TakaraTomy

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"Takara" redirects here. For the Generation 1 manga character, see Takara (G1).
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TakaraTomy (Takara before the merger with Tomy) is a Japanese toy company. They are the producer of Transformers in Japan, and design much of the engineering for Transformers toys. Originally, Takara created the Diaclone and MicroChange toy lines, which were later imported to the USA by Hasbro and turned into the Transformers. Since then, Hasbro and Takara have been business partners. They swim in your money every time a new franchise is made.

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

Separate "Takara" and "Tomy" signs adorned Times Square. All Hail Megatron #1

Sector Seven ARG

To control the previous year's leaks about the Transformers to the public, on March 15, 1983, S7 Industries contracted with Takara to make a film about the NBEs the organization was tracking in order to cover up their presence on Earth. This operation was codenamed Hungry Dragon. Sector Seven ARG

History

Takara before the merger

Takara (タカラ) was originally founded by Yasuta Satō in 1955 as Sato Vinyl. One of their first successes was securing the license for releasing Mattel's Barbie series on the Japanese market.

In 1960 they changed their name to Takara Vinyl. Their blackface Dakko-chan (ダッコちゃん) doll became wildly successful and was the company mascot until the late 1980s. Their name would be shortened to simply Takara in 1966.

In 1970, Takara secured the license for releasing Hasbro's G.I. Joe line on the Japanese market. Dubbed Combat Joe, the line would soon get a spin-off named Henshin Cyborg (henshin being the Japanese word for "transform"), which in turn would later lead to the original Microman toyline which started in 1974.

The Microman line was relaunched as New Microman in 1981 and would lead to spin-offs such as Diaclone and MicroChange. Hasbro would later acquire the license for releasing toys from both lines on the North American market. The result, dubbed Transformers by Hasbro, would turn out to be a huge success.

After a first test release of the Hasbro toys to a small test market in Japan apparently turned out to be successful, Takara decided to cancel Microman and Diaclone and henceforth started to release Transformers in Japan as well.

This incredibly convoluted chain of licensing, evolving, and re-licensing toy franchises can be used to make the heads of evil robots explode.

Nobuyuki Okude, one of the original Diaclone designers who oversaw the production of the modified toys for Hasbro's Transformers line, would later rise to become Takara's Vice President and for a brief time even held the position of the company's president.

Tomy before the merger

Tomy (トミー) was founded by Eiichiro Tomiyama in 1924 as Tomiyama Toy Factory. In 1963 they changed their name to Tomy. Their American branch opened in 1973, with branches following in Canada in 1981 and the UK in 1982.

Two pre-merger Transformers designed by Tomy were Omega Supreme and Sky Lynx, patterned after their Plarail and Zoids toylines, respectively, by designer Junichi Ishikawa (石川順一).

The merger

After a series of commercial failures, May 2005 saw the public announcement that Takara would merge with rival toymaker Tomy. As of April 2006, both companies ceased to exist and made way for the new company, TakaraTomy. Fortunately, Tomy had established a healthy working relationship with Hasbro since 1999, long before their merger with Takara—which is why the merger didn't have any major effects on the established Hasbro/Takara cooperation (including the toy development process).

Oddly, "TakaraTomy" is only the merged company's official name in Japan. For the international, English-speaking world, the merged company is officially simply named "Tomy", for pragmatic reasons (as most of Takara's internationally renowned brands are distributed through other companies, such as Hasbro, outside Japan). Indeed, Tomy is mentioned as the licensor on all Transformers toy product released by Hasbro after the merger.

Employees

  • Kantaro Tomiyama, President

Transformers brand

Home video

As well as licensing to third party companies such as Sohbi Kikaku, Takara produced some of their own home video releases in the 1980s and '90s. The two Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Laserdisc sets were later repackaged and released by Pioneer LDC when they acquired the license in 1998.

Releases

VHS
  • TAK-006 — The Transformers: The Movie (Release date unknown)
  • TAK-006
    TAK-006


Laserdisc
  • C-376 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Convoy Set (March 5, 1994)
Nine-disc set containing episodes 1-35.
Packaged with the Planet of Cybertron Guide 1 instruction booklet and the Convoy Set Special CD.
  • D-342 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Release date unknown, 1995)
Nine-disc set containing episodes 36-63, plus the bonus episodes "Attack of the Autobots" and "Day of the Machines" (both with optional English audio), the "Exciting Transformer!" TV special, the "Scramble City: Mobilization" OVA and a hell of a lot of commercials and trailers.
Packaged with the Planet of Cybertron Guide 2 instruction booklet and the Megatron Set Special CD.
  • VSL-1 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: 2010 Set (Release date unknown)
Nine-disc set containing all 30 episodes, plus The Transformers: The Movie as a bonus.
Ten-disc set containing all 38 episodes, plus "The Rebirth" and a bunch of Western TV commercials.
  • C-376
    C-376
  • D-342
    D-342
  • VSL-1
    VSL-1
  • VSL-2
    VSL-2



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Tomy Direct

Tomy has its own label, "Tomy Direct", for releasing imported Hasbro products (such as Star Wars toys) in Hasbro packaging in Japan, similar to Takara's USA Editions. The huge difference is that USA Editions might still sport differences with their Hasbro counterparts, whereas Tomy Direct releases are really just the Hasbro toys.

Since Tomy's merger with Takara, the Tomy division of TakaraTomy has also released various Transformers-related toys under the Tomy Direct label, usually toys which were developed without any input from Takara's design team and/or figures from multi-brand lines such as the Titanium Series (which originally started out as a Star Wars sub-line) and the "Heroes" mini-figure franchise (which includes the Transformers-based Robot Heroes, but also the Star Wars-derived Galactic Heroes, the Marvel-based Superhero Squad and various others).

Those include:

Notes

  • The company uses TOMY COMPANY, LTD as its English name.
  • TakaraTomy's CEO, Kantaro Tomiyama, is currently also the chairman of Toycard, the joint venture operation behind Toy's Dream Project.
  • In 1985, 20 years before the merger with Takara, Tomy's US branch registered the name "Scrapper" as a trademark in the "toys" field. That same year, Hasbro released a Constructicon of the same name. Since the market situation back then was still very different from what it is like today, this presumably didn't result in any repercussions for Hasbro.
  • According to Hasbro Australia representatives and designer Eric Siebenaler, all of the Transformers toys jointly developed between Hasbro and Takara/TakaraTomy are manufactured at factories contracted to the Japanese toy company. This means Takara is indirectly responsible for whatever quality control problems you have encountered with your toys, so you can stop complaining about it being entirely Hasbro's fault.



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