Kitchen Toys get Popular

There’s been a boom in the toy kitchen line ever since the Chuboo line of fun kitchen tools caught our eye. Major toy companies like Bandai and Takara Tomy have put out their share of toy like kitchen appliances last year and have plans in the works to release more this year. Bandai scored big with its Cook Joy series, featuring the Norimaki Mak-ki that costs ¥2,940 ($28 USD). This is a device that helps small, uncoordinated fingers roll out near-perfect sushi rolls, and the Ichi Ni Sando that costs ¥3,150 ($ 30 USD) sandwich press, which makes fun shaped “sandwiches” out of bread or rice. Meanwhile Takara Tomy had a hit with its Sugar Bunnies-themed Ice Cooking ¥4,200 ($ 40 USD) ice cream maker last summer and now has plans to release an Onigiri (rice ball) Party ¥3,675 ($35 USD) making kit with the same character images soon.

All of the above are made from colorful plastic and are hand-controlled, and are electricity and oven-free. They focus on either lunch box material or after school snack foods. Of course what is particularly interesting about these products is that, in contrast to the kiddy cake baking kits popular in other countries, many of these sets teach kids to make traditional Japanese food.