"Digital Monster (virtual pet) The Digital Monster is a digital pet released in 1997 by Bandai. This pet was a masculine counterpart to the Tamagotchi, which, despite having fans of both genders, was deemed more appropriate for girls. It spawned the Digimon franchise. It was similar to earlier virtual pets with the distinctions of being a fighting pet that could connect with others like it. The original Digital Monster model that released in 1997 sold units worldwide, including in Japan and overseas, up until March 2004. By 2005, more than Digital Monster units were sold. The Digimon game consist of"
"first widely popular virtual pets in 1995 with ""Dogz"", followed by ""Catz"" in the spring of 1996, eventually becoming a franchise known as ""Petz"". The digital pets were further popularized when Tamagotchi and Digimon were introduced in 1996 and 1997. Digital pets were a massive fad in Japan, and to a lesser extent in the United States and United Kingdom during the late 1990s. Today, there are also ""Digital Pets"" which have physical robotic bodies, known as Ludobots or Entertainment robots. The popularity of virtual pets in the United States, and the constant need for attention the pets required, led"
"Digimon Digimon ( ""Dejimon"", branded as Digimon: Digital Monsters, stylized as DIGIMON), short for ""Digital Monsters"" ( ""Dejitaru Monsutā""), is a Japanese media franchise encompassing virtual pet toys, anime, manga, video games, films and a trading card game. The franchise focuses on Digimon creatures, which are monsters living in a ""Digital World"", a parallel universe that originated from Earth's various communication networks. The franchise was first created in 1997 as a series of virtual pets, akin to—and influenced in style by—the contemporary Tamagotchi or nano Giga Pet toys. The creatures were first designed to look cute and iconic even on"
"Tamagotchi The is a handheld digital pet, created in Japan by of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was released by Bandai on November 23, 1996 in Japan and May 1997 in the rest of the world, quickly becoming one of the biggest toy fads of the 1990s and early 2000s. Up until 2010, over 76 million Tamagotchis had been sold worldwide. As of 2017, over 82million units have been sold. Most Tamagotchi are housed in a small egg-shaped computer with an interface usually consisting of three buttons, although the number of buttons may vary. According to Bandai, the"
"Happy Pet The Happy Pet is a handheld digital pet released in Japan in 2003 by Bandai. The Happy Pet is similar to Bandai's previous release, the Tamagotchi. Like the Tamagotchi, the Happy Pet is a pixelised creature housed in a computer worn around the wrist. Unlike Tamagotchi, which involves raising imaginary creatures, the Happy Pet involves raising a real-life animal. It operates on a touch screen. The touch screen enables the user to stroke the pet to either praise, discipline or cure the pet. The pet has intelligence and friendliness levels, depending on how well the user looks after"
"it. However, the Happy Pet does not evolve. The three buttons can be used to feed the pet or play games with it. The buttons can also be used to see what the pet is currently thinking or feeling. The first release of the Happy Pet was a chihuahua. Later editions included cats and dolphins. Happy Pet The Happy Pet is a handheld digital pet released in Japan in 2003 by Bandai. The Happy Pet is similar to Bandai's previous release, the Tamagotchi. Like the Tamagotchi, the Happy Pet is a pixelised creature housed in a computer worn around the"
"During the virtual toy craze of the late nineteen nineties Giga Pets became the number 1 brand in USA, as well other pars of the world. By the end of 1997, Tiger Electronics, a then privately held electronics toy and game-maker based in Vernon Hills, Illinois, was one of many manufacturers creating virtual pets. Others included Fujitsu, PF Magic, Sega, Viacom New Media, Casio, and Technosphere. Roger Shiffman, a Chicago native and co-founder of Tiger Electronics, is credited as being the driving force behind Giga Pets and Furby, a furry interactive pet with big eyes and pointed ears that could"
"Pokémon Pikachu Pokémon Pikachu, also known as in Japan, is a series of portable ""Pokémon"" digital pets (similar to Tamagotchi) featuring the famous yellow electric-type Pokémon, Pikachu. Released on March 27, 1998, in Japan (November 2, 1998, in North America), it was intended as an exercise toy and mentioned by Guinness World Records as the most popular exercise toy of its time. The first release of the device is simply called ""Pokémon Pikachu."" A yellow unit resembling a Game Boy, it features a black and white LCD screen used to display animations of Pikachu's activities. The second release, Pokémon Pikachu"
