Takara (Japanese Toys Manufacturer) Details

TAKARA, founded in 1955, the original name of the limited liability company Sato Vinyl Industries, 1966 renamed TAKARA, is a veteran toy manufacturer in Japan. 2006 TAKARA merged with Japan's another veteran toy company, TOMY, after the merger of the new company's name is TAKARA TOMY (TAKARA TOMY).

Basic introduction Foreign name: Takara Founded: 1955 Original name: Limited liability company Sato Binnie Industrial Institute Category: toy manufacturers Dark Empire, Magic Banana, Dream Journey, musical works, 2006, in order to better capture the market and change the situation of declining sales, TAKARA and another long-established toy company in Japan, but also two of the main competitors of Takara TOMY company merged to form a new company. TAKARA merged with TOMY, another long-established Japanese toy company and one of TAKARA's two main competitors, and the new company name was TAKARA TOMY. Just a year before that (2005), its other strong competitor, Bandai (BANDAI), also merged with the game company Namco (NAMCO), which is a clear indication of how brutal and fierce the competition is in today's Japanese toy, animation and entertainment market. TAKARA's toys are more traditional, mainly dolls, dolls, electric toys, toy cars, robotic toys, etc., but in recent years, it is also gradually to the direction of high-tech development, but also issued desktop game chess. TAKARA also publishes tabletop games and board games. In addition, TAKARA is more interested in producing original toys than in releasing toys that have already been anime-animated by other companies. The Transformers toys that were so popular in the late 80's are the reason why many people in China know TAKARA. TAKARA produces several Transformers every year, and these expensive toys have a great appeal to Transformers fans and are valuable collector's items. Compared to Bandai, which used to be on the same starting line, Bandai has developed over the past 40 or 50 years, and now, in addition to producing traditional toys, it has penetrated into almost all related fields, such as handmade toys, Twisters, models, games, animation, music, and so on. Bandai's Gundam-type robot models have gained popularity among older consumers and geeks. Bandai's ability to leap from a toy company to Japan's number one general entertainment company, and to make a difference in a variety of fields, is something that others should learn from. TAKARA has also made a variety of efforts to expand the market, such as the acquisition of the famous animation studio "Dragon's Child" in 2005, the production of electric cars, etc. We hope that the new company TAKARA TOMIYO will be able to create brilliant again. Related Information--Banana to the Rescue--Takara's Road to Success Takara, a Japanese toy maker, was on the verge of bankruptcy, when the decision makers made a bold bet on a fruit and his *** employees. You might think this story is morally questionable; can people save a company simply by taking a risk on something silly? But this story is not about morality. A few months ago, I read about a company that was selling a dog language translator. It was made by none other than Takara, Japan's second-largest toy maker, which claimed that this thing called Bowlingual could decode 50 dog barks. Even CBS had their correspondent in Japan talk to an English beagle named Ruby through this translator. Through my studies in Japan, I learned that Takara mainly produces assorted dolls. But when I visited its design station, I found that Dr. Dolittle designs strange and weird things. The company had just unveiled a new design for a car engine called the CQ, which mimicked Takara's adorable and popular toy cars, but could be applied to a real car. The production line is also filled with jellyfish robots, talking paper, and alarm clocks that fall out of the sky and scream at you like a pissed-off old man when you wake up in the morning. I was fascinated by the interest. At the Japan Center in San Francisco, I found a new book about Takara written by a Japanese journalist with the subheading, A Toymaker's Hustle. The book recounts the incredible facts about Takara's recent financial situation, built from nothing in 21st century Japan. Just four years ago, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, but since then his sales have grown exponentially and his stock price has risen three or four times. During this economic downturn, Takara has not just grown, but has come on like a storm. More than a decade ago, I heard that Japan's approach was worth emulating, but what happened to the exponential growth in stock prices? I've never seen a market like this for such a period of time. <p> So I decided to fly to Japan. It's a short train ride from the airport to Takara's headquarters in Tokyo, where I'm greeted by an ever-changing sculpture that reads, "Gaming is Culture". The first person I meet is Yoko Watanabe, head of public relations, who is disdainful of the Japanese prime minister's reference to her company's product, the Bowlingual dog translator, in his speech on innovation. She took me to a waiting room, at the other end of the table, where people were playing with robot dolls. I asked her about Takara, how it went from near bankruptcy to becoming a national powerhouse. What exactly was the secret of its success? She left for a short while and came back with a plastic banana in front of me. Seeing my confusion, she smiled and said, "Don't worry, none of us believe that something ridiculous can change the fate of an entire company." "Takara" means "wealth" and it is also the name of a place near Tokyo where Yasuta Satoh started producing beach volleyballs in 1955, and was so good at pleasing children with his new products that they called him the "grandfather of toys". Most of his famous children's toys were distributed by other companies, including Mattel (MAT), which has sold more than 49 million since 1967 and is still selling today. And when the Ha *** ro Company (HAS) began selling Microman and Diacron robots in the U.S. in 1948, they magically became the best sellers of the day as well. As a manufacturer, Satoh agreed wholeheartedly with the words of company dignitary Nobuyuki Okude: "Set a magical goal, and that is to make children all over the world happy." And that's exactly what he has always dreamed of doing. In fact, some of his very unoriginal creations died at the start. In 1970, for example, Takara got the rights to the G.I. Joe robot figure from the American company Ha *** ro, but Japanese kids didn't like that American military hero, so Satoh had to step back and make plastic dolls called Henshin Cyborg, using the same mold as G.I. Joe." We created a really crazy story for Henshin Cyborg, a foreigner who came to Japan in 2025," Okude continued, "and it sold like hotcakes." Nintendo (NTDOY) gave Takara a gentle knife in the early computer market bidding in 1982, and with that lesson learned, Takara found a softwares company called Konami, which would later help Takara build voice-activated cars and video games. The Dark Empire In the early 1990s, as Satoh was preparing for his retirement, Takara entered what his employees called the "Dark Empire". Both of Satoh's sons worked for him, but the oldest, Hirohisa, pursued fame and fortune. With an MBA from Japan, Hirohisa became the company's CEO in 1994, and he set about making Takara a modern marketing machine, developing a five-step plan to thoroughly analyze potential new products. He trained his employees to study the market and work together. He never tried dangerous ideas, but aimed for more predictable half-measures. His plans sounded plausible, and Takara did in fact improve considerably at first. But an obstacle stood in the way - they had few ideas to support the new product launch. People laughed at the company's plans, taunted the so-called legendary concept, and reluctantly spent weekends in airport hotels at the Narita Airport production plant, where they ranged from "What's the deal?" to "What's the deal with the Chinese? to "What Chinese character trait describes your personality?" People were bored, un ***, unchallenged, and some of Takara's best were poached by other competitors, and Okude left." We can't invest in an idea until we are 100 percent sure that it will bring us profits," Hirohisa insists. Because of the betrayal and the lack of profits from new products, Hirohisa was left to his own devices and brought back his father as CEO, when Satoh Sr. hired his second son Keita, who, he thought, was still a mute child. ("When my father introduced 'The Game of Life' from the U.S.," Keita told me, "my brother wanted to know the rules of the game, but I wanted to play.") In fact, in 1996, Keita led a small team, with just one partner (another Takara refugee), to start his own small toy company, which he called Dreams Come True. He made a profit of 14 million dollars that year due to successful trading of some of Hello Kitty's products, but he still helped his father as a consultant. One of the first things he did was visit Takara's product production and research group and ask everyone the same question, "What do you really-really-want?" The Magic Banana At least one person took up the challenge. Seeing a desperate need in the market for mobile phones, Masahiko Kajita, manager of the product department, noticed that no one had yet done anything with the look of cell phones. He made a couple of phone models using images of mackerel and high heels, but when he stood in a crowded intersection and held them up pretending to call someone, it was a banana in his hand that attracted more eyeballs and laughter. Kajita became an instant celebrity in Japan, partly because he invented the beloved banana, and partly because of his dyed blonde hair. When I meet him at a hotel near the Venture Emporium, he's explaining how he expects to market a dog language translator in Korea and playing the role of a German puppy to a Japanese reporter. He looked relaxed and at ease, but he told me that he had dyed his hair so that he could feel the pressure." If I stand out, I have to work at it." Then he explains why Japanese dogs speak the same language as Korean dogs. In Japan, a toy that sells 100,000 copies is a record breaker. But this