Takara - Relationship With Hasbro

Relationship With Hasbro

Both Takara and pre-merger Tomy have had strong relationships with Hasbro, which has distributed Takara's hit products such as Transformers, Beyblade, e-Kara and Battle B-Daman and Tomy's Zoids brands internationally. Although the merged company has stated that the Transformers business with Hasbro and the OEM business in general was not as profitable as they would be if they were directly distributed, the relationship with Hasbro is low-risk in the case of Transformers, since Hasbro assumes the inventory risk internationally.

This long-term relationship will certainly continue, as both Takara and Tomy have long held the licenses to "localize" and distribute many Hasbro products in Japan, including The Game of Life, Blythe dolls, and Magic: The Gathering and Duel Masters trading card games by Takara and Monopoly, Furby, Super Soaker and Play-Doh by Tomy. Hasbro has also previously distributed Tomy's Pokémon toys in the US, although it eventually started selling its own versions.