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As the birthrate drops, a doll is born in Japan

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-03 15:44

Bandai's Purimopuero soft toys are displayed at a Tokyo toy show. [Agencies]

Purimopueru is a knee-high Japanese doll with soft, apple-spotted cheeks and big black button eyes. It comes in green and pink. When you cuddle it or talk to it, it talks back. It's for grandmothers.

The doll, an award-winner at last week's Tokyo Toy Show, is generating new sales among the elderly for creator Namco Bandai Holdings as the birthrate drops. Japan is the first developed country to register more annual deaths than births and the elderly will outnumber children two to one within five years, according to the nation's Health Ministry.

"There just aren't as many kids anymore," said Fumiaki Ibuki, 57, a member of the committee that plans the Tokyo Toy Show. "The industry is addressing the problem by widening its target age. The idea is toys aren't just for kids."

Bandai, which markets 20 percent of its toys to adults, started the Purimopueru line for children in 1999. It's now Bandai's best-selling doll with more than a million bought, mostly by women in their 50s and 60s, said the product's creative director, Hiroko Tajima. It sells for 7,980 yen ($75).

Japan's $6.3 billion toy industry, whose market has shrunk by 10 percent since 2003, isn't alone in turning to older consumers. Toyota Motor Corp makes versions of its cars for the Japanese market with a detachable seat that becomes a wheelchair.

Fujitsu Ltd said this month it will start sending staff to the homes of the elderly who buy a computer to set the system up. The so-called raku-raku pack, Japanese for "as easy as pie" is aimed at people over 60. The company says as many as 70 percent of that age group doesn't own a computer.

Talking toys

"If you're the government, you've got the tax base to think about. But if you're selling toys or services, the shrinking market is really nothing compared to the gains you can get with a single product that sells well," said Martin Schulz, senior economist at Fujitsu's Research Institute in Tokyo.

Bandai's Purimopueru, which combines the Italian for first and the Latin for boy, is touted as a new family member that can be taught to talk and sing.

The two-tone doll can "master" up to five songs and 380 words in the course of a year, provided it gets cuddled and talked to, according to the company.

"Families are living apart these days, so grandkids are giving the dolls to their grandmothers and daughters are giving them to their mothers," said Bandai's Tajima, 24. "It's a little odd, but the dolls become like a substitute."

The company sponsors a mock nursery school commencement, a birthday party, and even hot spring trips for the dolls and their "parents".

"We think it's strange," said Maho Hayashi, a 23 year-old graduate student at Tokyo's Keio University who came with a friend to the toy show, which attracted 160,000 visitors on June 21 and 22. "I guess people are just lonely."

Substitutes

Sega Toys Co's Dream Golden Retriever, which won a prize for innovative technology at the show, is also for adults. The life-sized puppy android wags its tail when petted, looks lovingly into your eyes when you pat its cheek and responds to six English commands, including "sit up and beg".

The dog droid makes sense in Japan, where apartments often prohibit animals and, unlike a real pet, it won't soil the rug, said Kiyoshi Tsuchiya, 28, head of the advertising campaign.

Even at 34,650 yen, about 10 times the price of an average toy, Sega plans to sell 100,000 of the robot dogs in its first six months. "They can be really good company," Tsuchiya said.