Gashapon

Gashapon, also referred to as "Candy toy" or "trading toy", is the phonetic word for the sound "Gasha-Pon!" that Japanese toy vending machines make when a packaged item drops down.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Gashapon machines are similar to United States coin-op toy vending machines seen outside of grocery stores and other retailers. While coin-op vending toys are usually cheap low quality products sold for a quarter or 50 cents, Japanese Gashapon can cost anywhere from 100 - 500 yen (Equal to $1?$5 US) and are normally a much higher quality product.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Often constructed from high-grade PVC plastic containing more molding detail and carefully painted features. However, these are not simply toys: they are collectors items, with rare ones fetching extremely high prices.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Gashapon toys are often based on popular character licenses from Japanese manga, video games, anime and popular icons. These highly detailed toys based on popular culture icons have found a large following among adults in Japan and the trend is filtering to the West with other popular culture influences such as anime and manga.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Candy: Candy is often used as a synonym for the more general term confectionery in North America, whereas the word has become archaic in most parts of the United Kingdom and survives today almost exclusively in the term "candy floss". In some areas, notably Scotland, "candy" is generally taken to mean conf...

Japan: For other uses, see Japan (disambiguation)....

Toy: :This article is about things that people play with. See also Toys for the 1992 film of that name starring Robin Williams; or toy dog, referring to one of many very small breeds of dog....