TOYS:
Invaders from Japan

Gashapon are out to get your wallet

by MICHAEL CITROME

Japan is a country obsessed with vending machines. In Tokyo, you can insert a coin and buy everything from beer to soiled schoolgirl panties. Here at home, you’re lucky to find a machine that’s not out of Ruby Red and Tangerine.

Japan is also a country obsessed with fads. This latest one combines both obsessions, and it headed straight across the Pacific into a drug store lobby near you. It’s called Gashapon, and you must buy into it.

Gashapon means “capsule toy”—it’s an onomatopoeic name that comes from the gasha-gasha sound that happens when you turn the crank that feeds the machine your twoonie and releases your prize.

But make no mistake, these aren’t the chalky gumballs and cheapo key chains that made up the bubble-machine fodder of the past. These are full-blown, limited-edition, inch-high collectibles, with movie and TV licences and a painstaking child-labour level of detail.

We’ve been seeing a few Gashapon toys in machines here—first Disney and now Nintendo and the Simpsons—but the deluge is not yet upon us. The next wave includes toys from classic Japanese robot TV shows and toy lines like Gundam, Grandizer and Godzilla and western fare like Thunderbirds and Nightmare Before Christmas.

Car nuts will appreciate Capsule Tomica, a series of tiny-but-detailed toy cars that measure about 1.5 inches long and come inside equally minuscule boxes printed with Japanese text. There are Porsches, heavy-duty construction equipment, and even some obscure Japanese sports cars like the Nissan Fairlady. Ultra-realistic, with rolling wheels, they look like toys from Blade Runner.

There’s even adult Gashapon, with sexy girls posing provocatively—as much as could be expected for a two-inch high plastic figurine. Still, Hentai capsule toys are big business in Japan.

According to Luan Tran, owner of Sci-Fi Anime, a comic and video store in NDG, things are going to get hot. “They first started in Japan,” says Tran. “It went through Chinatown because they love to import illegal stuff. Now in Toronto you see them everywhere.”

Tran says that his customers have been talking to him about Gashapon, but he’s not carrying them—yet. “The stuff is so cute that people want to collect them, especially females. Men don’t like cute,” says Tran. But the rabid popularity of Gashapon toys among guys in Japan and Hong Kong suggest otherwise.

According to Tran, even Diamond Comic Distributors, a major North American distributor of comic books, action figures and other geek staples, is starting to stock them.

Meanwhile on eBay, Gashapon are selling briskly. A casual check reveals over 700 auctions for Gashapon toys, with countless others not labelled with the Japanese term. Some items, like a set of 48 figures from the anime Lupin the Third, are going for over $100 (U.S.).

Right now you can find Gashapon in Chinatown and the lobbies of many Jean Coutu and Pharmaprix stores. The PJC near the Guy Concordia metro station has a good selection. Expect them to pop up all over the place this summer—so get your change ready.