Tomy
Japanese toy, children's merchandise and entertainment company
Tomy Company, Ltd. (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, 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.
History and corporate name
Before the merger
The company was named Tomy as an abridgement of Tomiyama, which was the founder's surname. Starting as a manufacturer, Tomy had the largest product development team in the toy industry and plaudits for its technology. Nonetheless, by its third generation, president Mikitaro Tomiyama decided to streamline the company to be more competitive with wholesaler Bandai. Bandai developed its products more quickly, which was more appealing to television properties that required a fast turnaround. Despite internal and external opposition, Tomiyama was determined to aggressively pursue TV licenses such as Akakage, Giant Robo and Osomatsu-kun.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tomy” as japanese toy, children's merchandise and entertainment company. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as japanese toy, children's merchandise and entertainment company. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1335998. VIAF identifies the subject as 255232493. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tomy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.