Takara
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Takara Co., Ltd. is a Japanese toy company founded in 1955. Takara merged with another prominent Japanese toy company, Tomy Co., Ltd., on March 1, 2006 with the new company making the unusual decision to adopt two different legal corporate names. In English the legal name of the company is simply TOMY Co. Ltd. while in Japanese the legal company name is the combined name, K.K. Takara-Tomy (株式会社タカラトミー ) TYO: [7867]
Takara is perhaps best known as the company behind the transforming toys which became Transformers, after Hasbro proposed combining Takara's Diaclone and Micro Change toylines in 1984 to create the Transformers. Takara is also the originator of the hit toy lines Battle Beasts (BeastFormers in Japan), e-kara karaoke microphone, Battle B-Daman and Beyblade, all of which Hasbro also sold or distributed internationally. Takara continues to sell Microman, the basis for the hit toy line Micronauts, sold internationally by now defunct Mego beginning in the 70s and Choro-Q a mini pullback car, which has been running since 1978 and is marketed outside Japan as Penny Racer.
Takara was also a videogame developer and publisher, well-known during the early 1990s for porting some of SNK's Neo-Geo-based arcade games - especially the Fatal Fury and Samurai Shodown series - to less powerful home consoles such as the Sega Genesis and the SNES but also for the Game Boy (Fatal Fury 2, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes 2 Jet, The King of Fighters '95 and '96...). They published their own 3D fighting game series, Battle Arena Toshinden, although it was developed by Tamsoft. The extent of Takara's actual involvement in videogame development is largely unknown, since many of the company's games were developed by smaller companies not credited on the packaging or title screen, such as Tamsoft, BHE, E-game and KID corp, and therefore are often mistakenly credited to Takara. Takara purchased Atlus in 2003, and since 2004 no longer publishes videogames under the Takara brand name.
Takara Toys has manufactured several unusual gadgets that it calls "life entertainment products", including Bowlingual, which is claimed to "translate" the "barks, whines and yelps of more than 80 breeds of dog into human language".2 The Bowlingual was named one of the best inventions of 2002 by Time magazine.1 See also Yumemi Kobo "dream generator".
In 2005 another Takara product, Walkie bits was honored as a Time magazine best invention, this time in the robot category. Walkie bits are colorful, multi-function miniature robotic turtles. Though relatively simple in functionality, at 5cm long and less than 15g each, at their introduction they were said to be among the smallest ever mass produced programmable robots.
In the 80s Takara's received criticism for its original mascot which was a golliwog-like character named Dakko-Chan. Takara later replaced it with a fantastical character called 21st Century Colorful Dakko-Chan, which bears enough similarity to connote the original symbol, while divesting the traits which brought criticism of the original character. Besides the design, the new Dakko-Chan may be any color, rather than the constant black of the original. Other criticisms include the companies notorious reusage of older toy molds, such as Steel Jeeg's remold for the Microman toyline.
The company motto is 「遊びは文化」(asobi wa bunka) which means "playing is culture".
Takara and Tomy announced their merger on May 13, 2005, to become effective March 1, 2006. In English the legal name of the company is TOMY Co. Ltd. while in Japanese the legal company name is the combined name, K.K. Takara-Tomy (株式会社タカラトミー ) TYO: [7867]
Both Takara and Tomy have strong relationships with Hasbro, which has distributed Takara's hit products such as Transformers, Beyblade, e-Kara and Battle B-Daman and Tomy's Zoids brands internationally. Although the company has stated that the Transformers business with Hasbro and the OEM business in general is not as profitable as direct distribution, the relationship with Hasbro on Transformers is low risk since Hasbro assumes the inventory risk internationally. This long-term relationship will certainly continue, as both Takara and Tomy also localize and distribute many Hasbro products in Japan, including The Game of Life, Blythe dolls, and Magic: The Gathering and Duel Masters trading card games by Takara and Monopoly, Furby, Super Soaker and Play-Doh by Tomy.