development team in the toy industry and plaudits for its technology. Nonetheless, by its third generation, president Mikitaro Tomiyama decided to streamline the company to be more competitive with wholesaler Bandai. Bandai developed its products more quickly, which was more appealing to television properties that required a fast turnaround. Despite internal and external opposition, Tomiyama was determined to aggressively pursue TV licenses such as Akakage, Giant Robo and Osomatsu-kun. Tomiyama was shocked when his son told him that Tomy's toys were bad and that he wanted to work for Bandai when he grew up. In response, he created the moderately successful '' Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh'' (then '' Genki Bakuhatsu Ganbaruger'') (but the product development team followed these with '' Nekketsu Saikyō Go-Saurer'') (which was a catastrophic failure). It became common wisdom within the industry that Tomy could not support a multimedia franchise. However, Tomy established a relationship with

Shogakukan is a Japanese publisher of comics, magazines, light novels, dictionaries, literature, non-fiction, home media, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but ...

and created the successful '' Wedding Peach'' and '' Let's & Go''. Tomy learned about the growing popularity of Pokémon through monthly '' CoroCoro Comic'' and obtained the commercial rights. Bandai at the time was busy with its big hit,

Tamagotchi is a brand of handheld digital pets that was created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was released by Bandai on November 23, 1996 in Japan and in the United States on May 1, 1997, quickly becoming one of the bigge ...

, and was not interested in Pokémon. Tomy acquired the rights to commercialize a wide range of merchandise, mainly toys, and released the "Monster Collection" of figures next year. The anime became a huge hit, and sales of related products doubled. Tomy (who had been the third largest company in the toy industry since the 1980s) rose to second place in 1997. In 2001, competitor Takara's hit franchise, Beyblade, and Pokémon's slump saw Takara regaining second place and Tomy falling again to third. However, Beyblade subsequently faltered (which adversely affected Takara's fortunes; Tomy merged with the suffering company and became Takara Tomy).

After the merger

The company decided to use the name "Tomy" in international subsidiaries, and "Takara Tomy" in Japan, because Tomy had built considerable international brand recognition while Takara's products ( Microman,

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Tomy, Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the heroic Autobots and the villainous Decepticons, two Extraterrestrials in fiction, alien robot fac ...

, Battle Beasts, Beyblade, B-Daman etc.) had been sold and branded by other toy companies such as

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...

. Additionally, the financial cost of rebranding was prohibitive. In Western media, the Takara Tomy merger was typically characterised as a 'takeover' of Takara by Tomy (likely because several years of losses had put Takara in a financially weakened state at the time of the merger (although Takara did have significantly higher sales than Tomy)). However, the companies' management teams had previously discussed merging (including at times when Takara appeared stronger). Under Japanese corporate law, the move was a merger of both companies on an equal basis. Post-merger media speculation about the control of brands from the Takara Tomy merger arose from the new use of a "TOMY" copyright on all packaging (including former Takara brands shipped by Hasbro) (but this was merely a consequence of the decision to use only the Tomy name in international subsidiaries). In Japan, ''Takara Tomy'' continues to use both Tomy and Takara as distinct brand names on toy ranges which originated in each separate company, and most new toy ranges or stand-alone products now carry the new Takara Tomy brand. Takara purchased a majority stake in Tatsunoko Production in June 2005. The studio then became a full subsidiary of Takara Tomy following the March 2006 merger until Nippon Television bought out the majority of Tatsunoko's stake in 2014. Tomy UK was founded in 1982 for the sale and distribution of Tomy products in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and it has successfully brought toys such as Zoids, and games like Pop-up Pirate, to the West. Tomy UK's slogan has traditionally been "Trust Tomy". In 2006, Tomy UK launched a website on which consumers can buy online from Tomy's catalogue. In early 2011, Takara-Tomy acquired RC2 Corporation and the RC2 sub-brand Learning Curve, which included The First Years, Lamaze, and Compass.

Products

Takara-Tomy has manufactured a broad range of products based on its own properties which include, from the Tomy side: Tomica, Plarail, Zoids, Idaten Jump, Nohohon Zoku and Tomy branded baby care products, and, from the Takara side: Space Pets, Choro-Q (also known as Penny Racers),

, B-Daman, Koeda-chan (also known as Treena) and Microman. The merged Takara-Tomy also produces and/or sells a wide variety of toy and game brands under license, such as ''

Thomas & Friends ''Thomas & Friends'' is a British children's television series which aired from 9 October 1984 to 20 January 2021. Based on ''The Railway Series'' books by Wilbert Awdry and his son Christopher Awdry, Christopher, the series was developed for ...

