In 1991 Hasbro aquired the Tonka Corporation, which included the Kenner Products and Parker Brothers® divisions. In 1992, they made several advances internationally, including entering the Asian Marketplace with the purchase of Nomura Toy Co., Ltd. of Japan. It seems that Nomura Toy was the manufacturer of the Littlest Pet Shop in Japan, as instead of the Kenner logo their packaging bears the T.N. logo. This makes sense, though, because by this point they were actually owned by Hasbro as well.

The most distinguishing feature of these Littlest Pet Shop figures is the eyes, as those in the sets from the first year have eyes that are simple black dots. In the US and other foreign releases this style is only seen on animals such as the turtles, hamsters, and toucans, with most of the other animals having more elaborate Barbie/MLP-style painted eyes. The sets from the later years of the Japanese versions,however, seem to better match the style of the US ones eye-wise. In fact, just as with the various European sets, only the packaging is different. There are also two different logos that I know of... the earlier one is found at the top of this page, while the 2nd one appears on some of the Sparkling Pets sets.

At the moment this list only contains the sets that I have been able to find on the internet. If there is not a picture, it means that I don't have a good individual picture. There are many more I'm 99% sure exist (based on backcards) but I'm waiting until I actually see them in a lot to add them. By the way, all the pictures that actually ARE on this page are from various auctions sites on the internet, with the exception of the two puppies inserted into this summary which are part of Leah's collection. I do not actually own any of these sets. I have also noticed that some seem to have a sticker with the UK Littlest Pet Shop logo placed over the Japanese one. Many of the sets also seem to come with the Japanese version of the Family Album brochure. I'd love to have scans from this!

Right now I have just listed everything under the US names. I also don't have a Japanese keyboard. If anyone would like to send me the typed versions of the Japanese names I would love to include them! I hope that this list continues to grow. These LPS are definitely an interesting variant... even if only the sets from the first year are actually unique.