What Is Gashapon?

Perhaps this should have been the first or second post, but oh well.  I created this blog to help people who are already collectors, but I've had a change of heart and decided to expand my advice to help newbies who may want to break into the field of collecting Japanese figures and toys based on anime, manga, and video games.  This includes people who know absolutely nothing about it, and those are the people this post is for.  Maybe this will allow me to expand my audience from one person to two (me being the one person).

So what the heck is a gashapon, anyway?  Well, gashapon is an onomatopoeia for the sound a capsule machine makes when you buy a toy from it.  "Gasha" is the sound of the the crank being turned and "pon" is the sound of the capsule dropping into the receptacle.  Japanese capsule machines are very much like the coin-operated toy machines you see in grocery stores and other places in the U.S. where we all got those neat sticky hand whip things when we were little.  Gashapon is also the name used to refer to the toys that come from these machines in Japan.  Often times, these toys are figurines of popular characters from Japanese cartoons (anime), comics (manga), or video games.  Other times they can be key chains, little noise makers called sound drops, or other little toys and gadgets.  Gashapon are extremely popular in Japan because they're cheap, detailed and high quality, and small enough to display anywhere without taking up much space (until you have hundreds of them).  The allure of collecting every figure in a series will keep you going back to the machine or trading with friends over and over, hoping to find the ones you're missing.

Often, the gashapon figures are also sold as blind box trading figures, meaning they're sold at stores, in little boxes, and you can't tell what figure is inside.  It's basically the same concept as a gashapon, just without the machine.  So the figures are still random and fun to collect and trade.  Sometimes figures will be released only as blind box trading figures, because they're too big to fit in capsule machines.  Blind box trading figure series often include secret figures that are extra rare, making the surprise that much more exciting.

Often, gashapon figures and blind box trading figures will be released as normal trading figures.  These are the same figures, just not in blind boxes.  You can see exactly what figure you're going to get before you buy it, and you'll typically pay a bit more money for it.

That's all for gashapon and trading figures right now.  Next time, I'll cover plushies, PVC figures, and other collectibles.