Takara

Background

Takara Co, Ltd. was a Japanese toy and entertainment company founded in 1955. Originally the company was settled in the toy manufacturing business and its first successful franchises were Microman and Diaclone; in 1984 American company Hasbro rebranded these toys as Transformers with Takara retaining the Japanese rights to the franchise. Other famous franchises by Takara include Battle Beasts, Choro-Q (internationally known as Penny Racers) and Beyblade. Since the early 1990s Takara branched out to the videogame business working with different publishers such as Tamsoft, then soon in the 2000s purchased publishing stakes with Atlus. During 2005 the company would decide to merge with its rival Tomy, forming Takara Tomy.

1st Logo (1990s-2006)

Logo: We see the red text "TAKARA", in a bold interconnected font with circles forming the inside part of the A's, along with the registered mark.

Variant: The logo is normally seen over a white background, while a black background variant is often less used.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None.

Availability: Uncommon; seen in multiple videogames from Takara's licensed franchises including Choro-Q and Metal Fighter Beyblade - many of them were only released in Japan.

Editor's Note: None.