The Sky Ping-Pong toy was a major hit that came about from the revolutionary shift in materials from metal to plastic. At the same time, this product gave birth to a transformation at Sanyo Industry.
Eiichiro entrusted the challenge of working with new materials and setting up his cherished sales company to a team made up of members from the younger generation, including Masanari Tomiyama, Hiroshi Iwafune, Kozaburo Kojima, and Norio Fujii, placing his utmost trust in them to guide the company’s future.
iichiro listened to the younger generation, and took on board a lot of their opinions. He matched this with the generosity to encourage them to try out their ideas, believing that whatever the result, it would all serve to form fertile ground for their growth. Eiichiro was probably just as proud of the success of Sky Ping-Pong toy as he had been of the tin toys he had created himself, possibly even more so, and he was probably deeply moved by it.

While Eiichiro regarded fondly the efforts of the young people striving to modernize the company, his gaze was on the toy industry, which appeared to be floundering and had failed to make any move at all on the mountain of issues that it faced.

In May 1956, Eiichiro was appointed as chairman of the Tokyo Export Toy Manufacturers’ Cooperative Association.
Ten years had passed since the end of the war. The economic growth from post-war recovery had run its course, and Japan was poised to launch into growth through modernization. The same situation applied in the toy industry. The manufacturers’ cooperative had 227 members at the time, but the majority of these were just small factories with staffs of 100 or less. The cooperative was nothing more than a cluster of town-based small factories standing on an unstable management foundation.
Toy exports had been rising steadily, leading the miscellaneous product sector in 1955 at 15.3 billion yen, rising to 19.9 billion yen in 1956 and breaking through 20.0 billion yen in 1957. However, the toy manufacturers underpinning this success were working hard just to make it through each day.
Looking at the wretched state of the toy industry, Eiichiro’s first initiative as chairman was a joint materials procurement project. To acquire a plentiful supply of tin needed for toy manufacturing, Eiichiro visited Yawata Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. (as it was called at the time)alone, albeit recklessly, and conducted direct transaction negotiations.
Perhaps it was Eiichiro’s passion that was the catalyst, or perhaps the combined orders where enough to sway the company. As it happened, even though everyone had disparaged the idea as being a fantasy, the toy manufacturers’ cooperative that was a confederation of “town-based small factories,” achieved a direct supply deal with Yawata Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. Moreover, Eiichiro started working in rapid succession on a range of projects such as a project for providing loans to cooperative members, machinery lease applications to Tokyo City, training sessions on labor management and press technologies, and sports meets and baseball games to build friendship with personnel. He was unstinting in his effort to help modernize the industry.
Around this time, one of Eiichiro’s main goals was to bring together the combined power of the manufacturing and wholesaling association and the manufacturers’ cooperative to build a hall of toys to symbolize the achievement of unity between the people involved in the toy industry. The two parties were unable to agree on a location for the concept, which ultimately became unfeasible before it could be completed. Eiichiro was determined that some kind of hall should be built, and the manufacturers’ cooperative completed its own Metal Toys Industry Hall. His idea was rooted in the concept of mutual aid; if ever there was a time when toy manufacturers found themselves at a dead-end with their slender management resources, having the manufacturers’ cooperative, which held no assets, collect funds to build a hall was intended to enable it to offer members financial assistance. The various initiatives that Eiichiro undertook as chairman of the manufacturers’ cooperative were all deeply influenced by the teachings of Toyohiko Kagawa that he had encountered in his youth.

On September 26, 1958, Typhoon Ida (Kanogawa Typhoon) landed on the Miura Peninsula, causing the Kanogawa River burst its banks and causing major damage in Shizuoka Prefecture, with 929 people killed or missing. Coincidentally, on the same date of the following year, September 26, 1959, Typhoon Vera (Isewan Typhoon) landed on the Kii Peninsula, causing massive damage in 32 prefectures throughout Japan, with 5,098 people killed or missing. The scale of damage wrought by the Isewan Typhoon was due to storm surges of 3.55 meters – the highest on record. These swallowed large areas of land at sea-level elevation in Aichi and Mie prefectures, where adequate disaster prevention measures had yet to be put in place after the war.

At the time, 90% of the factories for metal toys, which accounted for half of Japan’s toy exports, were concentrated in the TokyShitamachi area. As the leader of the manufacturers’ cooperative, Eiichiro considered the threat posed by the annual typhoons to be a real one. If the same kind of typhoon damage were to occur in Tokyo Shitamachi area, Japan’s toy exports industry might be ruined. It was a potential tragedy for the children all over the world who were eagerly awaiting Japanese toys. Eiichiro’s vision was to cluster toy factories and related firms together and move them away from sea-level elevation areas.
In April 1960, a directors meeting of the manufacturers’ cooperative formally approved the clustering concept. The candidate site of Nagareyama district in Chiba Prefecture was chosen and the members began full-scale preparations for relocation. In a related development, the Japanese government revised the law for providing funding assistance to small- and medium-sized enterprises the following year, and initiatives to form industry clusters were promoted as a national policy, providing greater impetus for the clustering of factories. As though it had been divinely inspired, Eiichiro’s concept grew into a major project, attracting in 40 toy companies and 37 related firms who wished to participate.
In April 1961, the informal unincorporated organization Chiba Metal Toy Industrial Park Promotion Committee was established, transitioning into a business cooperative in November of the same year with the launch of the Keiyo Metal Toy Factory Park Cooperative. It was not easy to acquire the approximately 100 ha of land to establish the parshuusek, despite a focused effort on purchase negotiations involving the Chiba Prefecture Development Public Corporation and Nagareyama Town. The negotiations with landowners were extremely difficult as the parties were unable to agree on an acquisition price.
Although the situation remained as difficult as ever, Eiichiro and his partners continued the negotiations, confident that behaving sincerely in every respect would ultimately create a way forward. They expected the following year to bring hope and great progress in realizing the establishment of the park.

