Bandai opened preorders Thursday for the Tamagotchi ring, a 28-millimeter egg-shaped device you wear on a finger and use to raise a virtual pet, the company said. Each unit costs 7,700 yen including tax (about $48), with shipping set for February 2027 through its Premium Bandai store.
The announcement came from Bandai Co., Ltd., headed by President Kazuhiro Takenaka and based in Taito Ward, Tokyo. Staff framed the launch as the 30th anniversary product for a line that began on November 23, 1996. Preorders started at 10 a.m. Japan time on August 27 and run through October 6, according to Bandai press release and ITmedia NEWS. The official listing is on Premium Bandai.
Bandai calls it the smallest Tamagotchi with a color screen — part of a wave of Japanese wearables shrinking everyday tech. The body measures about 28 mm tall and 23 mm wide, the dimensions ITmedia NEWS reported from the Bandai store page. The display is 0.56 inches, the tiniest color LCD in the series. The original 1996 unit measured about 50 mm long; this one is 56 percent of that length, per TheGamer’s coverage — a miniaturization Japan has chased before in different domains.
It is the 39th mainline model. Care still means feeding, flushing waste, and giving attention. Minigames and room makeovers sit on top of those basics. How you treat the pet decides which of 30 characters it becomes. Care can also unlock secret forms. Bandai grouped the roster by era: first-generation names such as Mametchi and Kuchipatchi from 1996, communication-era characters such as Memetchi and Flowertchi from the 2004 Plus line, and color-era faces such as Lovelytchi and Meloditchi from 2008 onward.
The shell keeps the old silhouette: egg body, screen in the center, three buttons. On this model the side buttons handle most of the tapping. Engineers spent two years shrinking the internals. A new charging layout, first for the series, cuts empty space. A shorter USB protection circuit helped too. Part count landed at 64 pieces, 52 electronic and 12 plastic. Tamagotchi Paradise, the current full-size unit, uses 116.
That squeeze has a history. Color screens arrived in November 2008 with Tamagotchi Plus Color. Button cells could not keep up with the extra draw, so Bandai switched to alkaline batteries. Devices ballooned to 68 mm long and 29 mm deep, 137 percent of the 1996 size, per Bandai’s release. The ring is the company’s attempt to put color back into a body closer to the first toy.
Charging is new as well. Each color ships with its own case, so the ring drops into the dock instead of being plugged in — a fashion-tech framing the brand is leaning into. The dock can sit out on a desk as a small display — a charging routine that retail-tech deliveries have been working toward too. Three finishes are on sale: Pink and Pearl White with an aurora-pearl frame, Light Blue and Metallic Gold with plating, and Black and Metallic Silver with plating, ITmedia NEWS. Japanese ring sizes 10 and 14 are supported. A spacer in the box handles the fit.
Wearable Tamagotchis are not brand new. In 2021 Bandai released Tamagotchi Smart, a wristwatch built during pandemic indoor routines — a category that, per The Verge’s 2021 reporting, marked the franchise’s wearable turn. That unit added Tama Delivery, a gag where food and snacks arrive on command. The ring is the next step in the same idea: keep the pet on the body so care is never a bag hunt — a pet-tech convenience Bandai has been chasing for years. Bandai’s copy still leans on the 1990s pitch that a digital pet should travel with you.
The public first look happened at the Tokyo Toy Show. The show opened Thursday at Tokyo Big Sight in Koto Ward and runs through Sunday. Bandai and BANDAI SPIRITS are showing the ring at their booth on Aug. 29 and 30. Talent Yuchami wore a unit on her index finger at the opening ceremony. “It’s stylish, and cute. Above all, it’s super tiny,” she said, according to coverage originally reported in Japanese by Oricon. The toy market is still chasing kidult buyers and tourists as well as children; the ring is Bandai’s anniversary bet on that trend.
International shoppers will need to watch Premium Bandai’s regional sites. The Japanese page is live now. Whether a U.S. or European drop follows later has not been stated in the press materials. For now the buy window is Japan first, six weeks of orders, then a winter wait until February boxes go out.
The company closed its release with a long horizon. Bandai said it wants Tamagotchi to stay an IP people still care about in 50 or 100 years. The hardware claim is smaller and easier to check: 28 mm tall, 23 mm wide, 64 parts, 30 characters, and a charging case that lets the thing sit on a desk between sessions. Official pages and social accounts are listed from the Tamagotchi site and the Bandai press release if buyers want the source files rather than the recap.
