Toy companies helping dads relive childhood
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Many young fathers are finding themselves wrapped up in '80s nostalgia, spending time with their children as they recall their own youth with reissued plastic models, board games and radio-controlled cars.
These twentysomething and thirtysomething dads are happy they can finally buy the collectors' items they could not afford during their childhood.
Toy manufacturers are jumping on the trend, quickly reproducing the toys and taking the opportunity to make new customers of both the fathers and their children.
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Nostalgia right on track
One such toy is Spacewarp, a winding, spiraling, track that can be assembled to create a variety of courses on which a small, metal ball is rolled down. The toy, a hit product for Bandai Co., sold 1 million sets in 1980.
In February, the company reissued the toy in three sizes, including one priced at about 10,000 yen. By October, the toymaker had shipped 200,000 sets, far exceeding initial expectations. The successful revival is largely thanks to fathers in their mid-30s.
Based on market research conducted prior to production, Bandai rightly predicted that men who could not afford the toy when they were kids would be highly motivated to buy it.
It was rare even for Bandai, the country's largest toymaker, to reissue hit toys aimed at men who were boys in the '80s.
But that age group has turned out to be a boon for the toy manufacturer, with its Mazinger Z toy robot--based on a cartoon of the same name that aired in the early 1970s--proving to be a major hit, with 1 million units of the so-called superalloy toy robot sold since it blasted into toy stores in 1997.
With the success, Bandai last year released a series of model trains, superalloy Doraemon figures and popular board games from the '80s. The response to the toys, according to the company, is in large part because of the retro chic associated with the goods. Many of the men also said their wives stopped nagging them because the toys allowed them to spend time with their children.
The company said it intended to expand its line of products geared toward adults to include new toys as well.
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(Remote) controlling the market
Last year, leading plastic model maker Tamiya Inc. released its first electric radio-controlled car in 20 years. The RC car was a hit with men in their late 20s and 30s, who remember how popular the toys were in the '80s. Following that success, it released other RC cars in June. Twenty years ago, an RC model car cost upward of 30,000 yen, but due to lower prices for parts, some of the reissues are priced at about 20,000 yen.
Meanwhile, "mini yonku" four-wheel drive model cars, targeted at a generation a bit younger than the RC model car fans, also have been very successful. Since April, Tamiya has released limited edition sets of five mini yonku models every two months, the first two sets of which sold out completely.
The popularity of RC model cars and mini yonku among children has waned as children have more toy options now. Behind Tamiya's decision to revive the RC cars lies a strategy to expand their customer base by attracting young fathers with the nostalgic toys, then reaping the benefits when the children latch on to the hobby.
In December, Tamiya will release the final sets of both the classic RC cars and mini yonku. In spring, the company is set to unveil a new lineup of RC cars. The toy manufacturer is planning to market the new products as "much better than the existing models" and target the two generations of fans whose hearts it has won with the retro series.
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Break out the plastic
The sales of plastic models based on the popular science fiction anime "Gundam" series also are propped up by men in 20s and 30s.
A group that assembles custom-made Gundam models can even be found on the Internet. While many men look upon Gundam with a bit of nostalgia, some are just too busy to put the models together themselves, so they buy them preassembled.
"We try to meet any kind of order, be it tricking out the Gundam's legs or making his arms look really massive. Sometimes we have to make parts by hand. And we don't [ship the models] if they have smudged paint," said the group's leader, who calls himself Papamodeller, taking pride in the high level of work by his group, the Netmodellers.
The majority of their Gundam plastic models are priced between 100,000 yen and 150,000 yen. The group's regular customers include a number of doctors and managers, as well as salaried workers. The group receives on average one order every three days, so each customer has to wait for about six months before receiving his or her Gundam, even though the group's 15 members split the orders.
"Those 40 and under don't have any major experience shared with each other, such as a war or student movement, so they see their adolescence through products," says culture critic Risaku Kiridoshi. "Due to social development, our culture has been divided into many segments, and people in one generation can find its common denominators only from the environment in which they grew up.
"The environment is embodied in classic toys and cartoons and anime. It's quite natural that they are glorified years later. It's like the feeling you get when you want to pop into an old oden [Japanese hotchpotch snack] stall in a back alley," he said.
As for toy manufacturers, Kiridoshi, 41, said: "Manufacturers have an idea, befitting a low-growth era, that it's safer to make the tried and tested, rather than new products with an uncertain future.
"As the younger population dwindles, they need to attract both parents and children to get each household to continue to buy their products."
(Nov. 18, 2005)
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