"Giga Pet Giga Pets are digital pets (also known as virtual pets or artificial pets) that were first released in the United States by Tiger Electronics in 1997 in the midst of a virtual-pet toy fad. Available in a variety of different characters, essentially each is a palm-sized video screen attached to a key ring. To ensure a happy, healthy pet, its owner has to take care of it in some of the same ways one might care for a real animal. Among other things, Giga Pets have to be fed, cleaned, and played with. Giga Pets are ""born"" on"
"or bigger. Playgrounds and subways were where the majority of users of the apparatus were concentrated; The virtual pet was banned in some Asian schools by being considered by parents and teachers as very noisy and violent. The first Digimon were created by Japanese designer Kenji Watanabe, influenced by American comics, which were beginning to gain popularity in Japan, and as such began to make his characters look stronger and ""cool."" Other types of Digimon, which until the year 2000 totaled 279, came from extensive discussions and collaborations between the Bandai company members. There are currently over 1300 Digimon. Digimon"
"in popularity for the last few years. In 1997 Kyoko Date appeared as the first ""cyber idol"" or ""virtual idol"". Kyoko Date has a fabricated history and statistics and her own songs. Since 2007, a new category of idol, the ""virtual idol"", is growing popular in Japan. Thanks to the advent of Vocaloid 2 and its famous character Hatsune Miku, the ""virtual idol"" is enjoying great popularity, gaining a solid fan base. This new type of idols, in addition to the usual media, often receive adaptations in other dedicated media spanning anime, manga, novel, video games, etc. Other examples of"
"Maru (cat) Maru (まる, Japanese: ""circle"" or ""round""; born May 24, 2007) is a male Scottish Fold (straight variety) cat in Japan who has become popular on YouTube. , videos featuring Maru have been viewed over 325 million times, a Guinness World Record for YouTube video views of an individual animal. Videos featuring Maru have an average of 800,000 views each and he is mentioned often in print and televised media discussing Internet celebrities. Maru has been described as the ""most famous cat on the internet"" (although Grumpy Cat is another candidate for that description). Maru's owner posts videos under"
"name is a portmanteau combining the two Japanese words , which means ""egg"", and the end of ""watch"". Consequently, the name is sometimes romanized as ""Tamagotch"" without the ""i"" in Japan. Most Tamagotchi characters' names end in in Japanese, with few exceptions. Tamagotchi was invented by Aki Maita for which she won the 1997 Ig Nobel Prize for economics. Tamagotchi is a keychain-sized virtual pet simulation game. The characters are colorful and simplistically designed creatures based on animals, objects, or people. Beginning with the 2004 Tamagotchi Plus/Connection, a second wave of Tamagotchi toys emerged, featuring a different graphic design by"
"Pet in TV Pet in TV, known in Japan as , is a pet-raising simulation developed and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. The game was released in Japan in May 1997, and later in Europe in August 1998. ""Pet in TV"" consists of teaching a virtual pet known as a PiT (Pet in TV) tricks, getting it new costumes and learning it what items are edible in the wild along with solving random puzzles around the PiT world. ""Pet in TV"" on release gained very bad reviews for its lack of gameplay, storyline and lasting appeal. It was re-released on"
"Press coverage of the partnership referred to GoPets as ""a global dog park for the 21st century"" for how players could meet through their pets across global distances. The GoPet ambassador to MSN Messenger was called Lily Panda. In the Spring of 2007, Konami Digital Entertainment (Konami Corporation) released GoPets Vacation Island for the Nintendo DS. Developed by 1st Playable Productions, the game would allow the player to make and visit friends, as well as play minigames, design foods and items and dress their pets up in clothing. The DS game, like the web version, had IKU chat and minigames."
