SITTING in his dingy, nicotine-stained boardroom in a suburb of Tokyo, Kantaro Tomiyama has the same worry as millions of parents around the world: he’s not sure what the kids want for Christmas. The problem for him is that, as president of a global toy empire, the penalty for guessing incorrectly is far worse than a couple of days of sulking.
This year much hope is pinned on The Incredibles, the animated superhero family with which Disney is aiming to dominate box offices this month. Tomiyama’s company, Tomy, has the worldwide licence to produce Disney goods, and the gambit is simple. If Mr Incredible dolls sell as well as Buzz Lightyear did a decade ago, this will indeed be the season to be jolly.
However, Tomiyama’s instinct, honed by years as the producer of Pokémon and Teletubbies dolls, tells him that this Christmas will not be a year of mega-hit toys. He thinks back to years in which demand for Tickle Me Elmos, Tamagochis or Thunderbird Tracy Islands produced scuffles between shoppers and cannot see any product — either of his own or anyone else’s line-up — generating such a frenzy in 2004.
“For older children, this Christmas will be all about the new portable games machines from Nintendo and Sony,” Tomiyama says. “There will be no major hit toy for smaller ones. This is not just a Japanese phenomenon — it’s the same in the UK and the US. Children are growing up in an information age, and video games are the medium through which children can feel part of that. If we could somehow concentrate the same level of information into a toy for little people, then we’d have our mega-hit.”
Despite this pessimism, Tomiyama runs a company that has recently scored many more hits than misses. This time last year, it upgraded its profit forecast halfway through the December shopping season, to predict a 340 per cent year-on-year rise in operating profits. Behind it all was the runaway success of Tomy’s Microbaby series and the persistent strength of what have been the group’s staples for more than 40 years: die-cast metal cars, of which it has sold 480 million, and plastic train sets. The company’s move into video games, via its Zoids dinosaur series, has also begun to reap significant rewards.
Tomiyama’s love of toys is obvious, but he describes himself as a humble bean-counter. “It is often said that the third generation from the founder is the most dangerous, and that’s me, because my grandfather founded Tomy,” he says. “Both he and my father were engineers, and so was I, but none of my inventions had any success!” Tomiyama guesses, however, that there is probably a rough patch on the horizon for toys, not least because Japanese fertility rates have fallen to postwar lows and there are simply fewer children about. He adds his view that Japan’s population trends should be seen as a leading indicator for advanced economies, just as global tastes in toys themselves tend to be dictated by Japan.
“The toy market in Japan is very tight precisely because the financial crisis is ending,” he says. “During recession, people don’t travel so much, but stay at home and buy toys to keep the children amused. But when things pick up, toy consumption does not grow in parallel because people use their money for holidays.”
Working on his theory that “children are fundamentally the same everywhere in the world during their first few years”, Tomiyama has grand designs for expansion. He has unveiled plans for a 300-strong network of Tomy stores in China, believing that the time is now ripe to take the risk.
“For small children everywhere, toys are something that you give them to miniaturise the world of adults so they can safely be part of it,” Tomiyama says. “Like our toy mobile phones: if you gave a real mobile to a child they might bite it or dribble on it, so we make toy mobiles they can’t hurt. A real car is a dangerous thing, so we give them toy cars.”
Tomiyama is also looking to expand the age range of his markets. He has concentrated a big slice of Tomy’s research budget on toys for grown-ups — for which Japan, with its obsessive love of gadgets, has been a useful proving ground.
“Yes, Japanese adults are a bit strange,” Tomiyama grins, producing a solar-powered plastic flower whose leaves flap hypnotically. “They like strange things and fun things and, especially, toys. This plastic plant is really just for people thinking about nothing in particular. It has no real purpose and we’ve sold half a million units.”
Another big hit with the adult market has been a family of solar-powered, bald cartoon figures, who nod their heads. “We sold two million units in Japan,” Tomiyama says, “but the president of our UK office said the toys were too embarrassing to show to our buyers. I insisted and we’ve now sold 200,000 in the UK.”
Tomiyama’s plan for taking Tomy into a new era involves three distinct elements, of which China and tapping the “big children” market are two. The third is to follow the sweeping success of Bandai, its Japanese rival, for which Tomiyama has outspoken respect, by moving into clothes and sweets and focusing on “character goods” — toys based on figures from popular manga (comic book) cartoons. At the mention of this latter phrase, Tomiyama recalls a big falling-out with his father, Masanai, who stepped down from Tomy in 1986.
In stark contrast to the traditional deference of Japanese industrialists to their forebears, Tomiyama uses the word hanmenkyoshi to describe his father, a phrase that refers to a teacher whose most valuable lessons are examples of how not to do things.
“He always said that character goods were too much of a gamble, but that is what Bandai did,” Tomiyama says. “His era was all about building factories and exporting. In the 21st century, a Japanese toy company should be all about R&D and marketing.”
By means of Disney, Thomas the Tank Engine and a host of Japanese cartoon figures, Tomy has now made the jump that Tomiyama always wanted. He says: “My son is 20 now. When he was six, he gave me the shock of my life when he said he wanted to work for Bandai when he grew up. He complained that Tomy didn’t have Ultraman, which was Japan’s best-selling character.”
Tomiyama has put his faith in Japanese cartoons and comics because of their ability to produce characters. A film, he says, is in the cinemas for only two months. A character has to be really impressive to capture children’s imagination in that time, but cartoons and comics reach children in a constant, week-in, week-out stream.
Characters, Tomiyama says, are what make you remember toys when you’ve grown up.
TOMY, AROUND THE WORLD
Tomy makes infant and children’s toys and games. It was founded in Japan in 1924, and the company, based in Tokyo, has since expanded its operations to Hong Kong, Thailand, France, the UK and the US.
Tomy recorded net sales for the year to March of 82.5 billion yen (£416 million), up from Y73.8 billion the previous year. The company reported net income for the year to March of Y2.5 billion, against a loss of Y1.4 billion the year before.
The company is best known for Pokémon dolls. Other popular products include miniature cars and a model train set range.
