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Line tries to hook kids early, launching toy smartphone with Takaratomy

Rick Martin Rick Martin
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Last week we had a chance to hear Line Corporation’s Akira Morikawa talk about his company’s fast and furious global strategy to promote their Line chat application. But it looks like the next few months will see the company quite active marketing to its home market of Japan as well, with a new ‘Line Town’ toy series to be released next month in cooperation with Takaratomy. Line Town, as you may know, is the animation series of the same name that broadcasts on Tokyo TV. Headlining its repertoire of toys will be a sort of imitation smartphone for kids called ‘Line Town MyTouch.’ With the goal of letting kids enjoy Line characters too, this pretend smartphone has a color LCD as well as sliding touch motion designed to look like smartphone interfacing. While there’s not actually a phone function, it looks like this toy handset will use an NFC function to let kids exchange stamps and some messages when one phone contacts another. It will also feature some mini games like picture matching, janken (or rock-paper-scissors), and brain training. The toy phone will be released on August 8, and will be priced at 6825 yen (or about $70). It will…

line-town-mytouch

Last week we had a chance to hear Line Corporation’s Akira Morikawa talk about his company’s fast and furious global strategy to promote their Line chat application. But it looks like the next few months will see the company quite active marketing to its home market of Japan as well, with a new ‘Line Town’ toy series to be released next month in cooperation with Takaratomy. Line Town, as you may know, is the animation series of the same name that broadcasts on Tokyo TV. Headlining its repertoire of toys will be a sort of imitation smartphone for kids called ‘Line Town MyTouch.’

With the goal of letting kids enjoy Line characters too, this pretend smartphone has a color LCD as well as sliding touch motion designed to look like smartphone interfacing. While there’s not actually a phone function, it looks like this toy handset will use an NFC function to let kids exchange stamps and some messages when one phone contacts another. It will also feature some mini games like picture matching, janken (or rock-paper-scissors), and brain training.

line-town-mytouch-2

The toy phone will be released on August 8, and will be priced at 6825 yen (or about $70). It will be available in three colors: pink, green, and blue. Surely Line Corporation is hoping that if they can promote the Line brand to kids at a young age, that they’ll stick with the brand as they get older and buy real smartphones.

Line Corporation will be releasing a number of other toys as a part of its cooperation with Takaratomy, including a character branded version of the Automee-S smartphone and tablet cleaner that we featured back in February. There will also be a Line Town Message Seal Maker, Line Town figures, a ‘tobisau’ pop-up toy, and Line stamps as well (yes, actual stamps). See the pictures below, or Takaratomy’s website for more information. [Via Impress]

For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

Line message seal maker
Line message seal maker
Line Automee-S
Line Automee-S
Line stamps
Line stamps
Line pop-up toy
Line pop-up toy

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Tomy’s dog-to-human communication toy introduces tots to mobile translation

Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi
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For Japanese parents looking for a toy for their baby girl’s next birthday, Tomy’s Ketai Wanko (roughly translated as “mobile dog”) might be a fun option to consider. It’s a cute stuffed dog accompanied by mobile controller that works as a mock dog-to-human translator. When the toy dog barks, you can bring the cell-phone close to its nose, and the noises are translated into language. The dog can say over 300 different phrases such as “pet me,” “sing to me,” or even “I like your what you’re wearing today.” A toy biscuit is also included, and when you feed your dog it will make happy eating sounds or even ask for more biscuits. You can learn more about how it works over on the Tomy website. Keitai Wanko can be purchased for 3,780 yen (about $40) and is available in three breeds: toy poodle, chihuahua and Shiba Inu. In its announcement, Tomy (TSE:7867) notes that as many as 30% of Japanese people have some kind of pet. But of course there are some families that can not enjoy pets for some reason or another. The company hopes that Keitai Wanko could be an alternaitve for such families to teach children…

Tomy-KeitaiWanko

For Japanese parents looking for a toy for their baby girl’s next birthday, Tomy’s Ketai Wanko (roughly translated as “mobile dog”) might be a fun option to consider. It’s a cute stuffed dog accompanied by mobile controller that works as a mock dog-to-human translator.