"A side-scrolling beat 'em up game, was also released in 2005 for the Nintendo DS. Nagisa, Honoka and Hikari have also appeared in other Nintendo DS games based on subsequent ""Pretty Cure"" series. A virtual pet game and a clone of Tamagotchi called ""Heart Commune"",featuring Mipple and Mepple as virtual pets. It was released in 2007. Continuing the Commune,several interactive in-game figures are clone of Pixel Chix are called ""Pixie Pals"",there are four characters: ""Hanazuki-chan"",""Riko Aizawa"",""Hanazuki"",""Kiazuki"" and ""Rainbow Hemka"". Each of them has a personality: These will release in 2018. Continuing the Pixie Pals,a tool was added to the virtual"
"cyberspace for girls as it is a promoter of traditional values.” Kritt argued that this message is amplified when a child’s parent, particularly her mother, focuses on helping the daughter keep the virtual pet alive. Giga Pet Giga Pets are digital pets (also known as virtual pets or artificial pets) that were first released in the United States by Tiger Electronics in 1997 in the midst of a virtual-pet toy fad. Available in a variety of different characters, essentially each is a palm-sized video screen attached to a key ring. To ensure a happy, healthy pet, its owner has to"
"Asian financial crisis of autumn 1997, a time when many people in Japan were facing layoffs and, consequently, were sympathetic toward a ""worn-out"" panda character. By 1999, sales of Tarepanda goods had reached 30 billion yen. Character Databank, a Japanese character popularity monitoring firm, has claimed Tarepanda was a huge hit in Japan. It was rated one of the most popular characters in Japan for its cuteness. Tarepanda Tarepanda (たれぱんだ) is a cute panda character owned by the company San-X . The term ""tare"" means ""lazy"" or ""droopy"" in Japanese. Tarepanda is licensed by San-X, the company that introduced Tarepanda"
"17, Giant Robo, Godzilla, Gamera, various Kaiju, Marvel, DC Comics, Transformers, Gundam, Zoids, Votoms, Astro Boy, Gegege no Kitaro, Hello Kitty, Fist of the North Star, Cyborg 009, Cutie Honey, Devilman, Star Wars, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Pokémon, Digimon, Doraemon, High School! Kimengumi, , Dr. Slump or even Kinnikuman keshis (known as Kinkeshi). The first keshi exported outside Japan appeared in the late 1970s in Bonux packages, a Procter & Gamble washing powder released in France (and recently introduced in former USSR states such as Ukraine). The Bonux brand was launched with the ""cadeau Bonux"" (the Bonux present) concept, a"
"Japanese modern culture as a whole. There is an overwhelming amount of modern items featuring kawaii themes, not only in Japan, but worldwide. And characters associated with kawaii have an astounding popularity these days. We can see the ""global cute"" by the billion-dollar sellers like Pokémon and Hello Kitty. ""Fueled by Internet subcultures, Hello Kitty alone has hundreds of entries on eBay, and is selling in more than 30 countries, including Argentina, Bahrain, and Taiwan."" Japan has become a powerhouse in the kawaii industry and images of Doraemon, Hello Kitty, Pikachu, Sailor Moon and Hamtaro are popular in mobile phone"
"Tamagotchi Connection The Tamagotchi Connection (UK: Tamagotchi Connexion) is a virtual pet in the Tamagotchi line of digital toys from Bandai. The Tamagotchi Connection is unique from prior models in that it uses infrared technology to connect and interact with other devices and was first released in 2004, 8 years after the first Tamagotchi toy. Using the device's infrared port, the virtual pet (referred to as a Tamagotchi) can make friends with other Tamagotchis, in addition to playing games, giving and receiving presents and having a baby. Versions 1 to 4 of Tamagotchi Connection have 6 levels of friendship that"
"a Flower, or a Spike). Whenever the PiT becomes injured, or tired, returning it to its home will allow Dr. Y to fix it. The objective then becomes for the player's PiT to solve puzzles on its own - for which it will be rewarded with AI upgrade chips. ""PlayStation Power"" gave the game a rating of 59%, and said it was ""dull for adults"" and ""a bit bland"". Pet in TV Pet in TV, known in Japan as , is a pet-raising simulation developed and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. The game was released in Japan in May 1997,"
"September 2009. A further DVD ""Maru Desu"" followed in February the year after. A second book, ""もっと、まるです"" (More Maru) was released on August 31, 2011 (Japanese only). Maru (cat) Maru (まる, Japanese: ""circle"" or ""round""; born May 24, 2007) is a male Scottish Fold (straight variety) cat in Japan who has become popular on YouTube. , videos featuring Maru have been viewed over 325 million times, a Guinness World Record for YouTube video views of an individual animal. Videos featuring Maru have an average of 800,000 views each and he is mentioned often in print and televised media discussing Internet"
"the first third-party licensees on the Family Computer. The company's greatest success in electronic games, however, was the Tamagotchi virtual pet first released in 1996. Despite plans for Bandai to merge with Sega to form Sega Bandai Ltd. in 1997, the merger was called off suddenly. Bandai's board of directors decided to oppose the merger less than a week after approving it, and Sega in turn decided to accept Bandai's actions at an emergency board meeting later that day. Bandai president Makoto Yamashina took responsibility for failing to gain the support of his company for the merger. As a result,"
