Tomy

Tomy
, 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.
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 couldn't support a multimedia franchise. However, Tomy established a relationship with Shogakukan 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, 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, Battle Beasts, Beyblade, B-Daman etc.) had been sold and branded by other toy companies such as Hasbro. 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 Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings bought majority of Tatsunoko's stake and is now majorly owned by it affiliate company Nippon TV. Tomy UK was founded in 1982 for the sale and distribution of Tomy products in Europe, 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), Transformers, 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, Disney, Astro Boy, Pokémon, Beyblade, Duel Masters, Naruto, The Game of Life (also known as Jinsei Game), Rockman (a.k.a. Mega Man), Wedding Peach, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, My Hero Academia, Cardcaptor Sakura, Cardcaptor Sakura: 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 products, and a vast range of toys suited to girls or boys. They make a large selection of Disney, Pokémon and Thomas the Tank Engine merchandise. They also publish video games in Japan (mostly based on Zoids and Naruto anime series), and are responsible for the distribution of some Hasbro products in Japan, such as Play-Doh, Jenga and Monopoly. 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 Hasbro). 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:
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
Choro-Q – micro toy cars
Chuggington
Compass
Crossbows and Catapults
Duel Masters trading card game franchise
Eldran series
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
PriPara - the successor to the Pretty Rhythm series
Q-steer – micro radio-controlled cars based on Choro-Q
Rummikub
Screwball Scramble
Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion
Starriors
Switch 16
Thomas and Friends – Plarail, Capsule Plarail, Tomica, and Tomix themes, and preschool products
Thunderbirds
Tomica – die-cast toy
Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kidō Kyūkyū Keisatsu
Tomica Kizuna Gattai Earth Granner
Tomix – the model railway brand of Tomytec, a subsidiary of Takara Tomy
Tomy Tutor – home computer
Tomytronic – 3D handheld game series
Transformers
Tron – action figures and vehicles based on the Disney film
Teletubbies
Wedding Peach
Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
My Hero Academia
Cardcaptor Sakura
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
Tomy International
Manufacturing companies based in Tokyo
Software companies based in Tokyo
Game manufacturers
Video game companies of Japan
Toy train manufacturers
Robotics companies of Japan
Toy companies of Japan
Katsushika
Japanese companies established in 2006
Toy brands
Toy companies established in 2006
Radio-controlled car manufacturers
Trading card companies
Japanese brands
Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange