Takara TomyTomy Company, Ltd.[1] (株式会社タカラトミー, Kabushikigaisha Takara Tomī), trading as Takara Tomy in Asia and Tomy elsewhere, is a Japanese toy company. It was established in 1924 by Eiichirō Tomiyama as Tomiyama Toy Manufacturing Company (富山玩具製作所), became known for creating popular toys like the B-29 friction toy and luck-based game Pop-up Pirate. In 2006, Tomy merged with another toy manufacturer, Takara, and although the English company name remained the same, it became Takara Tomy in Asia. It has its headquarters in Katsushika, Tokyo.
The company decided to use the name "Tomy" in international subsidiaries, and "Takara-Tomy" in Japan, because Tomy had built considerable international brand recognition while Takara's products (Microman, Transformers, Battle Beasts, Beyblade, B-Daman etc.) had been sold and branded by other toy companies such as Hasbro. Additionally, the financial cost of rebranding was prohibitive.[4]
In Western media, the Takara–Tomy merger was typically characterised as a 'takeover' of Takara by Tomy, likely 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 companies' management teams had previously discussed merging, including at times when Takara appeared stronger. Under Japanese corporate law, the move was a merger of both companies on an equal basis.
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