Narumiya has seen sales grow an average 30 percent a year in the past three years, and its character toys are on offer with the purchase of set menus at McDonald's Holdings Co Ltd (Japan) hamburger shops.
The prospects look good even though Japan's birthrate is already the lowest among the world's advanced economies, having hit an all-time low last year.
The population of children aged 14 and younger is expected to shrink to 17 million in 2010 from 27 million in the early 1980s.
Fewer kids will mean even more spare cash for spending, and while boys are also the recipients of largesse, it will be mostly young girls' fashions and sundries, as well as education, that will likely show the biggest growth.
But, ironically, the boom might in the end be self-defeating.
The high cost of raising children has further depressed Japan's birthrate, and many couples are saying that paying for No. 1 means they can't afford to have No. 2.