'', ''

Astro Boy ''Astro Boy'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. It was serialized in Kobunsha's ''Shōnen'' from 1952 to 1968. The 112 chapters were collected into 23 volumes by Akita Shoten. Da ...

'', '' Pokémon'', '' Beyblade'', '' Duel Masters'', ''

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

'', '' Naruto'', '' The Game of Life'' (also known as '' Life Game''), ''Rock Man'' (also known as '' Mega Man''), '' Wedding Peach'', '' Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch'', '' My Hero Academia'', '' Sakura Kinomoto'', '' Sakura Kinomoto: Clear Card'', '' Slayers'', '' Revolutionary Girl Utena'', '' Kirarin Revolution'', '' Sugarbunnies'' and '' Animal Crossing''. Tomy's rights to these licenses vary by region. One of the first examples of product synergy for the merged company was the combining of Takara's Jinsei Game (Game of Life) license and Tomy's Pokémon license to produce a Pokémon Jinsei Game. Tomy sells many products worldwide, including baby and pre-school toys, baby monitors, mechanical and electronic games, consumer electronics, children's

arts and crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

products, and a vast range of toys suited to girls or boys. They make a large selection of

, Pokémon and

Thomas the Tank Engine Thomas the Tank Engine is a fictional, anthropomorphised tank locomotive who originated from the British children's books ''The Railway Series'', created and written by Wilbert Awdry with his son Christopher Awdry, Christopher, first publish ...

merchandise. They also publish

video games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

in Japan (mostly based on Zoids and Naruto

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

series), and are responsible for the distribution of some

products in Japan, such as Play-Doh, Jenga and

Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

. The company was formerly responsible for distribution of the My Little Pony products in Japan before Bushiroad acquired the distribution rights to them starting with the franchise's '' Friendship Is Magic'' line (though the animated television series was owned by

). Later in 2015, after Bushiroad disowned the distribution rights, Sega Toys reacquired the rights to all generations of the franchise before selling the rights back to Hasbro. A list of notable products include: Tomy-Blip

TOMY LSI PACMAN handheld electronic game

* Armatron * Atollo – construction toy * Bakugan: Battle Planet * B-Daman – marble shooting toys * Beyblade – top fighting game * Blip (game) – mechanical Pong-type handheld game * Blythe * Boggle Flash * Brave series (co-product with Sunrise) * Choro-Q – micro toy cars * Chuggington * Compass * Crossbows and Catapults * Duel Masters trading card game franchise * Eldran series (co-product with Sunrise) * Flip Flap – solar-powered plant * Furby * Gashapon – vending machines * Guitar Rockstar * i-SOBOT * Jenga * Jenny * Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Flame Rumble – a series of fighting games based on the manga/anime for the Nintendo DS * Kamiwaza Wanda * Kingdom Hearts Trading Card Game * Lamaze * Licca * Omnibot – line of toy robots * Plarail – plastic electric train set system (called "Tomica World" outside Japan) * Pop-up Pirate *

Pretty Rhythm is a Japanese multimedia franchise produced by Syn Sophia and Takara Tomy Arts aimed at girls in elementary school. The ''Pretty Rhythm'' franchise was first launched in July 2010 with the Rhythm game, rhythm and dress-up arcade game ''Pretty R ...

* PriPara - the successor to the Pretty Rhythm series * Q-steer – micro radio-controlled cars based on Choro-Q * Rummikub * Screwball Scramble * Starriors * Switch 16 *

– Plarail, Capsule Plarail, Tomica, and Tomix themes, and preschool products * Thunderbirds * Tomica –

die-cast toy A die-cast toy (also spelled diecast, or die cast) is a toy or a collectible model produced by using the die casting, die-casting method of putting molten lead, zinc alloy or plastic in a mold to produce a particular shape. Such toys are made o ...

* Tomix – the model railway brand of Tomytec, a subsidiary of Takara Tomy * Tomy Tutor –

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

* Tomytronic - range of tabletop dedicated electronic games * Tomytronic 3D – 3D handheld game series *

(co-product with

) * Transforming Bullet Train Robot Shinkalion * Tron – action figures and vehicles based on the Disney film * Teletubbies * Wedding Peach * Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch * My Hero Academia * Sakura Kinomoto * Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card * Slayers * Revolutionary Girl Utena *Z-Knights – line of constructible models of humanoid robots styled after knights that ran from 1991 to 1993. * Zoids * Zootopia * Water Games

References

External links