Carlos’s father was from Nagano Prefecture in Japan. In Nagano, where sericulture was thriving, the price of raw silk collapsed in the wake of the 1929 Great Depression, and many farmers found themselves in dire straits. At the age of 20, Carlos Kasuga’s father sought a new life in a new land. At first, he had hoped to go to the United States, where his older sister had emigrated, but he gave up on that plan due to the 1924 Immigration Act which restricted immigrants from Asian regions. In 1930 he emigrated to Mexico. At the time, many people were emigrating to Manchuria in China, but he brought a woman from his hometown to Mexico and built a family there.

After working in agriculture in the countryside, the family opened a general store, but the attack on Pearl Harbor forced the family to move to Mexico City. After World War II, they stayed in Mexico City and opened a confectionary store. Carlos, the son, graduated from high school in Mexico City and qualified as an accountant. In 1956, at the age of 18, he studied Japanese at Sophia University as a privately financed international student.

One day, he saw colorful float rings for use at the beach for the first time at a trade fair in Tokyo. At the time, in Mexico, people used car tire tubes for swimming. When Carlos wrote his father about the rings, his father ordered his son to quit university and go to a float ring manufacturing company in downtown Tokyo to learn how to operate and maintain the machinery. Carlos lived in the company dormitory with Japanese youths, went to the public bathhouse nearby, and learned about Japanese culture. Furthermore, he witnessed the president working harder than anyone else, arriving at the office early every day to clean the factory grounds before the employees arrived, and he learned the basics of business and management practices in Japan in depth.

His father founded Industrias KAY, a company that manufactured inflatable float rings in Mexico City, and the company later developed into a major toy manufacturer in Mexico. Carlos helped his father’s business while practicing Japanese-style management. The company’s initial workforce of 13 employees grew to over 600. At the opening ceremony of the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, giant inflatable rings in five different colors from KAY floated in the sky above the main stadium, further increasing the company’s name recognition.