Nowadays, the Cupsules Toys are famous.
Indeed. Small toys are placed inside plastic balls and a serving machine, resembling large gummy balls.
In Japan, we call that Gatya Pon.
Their productions are (very) multiple, for example, small figures/toys, key chains with cute or fluffy illustrations (basically, they would be about anime characters), or sometimes, miniature furniture. Each of them would cost approximately 300 to 500 yen. (From 3 dollars to 5 dollars).
Of course, there are many kinds of American comic heroes’ products.
The way of consuming each product is the same as the gummy-ball machine.
We insert the coins and turn the dial in a clockwise direction. After 2 or 3 times, the product would pop up from the hole that is next to the dial.
This machine was from a well-known Japanese toy company that specializes in plastic robot models. The debut was back in 1977.
Firstly, the price was just 100 yen (1 dollar). But the quality was very rough.
So then, why did creators name machines like that? It was due to the sense of sound in the Japanese. We usually express any sounds with our voices based on our languages.
Hence, we translate that sound from the dial Clutter! Clutter! to Gacha! Gacha! And Pon! means Pop up!
OK. Let us try some and report my experience here. This time, we visit Akihabara Station and the Ikebukuro area. Both are also famous as subculture cities.
At the Akihabara Station
We arrived at the station! After we got off my train, we accessed the Gaha section. As you see in the picture, there are a lot of machines (But, hold on, please! The Ikebukuro area has more of them! We will show you!). So, which machine is my favorite?
Let us see.
Each capsule is tightly closed. We can’t expect to know which character is in it until we open it.
What is this? … Square Cat?
Oh jeez. We do not understand why we chose that as our first try! NEXT!
The next destination is the Ikebukuro area!
At Ikebukuro Area
We visited this area. It features a large section for capsule toys known as Gacha-no-mori, or Gacha Forest.
The section is in one of the tallest buildings in the area, the Sunshine Building.
So then, please take a look! The number of machines here is enormous! There are officially 520 machines in the section!!
OK! Let’s see.
This time, we bought that toy. It is (strangely) about the animals camping with their equipment. And each character has a different tool.
We like it! Is the owl enjoying camping? It could be a good decoration in my room.
Phew. It was hard for us to choose.
However, we hope you can now assume that unique gacha machines are in Japan.
If you want to try, please prepare more money than you expect.
To close
It is the conclusion of this article. Thank you so much for reading! If you have more questions about Japanese uniqueness, visit the front page of our blog!
It might be good for you to beat your boring time! Now we have those categories. They are the Japanese lifestyle, the Edo era, Japanese food, and Religions.
OK, now, see you for the next article about Japanese Uniqueness!