Popy

Popy was formed by Bandai in July 1971 to distribute products intended for candy shops and other retail outlets outside of the usual toy stores. Before long, the company began to license characters and vehicles from popular live-action (Tokusatsu), Anime and Manga series. Its first major success in this vein was a child-sized version of the "Henshin Belt" worn by the hero of the Kamen Rider television series. Although other companies were selling similar products, only Popy's incorporated a light-up mechanism, making it a smashing success despite its then-high retail price of 1500 yen. (It would eventually go on to sell some 3.8 million units.) In the wake of the success of the "Henshin Belt", Popy introduced a palm-sized, diecast metal version of the bike ridden by the show's title character. It proved a major success as well and paved the way for a massive wave of vinyl and diecast metal renditions of characters from the Japanese kids' shows that dominated the Japanese toy market for more than a decade. Other notable successes included the Jumbo Machinder series and the Chogokin series of diecast metal robot toys, most notably those of Super Robot characters such as Mazinger Z.

Popy's divisional system would later be reinstated and after going through Toy Division 1 and Character Toy Division, it was inherited by the current Boys Toy Division. As mentioned above, it stopped handling girls' characters and started handling toys purely for boys, so it was not a pure successor to Popy, but in a reorganization in July 2019 it was reorganized into the Brand Design Department, which handles character toys regardless of gender, and in February 2022 it was reorganized into the Brand Toy Division, and in April 2024 it was reorganized into the current Toy Division.

In 1974, Popy began manufacturing action figures from the anime Mazinger Z and had them released using die casting technology which became a huge hit for the subsidiary, catapulting the unit into the spotlight. Since then, a series of character figures from anime and special effects works have been released under the "Chogokin" brand

In the beginning of March 2003, the Popy brand was revived when its parent Bandai merged its subsidiary Yutaka with its garage kit division B-Club to form a new subsidiary bringing back the Popy name. However four years later in 2007, when Popy and Bandai's parent Bandai Namco Holdings announced its restructuring, Popy was folded back into its parent Bandai into its subsidiary Plex whilst retaining the Popy brand.

With the sales of robot toys falling, Popy was reincorporated into Bandai in March 1983. However, many of their lines would continue, with Chogokin continuing to come out in the GC series until 1988, and Popinika continuing to be used until 1987.