Nonetheless, by its third generation, president Mikitaro Tomiyama decided to streamline the company to be more competitive with wholesaler Bandai.

Despite internal and external opposition, Tomiyama was determined to aggressively pursue TV licenses such as Akakage, Giant Robo and Osomatsu-kun.

In response, he created the moderately successful Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh (then Genki Bakuhatsu Ganbaruger) (but the product development team followed these with Nekketsu Saikyō Go-Saurer) (which was a catastrophic failure).

Tomy acquired the rights to commercialize a wide range of merchandise, mainly toys, and released the "Monster Collection" of figures next year.

However, the companies' management teams had previously discussed merging (including at times when Takara appeared stronger).

The studio then became a full subsidiary of Takara Tomy following the March 2006 merger[citation needed] until Nippon Television bought out the majority of Tatsunoko's stake in 2014.

[5] In early 2011, Takara-Tomy acquired RC2 Corporation and the RC2 sub-brand Learning Curve, which included The First Years, Lamaze, and Compass.

[citation needed] Takara-Tomy has manufactured a broad range of products based on its own properties which include, from the Tomy side: Tomica, Plarail, Zoids, Idaten Jump, Nohohon Zoku and Tomy branded baby care products, and, from the Takara side: Space Pets, Choro-Q (also known as Penny Racers), Transformers, B-Daman, Koeda-chan (also known as Treena) and Microman.

The merged Takara-Tomy also produces and/or sells a wide variety of toy and game brands under license, such as Thomas & Friends, Disney, Astro Boy, Pokémon, Beyblade, Duel Masters, Naruto, The Game of Life (also known as Life Game), Rock Man (also known as Mega Man), Wedding Peach, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, My Hero Academia, Sakura Kinomoto, Sakura Kinomoto: Clear Card, Slayers, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Kirarin Revolution, Sugarbunnies and Animal Crossing.