"Best Feature Film. Maru (まる, Japanese: ""circle"" or ""round""; born May 24, 2007) is a male Scottish Fold (straight variety) cat in Japan who has become popular on YouTube. , videos with Maru have been viewed over 200 million times. Videos featuring Maru have an average of 800,000 views each and he is mentioned often in print and televised media discussing Internet celebrities. Maru is the ""most famous cat on the internet."" Maru's owner posts videos under the account name 'mugumogu'. His owner is almost never seen in the videos, although the video titled is an exception. The videos include"
"for the Tamagotchi Museum. An original animated music video (""What's a Tamagotchi?"") and a how-to-draw Tamagotchi featurette, starring director Kuenster follow the movie. During the 1990s, children frequently took Tamagotchi digital pets to school because in the first two releases (Generation 1 and Generation 2), a character could die in less than half a day if it did not receive adequate care. Concerns over class disruption as well as general distraction from schoolwork eventually prompted many schools to ban the product. Tamagotchi The is a handheld digital pet, created in Japan by of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It"
"Poo-Chi Poo-Chi (or Poochi, Poochie), one of the first generations of robopet toys, is a robot dog designed by Samuel James Lloyd and Matt Lucas, manufactured by Sega Toys, and distributed by Tiger Toys. Poo-Chi was released in 2000 and discontinued in 2002. Sega Toys' Poo-Chi hit markets on 1 April 2000, with Hasbro's Tiger Electronics distributing the toy in all countries other than Japan and Korea. Retailing at a price of 3,980 yen (then the equivalent of $38 USD) in Japan and $24.99 in the United States, the toy offered significantly cheaper competition to the AIBO's prices of up"
"FurReal Friends FurReal Friends (later FurReal in 2017) is a toy brand division of Hasbro, Tiger Electronics and Dreamright Toys created in 2002 of robotic pets. It is unknown when it was made by Sega Toys in Japan. The robotic toys range from guinea pigs to dinosaurs. They come in many sizes — some are able to be held in a child's hand and others are able to be ridden by a child. The prices range from $6 to $300. All of the toys move in some way. The slogan was ""They love you for real, FurReal Friends."" As of"
"Hey You, Pikachu! Hey You, Pikachu!, released in Japan as , is a virtual pet video game in the ""Pokémon"" series for the Nintendo 64, developed by Ambrella and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on December 12, 1998, and in North America on November 6, 2000. The player's goal is to help Professor Oak by using a voice device to communicate with a Pikachu (which had a 256 word database.) It is one of only two games that utilize the N64's Voice Recognition Unit (VRU), a piece of hardware that can comprehend and analyze the human voice."
"Sharon Kinsella, a lecturer at Oxford University on Japanese sociology, called the selection of Hello Kitty ""a bit farcical""; ""as if a dumbed-down cultural icon ... can somehow do something significant to alter the gnarly and difficult state of China-Japan relations."" UNICEF has also awarded Hello Kitty the exclusive title of ""UNICEF Special Friend of Children"". Hello Kitty's popularity in Japan peaked in the late 1990s, when she was the country's top-grossing character. In 2002, Hello Kitty lost her place as the top-grossing character in Japan in the Character Databank popularity chart. In a 2010 survey, she was in third"
"In 2002, ""SpongeBob SquarePants"" dolls sold at a rate of 75,000 per week, which was faster than Tickle Me Elmo dolls were selling at the time. SpongeBob has gained popularity in Japan, specifically with Japanese women. Nickelodeon's parent company Viacom purposefully targeted marketing at women in the country. Skeptics initially doubted that SpongeBob could be popular in Japan, as the character's design is very different from already popular designs for Hello Kitty and Pikachu. Ratings and merchandise sales showed ""SpongeBob SquarePants"" has caught on with parents and with college audiences. In a recent promotion, college-oriented website Music.com gave away 80,000"
"smaller die-cast replicas. Their quality and realism made them popular for Asian children and collectors alike, however, this commercial success failed to be replicated in the United States. The word ""pet"" is the Japanese equivalent of ""small"" or ""cute."" Diapet toys continued being produced through the 1990s. Other popular die-cast brands to come out of Japan include Asahi Model Pet, Miniature Pet, Micropet, Cherryca Phenix, Tomica and Collectoy. Of them, Tomica (from Tomy of Japan) is the best-known to US collectors. Sega Toys Sega Toys have created toys for children's franchises such as """", """", ""Lilpri"", ""Bakugan"", ""Jewelpet"", ""Rilu Rilu"
"original voice acting and art, an F for the English dub voice acting, animation and story and a C- for the music. Cyber Team in Akihabara The protagonist of this anime is twelve-year-old junior high school student Hibari Hanakoganei living in Akihabara, a suburb of Tokyo in the year 2010. The current craze among young girls in Akihabara and probably all of Japan are electronic pets called ""Pata-Pi."" Simply buy one, upgrade it with pre-set or custom parts, and show it off to friends and relatives! Hibari, however, seems to be the only girl in town who doesn't have one"