LA-based toyco KessCo has inked a new deal with Toei Animation to produce active outdoor toys and tabletop games based on the prolific anime studio’s One Piece (pictured) and Digimon franchises. An initial drop of products will roll out in North America through Target and Amazon later this year and throughout 2025. 

KessCo is best known for manufacturing activity toys including hula-hoops, jump ropes, bouncy balls and twirlers. But the company has been busy snapping up popular anime licenses lately as a driver for growth into new play categories. This strategy kicked off last year when it signed a deal with Sony’s anime streamer Crunchyroll to make puzzles and board games based on comedy series Spy X Family, volleyball vehicle Haikyu!! and action-thriller Jujutsu Kaisen. 

One Piece is a top-performing anime/manga brand, with graphic books that have sold more than 523.2 million copies worldwide and edged out the likes of Dragon Ball (260 million), Naruto (250 million) and Demon Slayer (160 million). Netflix is also developing a second season of its live-action One Piece series and producing a new 2D-animated reboot called The One Piece with Japan’s WIT Studio. 

Meanwhile, Toei’s 27-year-old Digimon franchise is experiencing a renaissance in the North American market following the rollout of Bandai’s licensed Digimon Card Game in 2021 and Hulu’s launch of 2D-animated reboot Digimon Adventure (67 x 22 minutes) last year.