Tag: Toys

Japan has a declining birth rate but the toymakers are still trying hard to find new ways to entertain children in the twenty-first century. Here's a brilliant example from Takara-Tomy. The ...

Our love for all things Maywa Denki is no secret. We recently went wild about Mr Knocky, their unique drum toy, and also think their retro Otona no Kagaku Maywa Denki Automa-te Auto Writer Hand is ...

JapanTrendShop is having a sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, offering 10% off on all items in its online catalog. Just use the code blackfriday2014 or cybermonday2014 to claim a discount on ...

If you like unusual RC toys and if you like yuru-kyaru (Japanese mascots), then these two things are about to come crashing together in amazing style with this R/C Tractor Kumamon from ...

Nanoblock, Japan's homegrown answer to Lego, never stops evolving. Just when you thought the micro building blocks had been used to transform every famous monument or building around the world, ...

Japan's 100 yen shops are treasure troves. Enter these Aladdin's Caves and you can find almost anything you need for your kitchen or home, plus all kinds of surprising items you didn't even know ...

Winter is coming, as a certain HBO series constantly reminds us. But in Japan as we can stuck into the chill of the winter, there is a bright spark part of the way through -- New Year. Not only does ...

The Tower of the Sun is one of the great icons of postwar Japan and the Showa era. The huge sculpture is a kind of totem pole that was created by artist Taro Okamoto as one of the signature ...

Maywa Denki are one of Japan's best-kept secrets. Part music unit, part toy designers, part performance artists, the group is now 20 years old but continues to come up with great ideas. Their ...

Sega have created an interactive sandpit for kids. The Eederu Sunaba (translating literally as "Wow, appears! Sandbox") uses projectors and special non-sticky sand so that kids can have fun playing ...

Japan is a nation obsessed with food and also, so people say, childishness. And so it is only natural that the two things would be combined at some point. The result is cooking toys, which Takara ...

Robotic pets, also known as robo-pets (not to be confused with the actual Robopet), are making something of a return to the shelves of stores in Japan in a valiant effort to buck the trend of local ...

While the latest Michael Bay Transformers movie is shooting up the box office around the world (though not yet in Japan), it's worth taking a look at a pretty spectacular local Japanese version. A ...

It's hard to believe that Sanrio's most successful creation and Japan's most famous cat is 40 years old! It's true, Hello Kitty turns 40 this year and to celebrate Sanrio is teaming with Bandai to ...

Projection mapping has really taken off in Japan. Recently we have seen Tokyo Station being transformed in a video spectacle, as well as the Yokohama Odyssey event at a historical dockyard, and ...