[Goldengreg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trebleshot

2. The big difference between the US and Japanese markets is that there are very few children who buy and play with toys in Japan - they have video games and mobile devices.

I agree with you.
It's true that japanese toy comapnies are struggling more than before; toys disappeared from convinience stores several years ago, and you can feel that there is less and less shows for kids; but they still exists. In Japan, a cartoon or a sentai show (=power-rangersy live action) is produced and aired by sponsors, wich means that Bandai and/or Takara-Tomy (Hasbro) still gains money from them but it's not the anime-liveaction galore you had until the end of the 90es.
When you go to a dpt store in Japan, you have a distinct area of toys for kids and toys for adults. The good thing is, they coexist very naturally. The "sofubi" (soft-vinyl) toys of monsters and heroes for the kids, and the complex-articulated ones for the grown-ups
There's also something I see very oftenly in Japan: when I go to my favorties second-hands toy stores with vintage metal sentai toys of the 70es, I see more and more people in their 40es with their kids watching the incredibly pricey items and tell "I played with this one when I was your age".
As a toy lover, I'm always "awwww" (and just after I'm "what, you trashed your Bioman robot you stupid xxx" )