Interview with Ayumi Hasegawa - Febri vol. 43

Ms. Ayumi Hasegawa acts as the Pretty Cure team leader of the Bandai girls toys division. This interview, published August 10, 2017 in Febri's 43rd volume, gives a rare insight into the creation of Pretty Cure and its merchandise. Febri is a bi-monthly released anime magazine published by Ichijinsha.

Interview
When it comes to the world of Pretty Cure, the task of creating merchandise, including toys, is extremely large. We met the Bandai employee responsible for coming up with the concepts for those toys, and asked about the interesting parts and the hard parts of toy creation.

Hasegawa: Pretty Cure teams can be up to eight people, and for this season specifically, I'm responsible for various products, such as the transformation compacts they use in the show and plushies of Pekorin, at the concept stage. First, the person in charge of the concept starts with the wild delusion of "Man, it would be great if there were a toy of that" (laughs), and then if the section chief approves the concept, it goes to the design people... or something like that. When I go to talk to the design people, at first they usually tell me, "We can't do that" (laughs). And then I'm like "Please don't say things like that" or "So, when will the design be done?"

For example, with the compacts, they're something that a child has to be able to hold in their hand, so I wanted to make them as small as possible. But the design people told me, "We can't make it that small." So I went, well, if you shave off two millimeters here, you can make the button smaller... that kind of thing. Children's hands are smaller than you think, so while an adult might hold it and think "Well, it's good enough," a three-year-old would have a hard time holding it and their hand would shake and whatnot. So it's reasonable there would be conflict over that.

For a physical object, going from deciding on the concept to the actual product coming into the world can take more than half a year. For example, with the products that were timed to come out with the debut of the new series (February), like the transformation items and outfits and the plushies of the characters, and the small dolls that children can play pretend with, we had to get moving on those last year.

Something like that. They say things like "This is what's popular with young girls lately," or "This year we want to have them transform with compacts," or "We want to promote this kind of toy," and those are taken as suggestions for products. From there we talk to Toei Animation, and note down information about the actual story and world, and that's the process.

Yes. There's not a set number of times per year that we do it, but our team does do a sort of survey of fads. In addition, when we're deciding on a design for the item, we usually show several patterns to children and give a questionnaire on them.

What we do is suggest toys and products; the character creation is all Toei Animation. Though we might, for example, share information like "This color is popular with kids." Just talking about this season, I think that the producer Kaminoki (Yuu) was the one who said "I want to start with a lot of characters so that it's colorful from the beginning."

It was initially decided following a meeting with Ms. Kaminoki. It didn't really feel like a formal conference--it wasn't quite what they call girl talk, but... (laughs). We said things like "Sweets are cute, don't you think?" and "I want to illustrate their personalities with animals." Of course, she was the one who said "Wouldn't a strawberry rabbit be adorable? I think kids would really like that"--she got excited about it (laughs).

First of all, choosing a motif that children like. After that, in the case of Pretty Cure, is how to make transformations that incorporate the motif, but also to what extent kids will be able to imitate those transformations. Moreover, even though compacts are very popular with kids, it wouldn't be a good thing to use compacts in every season. Those are the kinds of things we worry about.

Sentai and Kamen Rider shows use the robots and the belts every season. Somehow, little boys don't seem to get bored even if the item is always the same (laughs). But little girls are more changeable, so we have to change the item every year. Last year was stuffed animals, this year is compacts, next year will be something else again... and so on. Maybe it's that their mothers say "Didn't I buy that last year?" (laughs) Maybe girls' toys, more than boys' toys, understand girls' point of view and that they worry about their mothers' approval, I think. They're so sensitive to other's feelings, and that influences them, I feel.

The "Linkle Smartbook" from Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure that came out last year. The Linkle Smartbook had an LCD, so it was expensive. The LCD wasn't unique to the Linkle Smartbook--we do a toy like that every year--but it sold more than previous years. Of course, you could play at taking care of Ha-chan with it, and I think it went well when it became a transformation item in the latter half of the series.

As far as the story is concerned, it was decided that Ha-chan would become a Pretty Cure in the second half. So then she ended up not needing to be taken care of anymore (laughs). In that case, we thought, if the Smartbook becomes her transformation item, people can enjoy it in the second half too.

Not at this time. The children that enjoy watching Pretty Cure and then go and buy the toys range in age from three years old to about first grade. So if we were to release, for example, a toy that would let you easily make pancakes from a mix, they wouldn't easily be able to play with it on their own. And in the case of products incorporating electric ranges, the recommended age range for that is eight and up.

That said, though there aren't any toys like that, the candy department, which is responsible for toys containing candy, has put out a kit for making whipped cream easily just by mixing. It's not just the toy team working on Pretty Cure; the whole company is involved in the project. Though the girls' toy department doesn't particularly say these things, when it's asked "what products should we make next year?" various information like "We should make better use of the candy department" is shared and in this way the company tackles the project together.

I feel like the number of children imitating the transformation sequences is almost unprecedentedly large. I guess combining squirrels with custard and cats with macarons and whatnot was really catchy? And maybe the "Let's mix it up!" catchphrase was also good. I have a four-year-old daughter, and every evening she says something like "Here, this is where Custard comes, like this!" and she makes me watch the five-person transformation scene.

Of course, Princess and Mahou Tsukai were also cute, but I think Pretty Cure a la Mode feels more familiar. And this year's transformation items, the compacts, are also incredibly popular. Compacts by themselves are items that have a strong draw, but this year we put [the wand and indentation used in the show for] "Let's mix it up!" into them--you might think it's makeup, but you'd be wrong (laughs). I don't really understand the specifications, but it has such strong interest as a toy that it's become Bandai's top seller of the year. I'm happy that we've been able to give children something they enjoy.