As the birthrate drops, a doll is born in Japan

Purimopueru is a knee-high Japanese doll with soft, apple-spotted cheeks and big black button eyes. It comes in green and pink. When you cuddle it or talk to it, it talks back. It's for grandmothers.

The doll, an award-winner at last week's Tokyo Toy Show, is generating new sales among the elderly for creator Namco Bandai Holdings as the birthrate drops. Japan is the first developed country to register more annual deaths than births and the elderly will outnumber children two to one within five years, according to the Health Ministry.