“We are so excited to be working with Mattel on SHONEN JUMP’s NARUTO,†said Cynthia Money, vice president of consumer products for VIZ Media. “As the world’s leading toy company we are confident that Mattel will develop a toy line that brings to life the incredibly rich characters and ninja-based worlds of NARUTO, in a visual and interactive way.â€
Mattel, Inc., (NYSE: MAT, www.mattel.com) is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of toys and family products, including Barbie®, the most popular fashion doll ever introduced. The Mattel family is comprised of such best-selling brands as Hot Wheels®, Matchbox®, American Girl® and Tyco® R/C, as well as Fisher-Price brands (www.fisher-price.com), including Little People®, Rescue Heroes®, Power Wheels® and a wide array of entertainment-inspired toy lines.
This is disappointing in a sense, because I wouldn’t say Mattel is the go to company for this type of toy product. But we’ll see if they sub-license the rights out to other companies more suitable.
News Archives:
November 16th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Mattel? Don’t they make like 4-year olde toys? o_O
I like Bandai, and the only three, as far as I know, toys of Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke. They should make more of those. They’re actually action figures.
November 16th, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Mark my words: Mattel will butcher this toyline. It will be only a matter of time before we see “Naruto w/ Ninja Battle Armor” or “Salon Styling Sakura”. Momoshiro is right, Bandai would do a much better job with this. Oh well, I guess we have “Malibu Naruto’s Ninja Dreamhouse” to look forward too. Yippee! >_>
November 16th, 2005 at 5:34 pm
There’s plenty of plushies if you look around. AnimeArgiato, Toys’N’Joys, and some others.
November 16th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
I agree with Shodai that’s exactly what I need… a “Naruto Ken Doll” and “My Scene Sakura”, A “Fisher Price Ramen stand(ages three and up do to choking hazard)”, a “Tickle me Sasuke”, plastic TonTon piggybank, and various American/Ninja Girl titles such as:
Meet Tsunade
Happy Birthday Temari
Changes for Ino
and amoung others: Hinata’s Christmas crafts…
The only GOOD thing to happen since they started Killing poor Naruto was that they started carrying shirts and now a sweater in American sizes…for the rest of the Naruto stuff I get though I drive 53 miles to San Diego to Mitsuwa Market^_^
November 16th, 2005 at 11:13 pm
… yeah I can totally see the ninja motorcycle riders… and the real fire ball action toys rolling in the cash… I think a little part of me died inside… again.
November 21st, 2005 at 2:58 pm
I wouldn’t freak out over it too much. Do remember that Mattel also handled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man, She-Ra, and other action figure lines that lended themselves to swords, throwing stars, and a wide assortment of other bladed nasties. The Naruto franchise doesn’t lend itself to things like motorcycles, guns, power suits, and other ridiculous creations that have wrecked the Batman toy lines and such, so I don’t think there’s as much of a threat of that happening here.
April 12th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Dude!Mattel is gonna ROCK Naruto!If you go to Toywiz.com you can see the names of all the up coming figures+ descriptions!
,Beleive it!