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Official Site: Tomy.com
Wikipedia: Tomy Page Sections History Merchandise |
History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Tomy page on 29 September 2018, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Tomy Company, Ltd. (株式会社タカラトミー Kabushikigaisha takaratomī, Takara Tomy) is a Japanese entertainment company that makes children's toys and merchandise. It was created from a merger on 1 March 2006 of two companies: Tomy (founded in 1924 as Tomiyama, changing the name to Tomy in 1963) and long-time rival Takara (founded in 1955). The company has its headquarters in Katsushika, Tokyo.
The company made a pragmatic decision of which name to use after the merger, deciding to use "Tomy" in international subsidiaries and "Takara-Tomy" in Japan. They came to this decision because Tomy had built considerable brand recognition internationally, with the majority of Takara's international hit products (Microman, Transformers, Battle Beasts, Beyblade, B-Daman etc.) having been sold and branded by other toy companies such as Hasbro. They also considered the financial cost of changing the name to be too much.
One of the editorial policies of many Western business publications is to ignore merger declarations and declare that one company is being bought by another. Therefore, in much of the Western media, the Takara-Tomy merger was characterised as a 'take-over' of Takara by Tomy. This assumption may have been made 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 management of Takara and Tomy had discussed merging several times, including at times when Takara appeared stronger. Under Japanese corporate law, the move was a merger of both companies on an equal basis.
There has been much post-merger media speculation about the control of brands from the Takara-Tomy merger. Much of this arose from the new use of a "TOMY" copyright on all packaging, including former Takara brands shipped by Hasbro. However, that was simply the result of a practical 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 complete subsidiary of Takara-Tomy, following the March 2006 merger. Tomy UK was founded in 1982 for the sale and distribution of Tomy products in Europe, and has brought toys such as Zoids, and games like Pop-up Pirate, to the West with great success. 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 RC2 sub-brand, Learning Curve, which included The First Years, Lamaze, and Compass.
| Type & Item # | Name | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Die Cast - 8 | Nissan Skyline | 1:62 scale, V-35, silver |
| Die Cast - 55 | Toyota Crown Majesta | 1:64 scale, white |