Gashapon

nihongo|Gashapon|ガシャポン| or nihongo|gachapon|ガチャポン, also referred to as "capsule toy", is a Japanese onomatopoeia, made up of two sounds: "gacha" for the turning of a crank on a toy vending machine, and "pon" for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle. It is used to describe both the machines themselves, and any toy obtained from them.

Gashapon machines are similar to the coin-operated toy vending machines seen outside of grocery stores and other retailers in other countries. While American coin-operated vending toys are usually cheap, low-quality products, sold for a quarter or 50 cents, Japanese Gashapon can cost anywhere from 100–500 yen (approx. $1–5 US) and are normally a much higher quality product.

They are often constructed from high-grade PVC plastic, and contain more molding detail and carefully painted features. Many gashapon are considered collector's items, with rare ones fetching extremely high prices.

Gashapon toys are often based on popular character licenses from Japanese manga, video games, anime, popular icons and a few American entertainment licenses. These highly detailed toys have found a large following among adults in Japan, and the trend is filtering to the West with other popular culture influences such as anime and manga. It is not at all uncommon to see sets based on licenses explicitly for adults, with figures of naked or near-naked women, which costs a little more than other capsules.

Collections and sets

Virtually all gashapon are released in sets - each series will have a number of figures to collect. They are, by nature, a "blind purchase"; people insert coins and hope to get the toy or figure they desire. It may become frustrating, as one risks obtaining the same capsule repeatedly.

Most collectors will buy sets from gashapon stores in places such as Osaka's Nipponbashi (den den town), or Tokyo's Akihabara. Depending on the store, the sets are usually cheaper than buying them randomly out of a machine. There are actually lots of machines in Akihabara lining up across an isle or two at various stores including the Yodobashi Akiba.

Video games

Gashapon machines and their random payouts have inspired trinket-collection mini-games in many videogames, most notably the "Legend of Zelda" series' similarly-named "Gasha Trees" in ' and ', and, to a much higher extent, the random figurine payout in "". Gashapon have also appeared in some "Mario" games such as "Mario Party 5" and well as "Super Smash Bros. Melee" where the player inserts a desired amount of coins and gets a trophy of a Nintendo-related nature in return. In both "The Minish Cap" and "Super Smash Bros. Melee", the more the player spends in one go, the higher the chance of getting a new item in return.

The gashapon concept is taken to the next level in "SD Gundam Gashapon Wars", a game based on the "SD Gundam" television series, in which a gamer can activate extra characters from the game by buying certain series of SD Gundam gashapon toys in real life, namely "SD Full Color STAGE:61", then use the password bundled with the toy to unlock the corresponding character in the video game. This is the same marketing tactic used by Kinder Surprise for the online surprises, except there is no online access involved.

The machines also appear in the Dreamcast game "Shenmue", in which the main character Ryo Hazuki could spend yen to collect various figurines, including series of characters from the Virtua Fighter and Sonic the Hedgehog series of games as well as those of other known and lesser known Sega franchises (i.e. "Fantasy Zone" , "Space Harrier" , "Hang-On" etc.).

The Gamecube game Gotcha Force is completely based on gashapon toys, pitting a massive variety of capsule toy-sized/themed aliens(called Borgs) against each other and the Galactic Emperor. As you progress, you earn new fighters that open from capsules, some of which require multiple parts to complete. Tying into the capsule toy theme even more are the variants that come in a range of styles from an alternate coloring to completely transparent to solid silver, gold, and black versions.

In , gashapon machines can be found in various places, and contain figures of various Mega Man characters.

They are seen in MapleStory, in which real money is used to buy tickets for the machines in towns. The gachapon in this case contain scrolls and valuable items.

They are also seen in Killer 7, in which all of the figures are required to open a specific door.

During the course of Resident Evil 4, the player can take part in a shooting range mini-game to unlock models of characters and enemies that are viewable in the Keys/Treasure inventory. There is one figure in each set that requires a higher score to unlock, which could be considered the 'rare' figures.

In "Kingdom Hearts II", there is a rare type of Heartless called the "Bulky Vendor", based on a Gashapon machine. Only appearing in certain areas of some worlds, its HP bar drops quickly and it jumps and moves faster as time goes on. The player is required to catch up with it and use a Reaction command, from 'Capsule Prize' up to 'Prime Capsule' to receive a capsule which explodes into orbs and an item prize. This is the only way (besides treasure chests) to gain the valuable Orichalcum item.

The PSP game Work Time Fun consists of nothing but playing small mini-games for money to spend in gashapon machines. The machines deposit trinkets whose descriptions often poke fun at common gashapon trinkets.

In the original "Yu-Gi-Oh" series (referred to as season zero by most fans) and its related "manga", there were a series of episodes where players played a game called Capsule Monsters (Capmon for short) that involved the use of a Gashapon machine to obtain the game pieces in which players used. Mokuba is seen playing this game the most, and is usually Yugi's enemy when it comes to playing this game. In a series later on that was released after the final episodes, there was a special movie that used these Capsule Monsters as a main part of the game. However, unlike the other Capsule Monsters, these ones were made out of bronze or gold, and were shot out from a capsule shooter to battle. The series that was released in English has nothing to do with the original.

External links

* [http://www.gashapon-collectors.de Gashapon Collectors]
* [http://www.gashaponcollector.com Gashapon Collector]
* [http://www.stashmatic.com/category/197/ Gashapon collection tracker with images at Stashmatic.com]
* [http://www.ikari-merchandise.de/epages/15433326.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/15433326/Categories/%22Capsule%20Toys%22 Ikari-Merchandise]