Takara Co., Ltd. (株式会社タカラ) was a Japanese toy

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

founded in 1955. In March 2006, the company merged with Tomy Co., Ltd. to form Takara Tomy. The Takara motto was 遊びは文化」("playing is culture").

Products

Toys

In 1967, Takara produced the first generation of the Licca-chan doll, which was 21 centimeters tall and had the last name of Kayama, inspired by the musician Yuzo Kayama and actress Yoshiko Kayama. In 1975, Takara produced the

Diaclone is a toyline by Takara Toys launched in 1980. It consisted of transforming vehicles and robots piloted by miniature, magnet-shoed figures spun off from the prior Microman toy line. The toys in the 1980 line were designed by future ''Macross'' ...

and

Microman was a science fiction toyline created, manufactured and marketed by Takara, Takara Co., Ltd. from 1974 to 1984 as well as from 1998 to 2007. The ''Microman'' line was a series of action figures with accompanying vehicles, robots, playsets and ...

Micro Change toys. In 1984, the toy line was rebranded by Hasbro as "

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms, suc ...

", which made Takara waste no time joining in. Takara continued to sell Microman and used it as the basis for the Micronauts toy line. Micronauts were sold internationally by the Mego Corporation. Other transforming toys made by Takara include Brave,

Dennō Bōkenki Webdiver is a Japanese mecha anime series produced by Radix (studio), Radix and Nihon Ad Systems, in conjunction with toy maker Takara. The series is directed by Hiroshi Negishi and Naoyuki Tatsuwa and written by Mayori Sekijima. It aired on TV Tokyo f ...

, and Daigunder. Both Webdiver and Daigunder toys could interact with TV screens, which proved only but a fad in the early 2000s. Takara also invented Battle Beasts, the E-kara karaoke microphone,

B-Daman is a marble shooting toy franchise produced in Japan by Takara. It was originally based on the Bomberman series, but later expanded into other franchises and its own original designs. The toy's design is a humanoid figure, with a round cavity in ...

and Beyblade. These toys were sold or distributed internationally by Hasbro. In 1978, Takara developed the Choro-Q, mini pullback cars. Internationally, they have been sold as "Penny Racers".

Software

Takara developed and published

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s. In the 1990s, Takara published the Chibi Maruko-chan video games. The company ported (adapted) some of the

SNK is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. It is the successor to the company Shin Nihon Kikaku and presently owns the SNK video game brand and the Neo Geo video game platform. SNK's predecessor Shin Nihon Kikaku was founded in 1978 ...

Neo Geo based arcade games for 8 and 16-bit consoles. These included the '' Fatal Fury'' and the ''

Samurai Shodown ''Samurai Shodown'', known in Japan as is a fighting game series by SNK. The series began in 1993 and is known for being one of the earliest in the genre with a primary focus on weapon-based combat. Plot The stories in the series take place in ...

'' series. They were sold for use with the

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

, the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...

, the

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same ...

, or the Famicom. In 2003, Takara contributed to the production of the game, Seek-and-Destroy. Takara published the

3D computer graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...

fighting game series ''

Battle Arena Toshinden is a weapons-based fighting game developed by Tamsoft and published by Takara and Sony Computer Entertainment in 1995 for the PlayStation, followed by 1996 ports for the Sega Saturn, Game Boy and MS-DOS. It was one of the first fighting games to ...

'', developed by Tamsoft. Small games developers such as Tamsoft, BHE, E-game and KID corp, were sometimes omitted from the credits on a game's Takara packaging or title screens. Also that year, Takara purchased a controlling stake in the publicly traded software publisher

Atlus is a Japanese video game developer, publisher, arcade manufacturer and distribution company based in Tokyo. A subsidiary of Sega, the company is known for video game series such as ''Megami Tensei'', ''Persona'', ''Etrian Odyssey'' and ''Trau ...

