My next trip to Japan won't be 'til next year, so I won't be able to peruse and pump money into gachapon machines in Tokyo for quite a while. But, there are ways of feeding my new gachapon addiction!
Gachapon machines have been hiding in plain sight in San Francisco for a long time. Some Asian-owned small businesses such as comic book stores, supermarkets, grocery stores or tapioca bubble tea shops may have a few machines. They're always the yellow and red Tomy capsule machines, and all of them dispense little toys for $1.00, mostly Domo, Hello Kitty, balls or superheroes. Oftentimes, there's some actual sample toys underneath the clear top so you can see what you can get before feeding quarters into them. Unfortunately, the San Francisco machines didn't carry the gachapons that I wanted, like the ones I saw in Tokyo.
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| Gachapon in San Francisco |
Thanks to the Internet, I heard about
Toysanta at Rakuten Global Market. It's like hitting the mother lode of gachapon! They have the latest releases, as well as some of the stuff
I'd seen in person in Tokyo back in April! I had some time to research them after-the-fact (mostly to check size and scale), and had a few regrets about not buying several more while I was standing right in front of them at Tokyo's Akihabara Gachapon Hall.
Now with Toysanta, shopping is right at my fingertips. The prices are very fair, usually each gachapon is only about a dollar over retail, and the small packet shipping cost isn't too bad. Less than $8.00 for about $50 worth of merchandise, straight from Japan! Great way of using my vacation leftover Yen and Hong Kong dollars (long converted back to US dollars)! I can't believe that I went through over 3600 items before making up my shopping list.
It only took a week for my package to arrive! So here's a look at the new haul:
First up is a "Meitou Retsuden Keychain". It's basically a tiny samurai sword on a chain with a small plastic tag and a round, coin-like object. The sword is cute, but it is not removable from the scabbard. That kind of makes sense for a keychain, after all, you don't want to cut your fingers on a little sword blade while getting your keys, right? These are nice little souvenirs to bring back and hand out at the office, but, unfortunately, aren't suitable weaponry for action figures.
Odd, but I could have sworn that the little sword gachapon sold in small plastic bags on pegs that I saw at Volks Akihabara
had actual blades.
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| Aoshima samurai sword keychains |
| SAMURAI SWORD KEYCHAIN | |
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| Manufacturer | Aoshima |
| Scale | 1:18-ish to 1:15-ish |
| Retail Price | 300 yen |
Next up is a few more Epoch Robots. I came home with one of these, and I found out that these robots sell for a markup and sell out quickly. So when they became available again on Toysanta in new colors along with poolside lounge chairs, I ordered two more so my first robot can have some new buddies to kick back with. The new gold-colored Revoltech-like joints on the black body are very striking.
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| Epoch robot in new colors |
| EPOCH ARTICULATED ROBOTS | |
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| Manufacturer | Epoch |
| Scale | 1:18 |
| Retail Price | 300 yen |
Next, an actual mini gacha machine. I just had to order that one! It arrived in a fairly large capsule, and it was heavy... completely packed with stuff. The mini gacha machine cost me about $5.00, but looking at a few Youtube videos, the normal retail price in Japan is 200 yen. I just don't see how it's possible to sell these at 200 yen apiece- it's a very good quality little machine with very complex parts. Personally, I think it's worth every cent of the 5 bucks I paid. It comes with 5 tiny capsules with removable lids, and the knob and cylinder has a brilliantly-designed little ratchet mechanism to ensure that the knob only turns clockwise. Man, if this stuff was in front of me at 200 yen apiece, I'd keep feeding the machine until it's empty. Then I could make my own miniature Akihabara Gachapon Hall!
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| Takara Tomy Arts Pokemon mini gacha machine |
On a side note, the size is about the same as the
rustic pirate gachapon machines that I made. They all look good together, the antique style and the modern. Scale is about 1:12. The Pokemon XYZ machine was modified a bit to match the the theme of my other mini gacha machines, shown below.
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| DIY gacha machines and official Takara/Tomy gacha together |
| POKEMON XY&Z MINI GACHA MACHINE | |
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| Manufacturer | Takara Tomy Arts |
| Scale | 1:12 |
| Retail Price | 200 yen |
Next are the folding chairs by Epoch, part of their "Interrogation Room" set . I remember seeing them at Akihabara Gachapon Hall, but the header card had no indication of the size, so I passed on them. Later, I found
several articles about them on the Internet. They are extremely popular, and they fit 4" figures, such as Pose skeleton, Dokuroman and Epoch robots. Some people tried to seat their Figmas on the chairs, but they didn't fit very well . Since I was gonna order at Toysanta anyway, I snagged the last 2 Epoch folding chairs. They're useful, and kinda neat, but I can't really say they're a great value- at 200 yen apiece (retail), the chairs can't compare against the mini gacha machines, obviously.
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| Epoch folding chairs from "Interrogation Room" series |
In the US, we can get some decent miniature folding chairs for $1.00 at The Dollar Tree, packaged with some crappy wrestling figures. I'd buy the packages, keep the chairs and donate the wrestlers to the Goodwill and still come out ahead. The Dollar Tree chairs are better for Figmas and October Toys skeletons.
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| Size comparison between Epoch gacha chairs and Dollar Tree wrestling chairs |
INTERROGATION ROOM
FOLDING CHAIR | |
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| Manufacturer | Epoch |
| Scale | 1:18 |
| Retail Price | 200 yen |
Last, but not least is Kaiyodo's long-awaited re-release of Dokuroman! I got in on the re-release and ordered a set of 5. I really didn't need the tan one that badly, and it wasn't worth it to me to pay over $20 more just to get the tan one in the complete set of 6. This time, Kaiyodo seems to have manufactured and distributed
enough Dokuroman to meet the demand. Kaiyodo's Hobby Lobby (in Tokyo)
Twitter page shows 20 cases in the store, and let's say that lots of skeletons can fit in each case. More importantly, Dokuroman is available through mail order for reasonable prices
for the first time. With its increased availability for international buyers, I hope to see more English language buzz and commentary about them.
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| Re-release of Kaiyodo's Dokuroman |
| DOKUROMAN ARMORED ACTION SKULL! | |
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| Manufacturer | Kaiyodo |
| Scale | 1:18 |
| Retail Price | 400 yen |
RELATED PAGES:
The Search for Dokuroman
Miniature DIY Pirate Gachapon Machine
A Collection of Toy Skeletons
Toy Shopping in Tokyo's Akihabara and Hong Kong's Mong Kok district
Tokyo's Akihabara Again and Gacha-Love, 2017
