The building blocks pie must be super enticing. How else do you explain the horde of Chinese and Korean competitions to LEGO and Mattel’s recent foray into the market? Mattel isn’t the only one in recent years eyeing a slice of that pie. Takara Tomy’s Tomica and Plarail are on it, too.
Meet the Takara Tomy Tomica Plarail Block. Where most competitors copied the LEGO-style bricks to create complex models, Takara Tomy—like Mattel’s Brick Shop—has its own twist. The Tomica Plarail Block sets are not brick-built sets; the completed models actually look like toy vehicles—not abstract forms like Technic or some brick-built sets.
Notwithstanding this, Tomica and Plarail invite your little ones to let their imagination fly. Ever dream of a garbage-collecting electric train? Or a flying police car with literal wings? Well, all those are possible—all you need to do is break the sets apart and start splicing to create your ultimate fantasy vehicles.
The Tomica Plarail Block Entry Set, which was available to order in March and costs 4,950 yen [JP] (with tax in Japan), includes a police patrol car, a garbage truck, the power car of the Red Stream high-speed train from the fictional Plarail world, a fire truck, an excavator, and the cab car of the same Red Stream train. That was in March.
Takara Tomy was quick to introduce even more sets. There’s an ANA Airport Set (3,850 yen) [JP], a Construction Site Set (3,300 yen) [JP], a Freight Train Set (3,300 yen) [JP], plus block recreations of Tomica’s iconic vehicles including the Route Bus (990 yen) [JP], Fire Helicopter (990 yen) [JP], Sakai Moving Truck (hey! I still have this Tomica!) (1,100 yen) [JP], and the Plarail White Stream (1,540 yen) [JP].
If you’re down, you can check out the full details HERE (though you’ll need to read Japanese). Meanwhile, here are a couple of videos to entice you (or your younglings).
Images: Takara Tomy [JP].
