BODY: Sony's most quietly enduring mascots are getting a stretchy new tribute. On May 3, 2026, Biside announced two poseable plush toys based on Toro and Kuro from Doko Demo Issho (Together Anywhere), with preorders now open ahead of a July 22 release. Each plush retails for ¥2,970 including tax.
The headline feature is articulation. Unlike the standard sitting-pose Toro merchandise that has filled Japanese hobby shops for decades, these plushies have movable arms and legs, letting fans pose the white cat-thing Toro and his black counterpart Kuro into whatever attitude suits the shelf — waving, flopping, or staging tiny standoffs between the two.
The release commemorates 27 years since the original PocketStation-linked title launched on the PS1 in 1999, a game that asked players to teach Japanese vocabulary to a small white creature with existential anxieties about being a cat. The franchise has lived on through PSP, PS Vita, and mobile spin-offs, but its merchandising arm — largely shepherded by Biside, the studio founded by series creator Yoshimi Yasuda — has arguably outlasted the games themselves.
Preorders are being taken through Biside's official channels and major Japanese hobby retailers, with the two characters sold separately rather than as a set.
The insider take
Toro occupies a strange niche in Tokyo: he is one of the most recognizable PlayStation-era mascots domestically, yet almost completely absent from Sony's overseas branding. Walk into a Sofmap or a Surugaya in Akihabara and you will still find a Toro shelf; visit Sony's Ginza flagship and he is treated as a quiet house pet rather than a flagship IP. A 27th-anniversary plush — not 25th, not 30th — is very on-brand for a character whose whole appeal is gentle, unhurried persistence. Expect these to move quickly among collectors, and slowly through everyone else.
Originally reported by 4Gamer.net − 最新記事 (Japanese).