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.

Related Topics:
Candy - Japan - Toy

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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.

Related Topics:
United States - Toy - Cent - Yen

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
Manga - Video game - Anime

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