is a line of construction toys manufactured by Kawada, a toy company based in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan.

History

Nanoblock was first introduced into the Japanese market in 2008 by Kawada. Nanoblock is distributed overseas by local companies, including Schylling in the United States and Mark's Europe in France and Benelux. In 2012, imports of Nanoblock reached 31 countries. In 2010, Nanoblock won an Outstanding Performance Award in the High Target category at the Japan Toy Awards for the deluxe edition set based on

Neuschwanstein Castle Neuschwanstein Castle (german: Schloss Neuschwanstein, , Southern Bavarian: ''Schloss Neischwanstoa'') is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The pa ...

. The following year, Nanoblock won the Grand Prize in the High Target category at the 2011 Japan Toy Awards for their model of the

Tokyo Skytree is a broadcasting and observation tower in Sumida, Tokyo. It became the tallest structure in Japan in 2010 In 2012, Nanoblock won the Brand License Award at the 2012 Licensing of the Year Awards.

Sets

The Nanoblock range includes original designs and licensed sets. Kawada is currently releasing four original series. The Miniature collection series features miniatures designs of animals, musical instruments and Christmas themes. All sets contain around 80-150 pieces. The Sights to See series includes designs of world landmarks and notable buildings with sets ranging in size from 200-600 bricks. The Advanced Hobby series also features notable buildings and landmarks but on a larger scale. The sets in the series are all over 2000 pieces. The largest set is

deluxe edition, with 5,800 pieces. The fourth series is aimed at girls with themes including weddings and birthdays. Kinkaku-Ji nanoblock set

Kawada has created sets based on various licenses including ''

The Adventures of Tintin ''The Adventures of Tintin'' (french: Les Aventures de Tintin ) is a series of 24 bande dessinée#Formats, ''bande dessinée'' albums created by Belgians, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one ...

'', ''

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

'', ''

Shaun the Sheep ''Shaun the Sheep'' is a British stop-motion television series and a spin-off of the ''Wallace and Gromit'' franchise. The title character is Shaun (previously featured as the sheep named "Shaun" in the 1995 short film ''A Close Shave'' and t ...

'' and

Sanrio is a Japanese entertainment company. It designs, licenses, and produces products focusing on the ''kawaii'' ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and accessories which are sold ...

characters including ''

Cinnamoroll is a character series created by Sanrio in 2001, with character designs from Miyuki Okumura. The main character, Cinnamoroll, is a white puppy with chubby cheeks and long ears, blue eyes, pink cheeks, and a tail that resembles a cinnamon rol ...

'', ''

Hello Kitty , also known by her full name , is a fictional Character (arts), character created by Yuko Shimizu, currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi, and owned by the Japanese company Sanrio. Sanrio depicts Hello Kitty as an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphi ...

'', '' KeroKeroKeroppi'' and '' My Melody''. A series of sets based on

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

characters is sold exclusively at the

Tokyo Disneyland (local nickname ''TDL'') is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Disney park to be ...

and

Tokyo DisneySea is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, just next to Tokyo. It opened on 4 September 2001, at a cost of 335 billion yen. The Oriental Land Company owns the park, and licenses intellectual proper ...

theme parks. In 2013 it was announced Kawada would produce two sets based on

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

Mega Man ''Mega Man'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese science fiction video game franchise created by Capcom, starring a series of robot characters each known by the moniker "Mega Man (character), Mega Man". Mega Man (video game), The original game w ...

video game franchise as part of the series' 25th anniversary. In 2015, four sets based on characters from the video game franchise ''

Street Fighter , commonly abbreviated as ''SF'' or スト (''Suto''), is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Capcom. The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by six ...

'' were released. The four characters produced were Ryu,

Chun-Li is a fictional character in Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' video game series. The first ever female playable character to appear in a fighting game to gain mainstream recognition, she first appeared in ''Street Fighter II: The World Warrior'' in 1 ...

Guile Guile may refer to: * Astuteness, deception. * GNU Guile, an implementation of the Scheme programming language * Guile (''Street Fighter''), a video game character from the ''Street Fighter'' series * Guile (''Chrono Cross''), a video game chara ...

and

Dhalsim is a fictional character in Capcom's ''Street Fighter'' series. He made his first appearance in '' Street Fighter II: The World Warrior'' in 1991. He sometimes goes by the alias "long-arm" and his fighting ability includes stretching his limbs. I ...

. Also in 2015, camera giant

Nikon (, ; ), also known just as Nikon, is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging products. The companies held by Nikon form the Nikon Group. Nikon's products include cameras, camera ...

partnered with Kawada to recreate its

Nikon F The Nikon F camera, introduced in April 1959, was Nikon's first SLR camera. It was one of the most advanced cameras of its day. Although many of the concepts had already been introduced elsewhere, it was revolutionary in that it was the first ...

camera in a set.

Design

Nanoblocks are similar in design to a

Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...

brick but smaller, with the smallest brick being 4 mm × 4 mm × 5 mm. The bricks are the size of Kawada's Diablock line of bricks. The underside of the bricks are different from Lego bricks because they use a dividing flange, known as the double-ridged backing system, instead of the tube system that Lego employs. The bricks are made using

ABS plastic Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)''x''·(C4H6)''y''·(C3H3N)''z'' is a common thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately . ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point. AB ...

and there are eleven different types, the biggest being an 8×2 brick and the smallest a single stud brick. Nanoblock sets typically include spare pieces.

Reception

''Wired'' described Nanoblock as an affordable alternative to Lego, but noted the small pieces were easily lost.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

Official website
Products introduced in 2008 Construction toys Japanese brands Japanese inventions