Toyota's best-selling compact car in the A-segment, introduced in 1999. For a long time, excellent A-segment cars were produced by European companies such as Volkswagen, Peugeot, Renault, Fiat and Ford of Europe, with Japanese cars lagging behind. Against this backdrop, Toyota started development of the Vitz (Yaris), a global strategic car, with the aim of creating a compact car that would be accepted in Europe, the home of compact cars, in order to develop the European market, where its market share was stagnant. At the same time, this meant a major change in Toyota's approach to car manufacturing, which had focused on comfort and suited the US and Japanese markets, and a shift to European-style car manufacturing with a greater emphasis on handling and other driving characteristics. Many of Toyota's previous compact cars had been developed for use in Japan, where stop-and-go traffic is frequent and the speed range is low, and they tended not to match the European market, where high-speed cornering and long-distance travel are required. Toyota therefore made a major change in its approach to small car development, adopting the exterior design ideas of Toyota's European design studio in Belgium and carrying out thorough development tests on European roads, which are subject to high loads, with the aim of developing a car that would surpass European small cars. These efforts bore fruit and the first generation Vitz (Yaris) won the 1999-2000 Japanese Car of the Year award and the 2000 European Car of the Year award, and was highly acclaimed in Europe, a fierce battleground for small cars, becoming Toyota's new best-selling car. The Vitz (Yaris) was also a driving force behind the small car boom in Japan, spawning numerous followers such as the Honda Fit (Jas) and greatly raising the level of small car manufacturing among Japanese manufacturers.

General name for a group of works by popular illustrator and cartoonist Chuck Mori. His representative works include 'Mischievous Bear Guru~mi~', 'Kuma Kikai' and 'General Purpose Rabbit'. His unique world view has made him popular with many fans in Japan and abroad, and a variety of character goods are sold.

The most used rabbit in the world. Through repeated artificial breeding and genetic manipulation, we have succeeded in developing a rabbit with such long ears. The range of uses has been considerably expanded compared to conventional rabbits. A basic diet of normal carrots is sufficient, but if the rabbit is sore or weak due to harsh conditions of use, feeding ginseng will help it recover faster than normal. A favourite food is carrot berries (a hybrid vegetable genetically modified to have the nutritional value of carrots and the taste of strawberries), but only a few wealthy users feed them.