Tomy


Tomy Company, Ltd. is a Japanese toy company. It was established in 1924 by Eiichirō Tomiyama as Tomiyama Toy Manufacturing Company, 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 was an adult. In response, Tomiyama created the moderately successful Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh, 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 and created the successful Wedding Peach and Let's & Go.
Tomy learned about the growing popularity of Pokémon through the 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 Pokémon anime became a huge hit, and sales of related products doubled. Tomy, which 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 back to third place. However, Beyblade subsequently faltered, which adversely affected Takara's fortunes. Tomy merged with the suffering company, and they 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 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. However, the companies' management teams had previously discussed merging. 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 . 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, 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, Transformers, Beyblade, B-Daman, Koeda-chan 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, Astro Boy, Pokémon, Duel Masters, Disney, Naruto, The Game of Life, Rock 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 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, 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. 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:
File:Tomy-Blip.jpg|thumb|right|The Tomy Blip was a mechanical Pong handheld released in the 1970s.
File:TOMY LSI PACMAN handheld electronic game.jpg|thumb|A handheld variant of Pac-Man from 1981. It was sold as Puck Man in Japan, the Japanese name of the game, on other markets as Pac-Man, Pac Man or Munchman.

Toys