A Bandai marketer and a toy-design firm.

Tamagotchi is a Bandai brand, and Bandai has sold it since the beginning. The official Tamagotchi website dates the release to 23 November 1996 and calls it a “handheld care toy”; English Wikipedia gives the American release as 1 May 1997.

Two people are credited with it. In July 1997 the magazine Asiaweek profiled Aki Maita, a member of Bandai’s sales and marketing department, which she had joined in 1990 after working in the computer section of a Tokyo company, where she spent two years tracking sales data. The magazine reported that she had the idea while watching a television commercial about a little boy who insisted on taking his turtle to kindergarten, and that she wanted a portable game that could be played anywhere and was kawaii, or cute. Maita told the magazine: “I only came up with the idea, developed the concept and took charge of the marketing program. It also took a technician and public relations person to make it into a product.”

Smithsonian magazine, writing in December 2021, tells the story from the side of Akihiro Yokoi, president of Wiz Co., Ltd., a creative firm whose staff designed toy concepts and pitched them to larger companies. It says Yokoi told The New York Times that the idea came from an advertisement in which a boy was not allowed to take his pet turtle on holiday, and that Yokoi then contacted Maita at Bandai. Working with Maita and the Wiz staff, the magazine says, Yokoi at one stage pictured the toy as a wristwatch.

That explains the name. Smithsonian describes Tamagotchi as a blend of tamago, egg, and uotchi, watch; Asiaweek noted in 1997 that in Japan it was known as “Tamagotch.” The pair were recognised together in 1997, when Improbable Research gave Yokoi, of Wiz in Chiba, and Maita, of Bandai in Tokyo, its satirical Ig Nobel Prize for economics as “the father and mother of Tamagotchi.”

An egg on a key chain.

The watch became a key chain. Smithsonian says the wristwatch idea gave way to a key-chain design, and that during one meeting a designer quickly sketched a blobby character that stuck. English Wikipedia describes the typical Tamagotchi as housed in a small egg-shaped case with three buttons, and says the characters were drawn in the heta-uma style of teen magazines before being converted to pixel art.

Some of the look was set by testing. Asiaweek reported in 1997 that the previous October Maita had taken prototypes to Tokyo’s Shibuya district and handed them to about two hundred high-school girls, then watched their reactions over several weeks and used their questionnaires to settle the colour — white was preferred — the chain design and the packaging. By November, the magazine said, the toy was on the market.

The play is a matter of care. Smithsonian describes a toy that beeps at real-time intervals, asking its owner to feed it, clean up after it and discipline it, and that grows into a well-mannered or a badly behaved adult depending on that care. Maita, the magazine reports, later told The New York Times that Bandai’s own salespeople were sceptical: “Their reaction was dull, like, ‘What’s so fun about this?’”

English Wikipedia notes that character names usually end in “tchi” or “chi,” and that Mametchi, present since the original release, has become something like a mascot for the series.

The idea spread beyond Bandai’s own line. Wired reported in September 1998 that Tiger Electronics had launched Giga Pets the previous year to compete with Tamagotchi, and the BBC’s archive noted in December 2024 that Digimon followed the Tamagotchi in a similar key-chain-sized device.

Toys as brands.

A toy brand often reaches its buyer through the package before the toy itself is ever touched. A window box lets a child see the figure, doll or vehicle through a clear panel while the printed board around it carries the name, the artwork and the age guidance, so the logo has to read clearly across a crowded shelf and still leave room for the product to show.

Blister cards work in a similar way on a smaller scale: a printed backing card, a moulded plastic bubble and a hang hole at the top. The card is usually designed to be seen hanging on a peg, which pushes the name and character art towards the upper half and keeps the logo bold enough to survive at a distance.

Die-cast and other small vehicle lines tend to rely on compact logos that can be printed on a box end, a card or even the base of the toy. Character mascots add another layer, standing in for the brand in advertising and on packs, so that a face or figure becomes as recognisable as the lettering beside it.

The egg keeps hatching.

The brand has been revived several times. The official Tamagotchi website says it returned in 2004 with Tamagotchi Connection, which had built-in infrared communication, and was followed by a series of models with new functions. The Guardian reported in October 2006 that a “third generation” version launched that March let owners connect with friends and use passwords to visit an online Tamagotchi Town; Bandai UK’s marketing manager, Darrell Jones, told the paper the company was “using the latest technology.”

Later dates come from Bandai’s timeline and the press. Smithsonian reported that the original Tamagotchi was relaunched in 2017 for an anniversary of its American release, and that 2021 brought a Tamagotchi smartwatch in Japan in June and the camera-equipped Tamagotchi Pix, with a colour screen, in North America in July. The official timeline also lists Tamagotchi On in July 2019 and Tamagotchi Smart in November 2021. Bandai says Tamagotchi Uni, with built-in Wi-Fi, was released worldwide in July 2023, and that owners can meet characters from around the world in an online space it calls the Tamaverse. In December 2024 the BBC’s archive reported that Tamagotchi had opened a standalone shop in London, quoting its brand manager, Priya Jadeja, saying owners could now “connect with friends…and download different items.” NHK World, in a January 2021 programme, introduced Erika Yasuda as the toy’s current developer.

Ownership has stayed in one place. English Wikipedia says Bandai is part of Bandai Namco Holdings, formed in 2005 by the merger of Bandai and Namco.

For a design guide, Tamagotchi shows how a toy brand can be carried by a shape — an egg on a chain — while the screen inside it changes. Compare Bandai, the toy maker that sells it, TOMY, another Tokyo toy maker, and Furby, Tiger Electronics’ talking toy of 1998. For this guide we use an egg white, an LCD green and a shell pink with a pixel sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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