When the toy dog barks, you can bring the cell-phone close to its nose, and the noises are translated into language. The dog can say over 300 different phrases such as “pet me,” “sing to me,” or even “I like your what you’re wearing today.” A toy biscuit is also included, and when you feed your dog it will make happy eating sounds or even ask for more biscuits. You can learn more about how it works over on the Tomy website.

Keitai Wanko can be purchased for 3,780 yen (about $40) and is available in three breeds: toy poodle, chihuahua and Shiba Inu. In its announcement, Tomy (TSE:7867) notes that as many as 30% of Japanese people have some kind of pet. But of course there are some families that can not enjoy pets for some reason or another. The company hopes that Keitai Wanko could be an alternaitve for such families to teach children to take care of animals.

For real dogs

Tomy-BowLingual

For those with real animals to pet, Tomy has an actual dog-to-human language translator and emotional analyzer called Bow-Lingual. That was released way back in September of 2002, co-developed by Tomy, Index Holdings, and Japan Acoustic Lab.

Bow-Lingual allows owners to communicate with dogs through a wireless mic built into the dog’s collar. The product sold over 300,000 units worldwide and received an Ig Nobel Prize in 2002. There is also a Bow-Lingual iPhone app if anyone wants to give it a try. We’ve not tested it (nor do we actually speak dog) so your mileage may vary!

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Build your own iPhone-controlled RC car!

Yukari Mitsuhashi Yukari Mitsuhashi
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For many people, driving a radio-controlled car is one of their most treasured childhood memories. Even big boys still find the experience intriguing, as you often see RC car competitions held all over the world. But what if you could build your own car and drive it with your iPhone or iPad? Actually, Japan Trust Technology, Inc has invented just such a car. It’s named Tsuku-Raji, a moniker which combines the Japanese words for “make” and “radio.” All you need to do is build your dream car on top of the 9.5cm x 4.7cm base unit. The resulting RC vehicle can then be controlled using their dedicated iOS app (for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch). The iPhone can even be used as a steering wheel by turning on the gyro mode! Charging the car and the transmitter is quick and easy, simply by connecting to your computer with a USB cable. Tsuku-Raji comes in two colors, black and red, and is priced at 3,980 yen (about $43) for just the car, and 4,480 yen ($48) with the USB AC adapter included. If you’d like to order one, you can do so on the JTT website if you’re in Japan. We’ll…

rc-car

For many people, driving a radio-controlled car is one of their most treasured childhood memories. Even big boys still find the experience intriguing, as you often see RC car competitions held all over the world. But what if you could build your own car and drive it with your iPhone or iPad?

Actually, Japan Trust Technology, Inc has invented just such a car. It’s named Tsuku-Raji, a moniker which combines the Japanese words for “make” and “radio.” All you need to do is build your dream car on top of the 9.5cm x 4.7cm base unit. The resulting RC vehicle can then be controlled using their dedicated iOS app (for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch). The iPhone can even be used as a steering wheel by turning on the gyro mode!

Charging the car and the transmitter is quick and easy, simply by connecting to your computer with a USB cable. Tsuku-Raji comes in two colors, black and red, and is priced at 3,980 yen (about $43) for just the car, and 4,480 yen ($48) with the USB AC adapter included. If you’d like to order one, you can do so on the JTT website if you’re in Japan. We’ll let you know if they become available to overseas buyers.

Kids can’t get enough of the iPhone, and it goes without saying that they love RC cars. This product is the perfect combination of the two, and is sure to be a big hit. Parents will certainly be fans as well, as the building process should help foster creativity.

Check out the demonstration of Tsuku-Raji in the video clip below.

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