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TOKYO -- When Japan's largest toy expo convenes for the first time in three years on Thursday, the event will showcase playthings that make no distinction between boys and girls.

The International Tokyo Toy Show was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus epidemic. This year, it will be held for two days at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center.

A total of 96 participating companies from around the world will put about 20,000 items on display. The show will be restricted to industry professionals only and will not be open to the public.

Tokyo-based manufacturer Pilot will feature the doll "Acchan," which was launched in April. The company says it is the first doll of an infant boy it has sold in its history. The toy is targeted at young children aged 18 months and older.

"Playing with dolls during early childhood is connected to the development of the mind," said Natsuko Doi, planning group lead at Pilot. "We were conscious about making it easy for boys to play with the doll too."

Toy maker Pilot released the doll "Acchan" in April that is intended to be played with young boys and girls alike.   © Pilot

Acchan carries the aspiration of promoting gender equality as a result. In 2019, Doi went to a toy expo in Germany where she had a revelation about the Japanese toy industry's efforts to address that issue.

"I felt that Japan was lagging behind," she said.

At the German trade fair, "boys and girls were featured on every packaging," Doi said. In other words, "boys have been playing with dolls as well."

Learning from that lesson, Doi said she endeavored to develop toys that do not come with preconceived notions about gender.

Toymaker Tomy in March appointed Hello Kitty as the official "ambassador" of its Beyblade Burst spinning tops. Although the Beyblade franchise has historically been marketed to boys, Tomy looks to cultivate new fans by collaborating with the Sanrio character popular with girls. The company plans to release Beyblades featuring the face of Hello Kitty, among other images.

Hello Kitty will be featured on Beyblade Burst battle tops.   © Tomy/Shogakukan/Hiro Morita/BBBProject/Sanrio

The company is also working to capture the hearts of more girls for its Tomica minicars, which are usually associated with boys. In 2018, it launched the Disney Motors line modeled after characters popular with girls. It featured both boys and girls in the packaging and promotional videos for Tomica DIY sets launched last year, which let children pretend to be mechanics by assembling and disassembling vehicles.

In the U.S., Mattel in 2019 began selling gender-neutral dolls that come with a variety of hair and clothing options, so they can be customized without regard to gender norms.

The Japan Toy Awards stopped giving separate prizes for "boys' toys" and "girls' toys" in 2021, after some members of the Japan Toy Association -- which also organizes the Tokyo toy show -- took issue with dividing categories by gender.

Buoyed by stay-at-home demand, the Japanese toy market grew by 8.5% to 895 billion yen ($6.66 billion) in fiscal 2021 -- the highest figure since fiscal 2001. But the market's future is murky, given Japan's shrinking population. Toys that defy gender stereotypes could allow companies to cultivate new demand.


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