. Some Takara properties were licensed to and published by Atlus. In 2006, after the merger with Tomy, the controlling stake in Atlus was sold to Index Holdings, Takara Tomy's major shareholder. Takara-branded product licenses such as

Licca-chan , full name , is a dress-up doll series introduced in Japan on July 4, 1967 by Takara, enjoying the same kind of popularity in Japan as the Barbie series does in the United States. Takara had sold over 48 million Licca-chan dolls as of 2002, a ...

Jinsei Game {{nihongo, ''Jinsei Game'', 人生ゲーム, , "Life Game" is the Japanese version of the board game that is called ''The Game of Life'' in North America. Unlike ''The Game of Life'', the player starts in his toddler years and has to go to ele ...

, The Game of Life and Choro-Q were returned to Takara Tomy's consumer software division. The merged company also produced the Zoids and the Naruto series.

Life entertainment products

Takara has manufactured several unusual

gadgets A gadget is a mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as '' gizmos''. History The etymology of the word is disputed. The word first appears as reference to an 18th-century tool in glassmaking that was develo ...

marketed as "life entertainment products". An example is

BowLingual , or "Bow-Lingual" as the North American version is spelled, is a computer-based dog language-to-human language translation device developed by Japanese toy company Takara and first sold in Japan in 2002. Versions for South Korea and the United Sta ...

which aimed to translate the sounds of dogs to human language. The BowLingual was named as one of the best inventions of 2002 by ''Time'' magazine. See also

Yumemi Kobo Yumemi Kōbō (夢見工房) is a device sold by the Japanese company Takara Toys that is claimed to be able to induce lucid dreams A lucid dream is a type of dream in which the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming while dreaming. Dur ...

(dream generator).

Robots

In 2005, Takara produced

Walkie bits Takara Co., Ltd. (株式会社タカラ) was a Japanese toy company founded in 1955. In March 2006, the company merged with Tomy Co., Ltd. to form Takara Tomy. The Takara motto was 遊びは文化」("playing is culture"). Products Toys In 1 ...

, a colorful, multi-function miniature robotic turtle. it was named ''Time'' magazine's best invention in a robot category.

Company mascot

In the 1980s, the company was criticized for using a mascot that was a golliwog-like character. The mascot was named "Dakko-Chan" ( ダッコちゃん). Takara replaced the mascot with "21st Century Colorful Dakko-Chan", which had enough features to connote the original mascot but divested the traits which brought criticism. For example, the new mascot was not always coloured black.

Merger

On 13 May 2005, Takara and Tomy announced their merger. It became effective on 1 March 2006. In English, the official name of the merged company is "TOMY Co. Ltd." while in Japan the legal company name is "K. K. Takara-Tomy" (株式会社タカラトミー ).. In deciding upon the merged company's new name, "Takara" was used for its international

brand recognition Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of two dimensions from brand knowledge, an associative network memory model. Brand awareness is a key consi ...

and "Tomy" was used because it was a trusted brand of infant and preschool products in Japan. While Japanese commercial law allows wide latitude in translating Japanese corporate names into official English names, the merged company took the unusual step of adopting "TOMY Company, Ltd." as its official English, while using "K.K. Takara-Tomy" (株式会社タカラトミー) in Japan. Both Takara and Tomy held licenses to localise and distribute Hasbro products in Japan. The products include

The Game of Life ''The Game of Life'', also known simply as ''Life'', is a board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, rol ...

, Blythe dolls, '' Magic: The Gathering'', '' Duel Masters'' trading card games by Takara and

Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

Furby Furby is an American electronic robotic toy that was originally released in 1998 by Tiger Electronics. It resembles a hamster or owllike creature and went through a period of being a " must-have" toy following its holiday season launch, with co ...

, Super Soaker and Play-Doh by Tomy.

References

External links

TAKARATOMY official website

TAKARA - Wayback Machine (June 15 archive min, 2005)
{{Atlus Japanese companies disestablished in 2006 Toy companies established in 1955 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2006 2006 mergers and acquisitions Doll manufacturing companies Defunct companies of Japan Toy companies of Japan Japanese companies established in 1955