OUR STORY & FOUNDING PRINCIPLES

Every Year, a Harder Brief. Every One, Delivered on Time.

Takara started in Ho Chi Minh City as a small e-commerce team. Today we are a trusted creative-manufacturing partner for global licensed merchandise, corporate gifts, and art toys, sourcing, prototyping, and delivering through an audited partner-factory network across Vietnam.

History

We didn't start with a factory. We started with our principles.

  1. 2013

    Where it started

    In Ho Chi Minh City, a small e-commerce team was learning to do one thing well, put the right product in front of the right person. We launched two sites, Takara.vn for distribution and Mirako.vn for goods under our own brand, and slowly built the anime and merchandise business up to around 500 organic orders a day.

  2. 2016

    Pokémon found us

    That reach is how Pokémon found us. We launched our Pokémon merchandise the very same day Pokémon Go went live, an official licensee riding the wave from day one.

    We built the Mirako brand and brought the program into more than 230 retail doors across Vietnam, from Ministop and Aeon Mall to Kimdong and Phuong Nam Books. It was our first lesson at scale, a license is a promise, and a promise has to reach the shelf intact.

    PokémonMinistopAeon MallKimdongPhuong Nam Books
  3. 2018

    A very specific blue

    That same year, we started working as an OEM manufacturer for Doraemon and Shin-chan, two of Japan's most beloved characters, through Tagger, the long-time master licensee that holds these characters in Vietnam.

    The challenge was immediate. Doraemon's face holds an exact ratio, the eyes, the whiskers, the space between them. And the blue is never just blue, it's one precise Pantone shade. A fraction off, and the character is no longer himself.

    Japanese licensors don't compromise on those details. They taught us that authenticity isn't a feeling, it's a specification, and that discipline still runs through how we work today.

    TaggerDoraemon
  4. 2018–20

    Two years, one yes

    In 2018, we started pursuing something bigger: a competitive bid in Shanghai to become ThreeSixty Group's authorized Vietnam sourcing partner, the group behind FAO Schwarz, Sharper Image, and Vornado.

    Across two years, ThreeSixty came to see how we worked, again and again, then brought us through Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong to train alongside factories already certified to export to the United States. We learned the standard on the floor where it was already being held.

    That partnership opened the door with ThreeSixty Group, first as a sourcing partner, then as a manufacturer: 85 SKUs across eight categories, from plush toys to travel luggage, for a retail network that includes Walmart and Target.

    ThreeSixty GroupFAO SchwarzSharper Image
  5. 2020–22

    The first container

    We had the partnership with ThreeSixty. Now we needed to prove we could execute at scale.

    In 2020, we received the order that would define our export capabilities: 120,000 plush dolls, safety-tested and bound for the United States. Closing the deal took time, navigating compliance, production timelines, and the logistics of shipping to some of the world's largest retailers.

    It took until 2022 to deliver. That first container was our proof of concept: Walmart, Target, and retailers across the US received their products, on spec, on time, on budget.

    It was our first major export, and the moment we stopped being a local partner and became a global one.

    ThreeSixty GroupWalmartTarget
  6. Today

    Two brands, one bridge

    Today, Takara works alongside Sotafi, our B2B platform connecting suppliers with buyers across Vietnam and beyond. Takara stays focused on sourcing, licensing, and manufacturing. Sotafi opens the door to a wider network.

    Together they carry forward what has always been true, we are the bridge between global ambition and local expertise.

    We don't own factories. We own the relationships, the standards, and the process, the process that gets your product to you on time, on spec, on budget. The same discipline that once measured a shade of blue now measures every promise we make.

    TakaraSotafi

Track record

Proven, not promised.

Both paths, proven across three milestones.

Trust built over 13 years: licensed merchandise made through Takara's vetted partner-factory network in Vietnam

13

years and counting

Where we proved it

120K

120,000 plush dolls, safety-tested and shipped to the US, on schedule.

ThreeSixty Group

Where we scaled it

85

85 SKUs across plush, toys, and lighting, for a retail network that includes Walmart and Target.

ThreeSixty Group

How fast we move

7 days

Seven prototypes in seven days. Then 23,400 units in 25 days, delivered a month early.

Rohto

In brief

Design. Manufacture. Deliver. 13 years of bringing stories to shelves - for IP owners, retailers, and studios worldwide.

Who we are

Takara began as a small e-commerce team in Ho Chi Minh City in 2013. Thirteen years later, we are the creative-manufacturing partner behind merchandise people love: designed in-house, produced through our vetted partner-factory network, delivered on schedule, sometimes a month early.

Who we serve

We serve the people who own stories and the people who put them on shelves. IP owners like Pokémon and Doraemon. US retail programs like ThreeSixty Group, sourcing 85 SKUs for a retail network that includes Walmart and Target. Movie studios like Galaxy Studio. Corporate teams like Keppel Land.

You bring the story. We make the merchandise.

See all case studies

The Team

The people behind the network.

Amy Nguyen

Amy Nguyen

CEO

Alice Duong

Alice Duong

Business Development Director

Dat Tran

Dat Tran

Partnership Manager

Tuan Anh Nguyen

Tuan Anh Nguyen

Head of Engineering

Team values

What we hold people to.

Craftsmanship

A finish flaw invisible to a buyer is still a defect to us. Every partner factory's QC lead signs off on their own run by name.

Licensing integrity

Approved art files, approved colorways, no gray-market overruns. A licensor's trust is the least replaceable asset we have.

Partnership

Bad news on a production schedule reaches a client the day we know it, not the week the shipment is due.

Continuous improvement

Every closed PO gets a defect-rate review. Recurring issues change the process, and the next run's inspection checklist is updated to match.

See how an order moves through our network.

From first sketch to the container leaving port, walk through the full production process.

See how it works