Top Toys List:
1. Choenbank robotic monkey money bank
2. ChouChou butterfly
3. Popcorn no Te grabber
4. Kinopuyo robotic mushroom
5. Ryo Ishikawa Digital Grade Master
Yesterday we brought you a host of videos and photos straight from Tokyo Big Sight, reporting on the best new toys at this year’s Toy Show. More generally now we’re going to give you a round-up of the trends and highlights.
We’ve had our eyes on green innovation in Japan for a long time, as witnessed by our major eco report earlier this year. Even the Toy Show had its share of eco, with Takara Tomy particularly devoting a whole booth to concept products that celebrated being energy efficient.
For example, their ene POCKET box generators allow you to connect with and power a range of other toys. Just turn the arm a few times and then join it up with another toy to supply it with charge.
Jolly moving toys that sit on your desk were first made popular by the likes of the Pekoppa. Now Takara Tomy has produced the Kinopuyo dancing mushroom and the solar-powered Flip Flap plant, which gently bobs up and down (presumably to make you feel relaxed).
Japan is certainly in Ryo Ishikawa fever at the moment; the golfer seemingly can do no wrong and his face was all over the convention center. On top of the Digital Grade Master 1/6 scale figure — complete with his trademark lookalike mascot driver cover — there was also the Excite Golf video game, endorsed by the young sportsman.
We’ve seen a lot of robotic creature toys over the last couple of years, especially dog and cat-themed money boxes. This year this trend continued, with the Peeing Dog being a slightly impractical version, while the Choenbako monkey bank being clearly the standout here.
As the Sky Tree continues to soar, Sega Toys have even produced one of their home planetarium products, the Homestar Aqua, themed around Tokyo’s new tower attraction.
And with the popularity of historical characters like Ryoma Sakamoto already inspiring a multitude of other tie-ins and merchandise, we weren’t surprised to find even his gun has been recreated as a toy.
Takara Tomy did some funky things with a Disney character: they re-imagined Mickey Mouse as a robot!
They also created the Mickey Mouse Projector lamp in the familiar shape of Mickey’s face and showing animations of the character. Sadly these products are still in development and there are no details on release dates yet.
Fans of famous characters would have like the Mario Kart Wii ChoroQ Hybrid cars and funky racing track, along with the pinball Mario Kart Wii Grand Prix Race game!
Micro musicians will enjoy playing the drums on the Taiko no Tensai from Epoch, a mini instrument that likely won’t disturb your neighbors…
From the sublime (the very realistic ChouChou butterfly) to the ridiculous (the Popcorn no Te grabber), there’s always plenty for everyone at the Toy Show.
William is Editor of JapanTrends.com and a Project Manager at 
