Japanese Gashapon Fun For Everyone

Gashapon machines, or capsule toy machines, one of the original vending machine types.  You can find them almost anywhere, but Japan is always kind of special for them.  Here, there is an immense variety and I believe hundreds ot sets of these toys are released every year.  Many are targeted at kids, but there is also a large mature audience for these wonderful toys, some of which are obviously not aimed at kids.
In the pictures below, I'll show the large variety of capsule toys, some of which are for kids, but many are not.  In fact, the toy manufacturers try very hard to think up creative toys, some of which would probably never be seen otherwise.  Many of these toys are also created with high quality in mind, from the sculpting, molding, assembly, and paint jobs.  Everyone likes to try their luck at these machines to see if they'll get the one they want. 

A large variety of Pokemon toys.  You have little figures, to stickers, to little miniature gadgets.

Some capsule with Japanese masks, mythical figures, historical buildings, etc.  Aimed at  collectors with prices from three to four hundred yen.

Some very creative toys here.  You have cute frogs, haniwa figures, dogs at play, etc.

An assortment of different things here.  You have Yokai Watch danglers, Pokemon desktop accessories, cute little 3 wheeler trucks, and even Dragonball figures.

Capsules of some dogs in hats.  I actually didn't order these, but was shipped these by mistake.  The vendor thankfully sent me the correct stuff afterwards.

Dogs with hats and opened capsules.  The band-aid is regular sized for comparison.

These were some cool little gashapon machine toys.  You get one inside a capsule toy which must then be assembled.  These aren't very common, but do appear from time to time.

A couple of the assembled gashapon machines - they work by the way and have tiny little capsules inside.  They are small, and I've shown the capsule they came in for scale.

Some cool Japanese cultural capsule toys.

You even have art capsule toys - with Hokusai here for example.

The famous sushi cats.  These are cell charms.

This is fun.  UFO space cat aliens.

These are the big cement blocks you find armouring shorelines, but made cute with bears.

Here are some tasty looking meals that are danglers.

There is also a great variety of different cat figures and charms at any time.

Cute geckos.

Hot springs animals.  They look like they're having a good time.

Finally, some salarymen on a park bench.  I think salarymen buy these hoping they can get out and sit on a bench in the park while they are at their desk.

That is just a small selection about the wide variety of capsule toys available.  I know I always check out places in Japan with banks of hundreds of these machines when I visit.  Later!

Gashapon / Gachapon Capsule Toys in Japan
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