Only five days into the new year, their festive mood evaporated instantly with the shock of a headline carried in all of the morning papers. As he read the paper for himself, Eiichiro felt as though the ground was crumbling away unstoppably beneath his feet. “Why…?” he murmured to himself, his own voice sounding shocked and distant in his ears.

“218 SMEs to Relocate En Masse – Export Toy Cooperative to Form an Industrial Park in Nagareyama”
“Working Toward Starting Land Development. Metal Toy Complex in Chiba”
The headlines, carried in every morning paper, sparked a senseless surge in land prices, that finally forced them to give up on purchasing the land. With this turn of events, Eiichiro and his partners found they could no longer see the way forward for their goal of clustering the toy factories.

During this time when the road seemed to be shrouded in darkness, Eiichiro remembered the face of a certain man.
“I think he said he was in the real estate business in Tochigi. He said his name was Seki – yes, that’s it Minato Seki. President of Minato Kogyo.”
Eiichiro had received a visit from Minato Seki in December 1961, at the end of the year. Knowing about delay in the Nagareyama land acquisition due to the deadlock over the price, Mr. Seki had come propose the area around Mibu Town, Shimotsuga County, Tochigi as a new candidate site.
The area around Mibu Town had been used during the war as an airfield for the Utsunomiya air force squadron. With the end of the war, the land was no longer required for this purpose, but as the soil was unsuitable for agriculture it had been left idle. Mr. Seki told Eiichiro and his partners calmly but with great enthusiasm that they would be able to purchase as much land as they wanted, whether it be 65 ha, 100 ha, or more.
At the time, they were still in the middle of negotiations for Nagareyama, however difficult, and Eiichiro remained faithful to his negotiating partners. However, now that the Nagareyama deal was no longer on the table, Eiichiro thought that Mr. Seki’s proposal might show them the first step on a new way forward.

Only two weeks after giving up on Nagareyama, Eiichiro and Hideaki Suzuki, senior managing director of the manufacturers’ cooperative, were driving around the new candidate site in a car following a map of Mibu that Mr. Seki had left for them.
The car kicked up a cloud of dust as it drove along the unpaved prefectural highway. A desolate wasteland spread out before them. Staring at the scene, the two men were left speechless in the gloomy silence.
There was certainly plenty of land, and the price would probably be less than 300 yen per square meter. Minato Kogyo was a subsidiary of Tobu Railway, and they had made a firm promise to advance the acquisition funds. However, what made Eiichiro hesitate was the remoteness of the location, some 100 km from Tokyo.
At Nagareyama it would have been possible to operate a second factory while retaining the headquarters in Tokyo. This would not be possible at Mibu, and workers would have to relocate here with their families. Would they really agree to live in this place? If the seasoned workers refused to relocate, he would be forced to train new, inexperienced people, with an inevitable decline in productivity during that period. Thinking about the situation, it was clear to him that even among those who were willing to relocate, there would be some who would change their minds and decide not to. If the number of people willing to work here declined, then profit would also decline. While thinking about the direction of the entire industry, when Eiichiro also thought about the families of the cooperative members and their lives, he felt a surge of doubt.

“What am I really trying to accomplish?”
This was the simple question that Eiichiro found himself asking as he was struggling to reach a conclusion.

Was he not trying to provide high quality Japanese toys to the children of the world? Was he not trying to create an environment where small- and medium-sized toy manufacturers with slender management resources could fully realize their real abilities?
That was right. His mission was to cluster together toymakers and related firms organically and to rationalize them through joint operations. He would attempt to create a new town centered on toy manufacturing by creating an ideal environment for workers and their families. That was the real point of clustering the factories and modernizing the toy manufacturing industry. He must not let this opportunity pass. Even if it meant separating from many of his companions, he could take the first bold step forward with the small number of companions who would come with him.
Eiichiro’s vision clearly took the shape of a vibrant industrial park for toys that would continue to produce Japanese toys that would excite the global market and stimulate the economy.
And his conclusion was that he must achieve the clustering of factories.

Having made up his mind, Eiichiro began taking steps to establish an industrial park for toys even more energetically than before.
In March 1962, the Export Toy Park Cooperative Preparation Committee was established with the first meeting of the cooperative held in April. In May, a contract was concluded to purchase approximately 56 ha of land, and the industrial park finally started to become a reality. At this time, Eiichiro was putting his heart and soul into the project and a lot of people involved in the toy industry, and many local supporters, agreed with his ideas and worked alongside him to solve the issues the toy industry faced. With the small powers of each individual gathered together around Eiichiro, they formed a mighty force that was able to create its own path where no path existed before.

In June, Eiichiro set out on an observation trip to Europe along with other members of the manufacturers’ cooperative to study the toy industry over there. One of their objectives on this trip was to investigate Nuremberg in West Germany, which had a long history as a “toy town.” The group therefore included the likes of Minato Seki, Mibu Town mayor Kenichiro Odagaki, and Sho Tajima of Tobu Railway.
Eiichiro’s party were deeply impressed with the appearance of Nuremberg, which had a tradition as a toy town stretching back more than 500 years. At this time, Eiichiro’s idea expanded greatly inside his head, growing beyond a factory park to the creation of a new town.