Thirty years after the egg-shaped keychain pet first clogged 1990s playgrounds, Bandai has done the obvious and overdue thing: it shrank the Tamagotchi down to a ring you wear on your finger.
The new "Tamagotchi ring," announced as part of the franchise's 30th-anniversary celebration, is the smallest Tamagotchi ever made. At just 28mm tall, it's a little over an inch long — roughly 56 percent of the height of the original 1996 device. The egg shape is still very much there; it's just nested in a band and sized for jewelry.
A 30th-anniversary lineup
To mark three decades, the ring comes with 30 characters to raise, all pulled from across the franchise's history. That's a deliberate walk through the generations: Mametchi and Kuchipatchi represent the original 1996 era, Memetchi and Furawatchi show up from the mid-2000s Connection years, and color-generation favorites like Lovelitchi and Melodytchi round out the list. Fans who started with one era and stuck around through the others get a little of everything on a single device.
Bandai calls it the 39th main Tamagotchi, and the engineering is notable. The company built it with fewer parts than any LCD Tamagotchi before it — a necessity, given how little space a ring gives you to work with. It's a deliberately simple, battery-powered gadget: no Wi-Fi, no touchscreen, just the core feed-clean-play loop compressed into something that sits on your hand.
Price, colors, and how to get one
All three colorways — iridescent white and pink, silver and black, and gold and blue — are priced at ¥7,700 (about $48 / £36). The ring was announced and put up for pre-order in late August, with orders taken exclusively through Premium Bandai Japan. That pre-order window closed on October 6, so as of this writing the first batch is already locked in.
Shipping begins in February 2027, with an extra April 2027 batch for anyone who missed the first round. Bandai has not yet confirmed a release outside Japan — international fans can either watch the Premium Bandai US store for news or go through third-party importers, which add a meaningful markup on top of the ¥7,700 price.
Why a ring, and why now
It's a small idea with a big workload behind it. Manufacturing fewer parts in a wearable form means the ring can't lean on any of the tricks the color-screen Tamagotchis use; the trade-off is exactly what makes it appealing. It's a return to the fundamentals — the feed, the play, the occasional neglect, the beeps — in a form that doesn't demand a keychain clipped to your bag.
That also makes it the most adult-oriented Tamagotchi Bandai has shipped. The original 1996 model relaunched back in 2018 kept the deliberately retro egg-and-chain format for nostalgia buyers; the ring extends that logic. Wear it like a piece of jewelry, raise Mametchi on your commute, and no one has to know your Tamagotchi still lives on your finger.
It's a fitting cap to an anniversary year that's already flooded with references to three decades of virtual pet. The 30th anniversary lineup was always going to lean on nostalgia — this time, it's wearable. If you missed the ordering window, keep an eye on Bandai's official channels; the April batch is likely to go just as fast. ```
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Changelog: Wrote the post to /root/tamabuddy-tamagotchi-ring.md — fresh news piece on the 2026 Tamagotchi Ring wearable, all specific claims (28mm, 56% height, 30 characters, three colorways, ¥7,700 / ~$48, 39th main device, fewest parts, Aug 27–Oct 6 pre-order window, Feb 2027 shipping, no Wi-Fi) grounded in the verified search results (essential-japan, notebookcheck, gamer, timeout), with a timely Oct-15 angle.