banana phone, and some of its by-products actually sold 150,000 copies. As a result of the product's success, the second son, Keita, called out to the world that he would bet on his favorite, even though all he did seemed to be giggling on a busy street corner. It had long been assumed that Takara had already spent her youthful years, so what would happen if Keita's challenge actually succeeded! In 2000, Keita became the CEO of Takara and bought out his original company. He persuaded Okude and other key players to return to Takara and developed a "culture of life" concept to open up the adult market. This program accounted for 20% of Takara's total products in 2003. The line, according to Kajita, is "20 percent practical and 80 percent entertainment." In other words, it was his idea of the perfect banana. They designed an automated home beer tap called Let's Beer Great. They also designed a gorgeous bathroom with a beautifully painted bathtub and a lion's head that sprays water from a spring. Kajita had an interview with a reporter from Playboy Japan, so I took the MRT to Okasan Securities, where I met Masashi Morita, an analyst of the Japanese toy industry. He told me how much he enjoyed researching Takara and how much more he could discover in his research." That banana was really something to think about," he said. At one point he suggested that Takara put a computer keyboard in the case of a cell phone, but was turned down for the sole reason that it would cost a lot of money. I tell Morita that I'll be visiting Keita Satoh in the next few days, and he pulls out a financial chart of Takara and its two main rivals, Bandai and Tomi, and tells me that their sales have both declined recently. In contrast, Takara's sales have grown 25% in a year." The difference," he said, "is that Takara takes risks, and that's because of Keita." He used an example of a toy called Beyblade, where competitors beat each other by following an upward spiral. In 2000, Beyblade was introduced to the market, but sales were declining. Beyblade finally got the answer when Keita went to the children and asked them what kind of things they liked the most. So he invested nearly three hundred million dollars to create a television cartoon image of Beyblade. In Japan, a product-oriented cartoon image led to an exponential increase in sales, and Beyblade's sales immediately jumped 10 points, earning 13 billion last year alone. If you haven't heard of these, wait until Christmas and see. DREAMING I met the second son of this mythical toy empire in the production department of CQ Car Engines, which is made because "I've often dreamed of driving a car like the toys I played with as a kid, and I think others might too." He's a normal 45-year-old Japanese man, but his face is all childlike. For such an inspirational and creative success story, he seems a little shy and humble. After chatting for a while, Keita lets me try driving his Qi electric car. This new design, which cost 1.29 million yen, is selling quite well. It's a cute car that jumps out and hugs you when you commit any driving offense to give you a warning to stop. We had a great time together and took a group photo at the end of the day. Back in the showroom, Keita tells me that he's just gotten a call from Mizuho Bank, one of their major lenders. "They're bankers, so they're afraid of the risky schemes I'm doing," he says. "Frankly, if we didn't have to spend so much money on all these crazy schemes, it would be so easy. And now that we've done it we can't let it fail, or we'll lose it all. My employees are in this place and I don't want them to feel in danger, I don't want them to feel bogged down, I want us to stand out and make a name for ourselves." Keita's dream is to build a "life is entertainment" company that makes toys for people of all ages. He's just acquired a factory that makes housewares, and plans to have Takara make fun and sensitive refrigerators, microwaves, and more. When he asked me if I thought we should open a market in the U.S., I told him I'd been busy with Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), and that I'd come back and consider his suggestion when I was done. "Bed Bath and what?" Keita asked and got a coworker to write it down. I translated the latter words into Japanese, and then he said, "Yes, 'Convoy', that's where we want to go." Yeah, that's where everyone wants to go, and I believe Takara is heading down that path because it dares to bet on pixie-cutter ideas.Keita believes that all of the company's success has to stem from that banana. No matter how successful it is, Takara is still the same as it was at the beginning, it still does market research, it still trains its staff, and it often listens to presentations by industry insiders. The only thing that has changed is its starting point. Realize that Keita is betting not on a particular fruit, some kind of jellyfish, or some kind of car, but on the answer to a very simple question-a question that his brother never bothered himself or his employees with." What do you really-really-want?" Music credits Music albums ***1 Eternity ? Songs 16 songs Released on ?2004-03-05