The Gachapon Thread

HeavenlyHalberd

I love, love gachapon. The lovely, colorful, satisfying little capsules, the neat variety of things, figures, or characters you can collect, all the stuff they can be, whether original or based on something existing, the satisfying crank, and the thrill of the mystery of what you are going to get plus the collectable nature appeals to me greatly. Here is a thread to show your gachapon finds or collections IRL or talk about games with gachapon collecting (not the microtransaction kind, think about free in-game mechanics or collectables along the lines of something like collecting various Sega figures in Shenmue or getting new Yo-Kai in the Yo-Kai Watch series via a gachapon machine). Also, as someone who would like to collect more of them, what are some cool IRL places, be it in the US or Japan, as good destinations for gachapon machines, and what are some cool sets you may not own but want? Discuss away!

I would like to collect more and have few sadly despite my immense love of them because I’ve rarely encountered them in the wild. The only one I really have is this one of Umaru-chan playing a PSP I love.

whatsarobot

I don’t have a ton to contribute to this topic personally, but I think this is an awesome idea for a thread.

saddleblasters

I think my first time encountering Japanese-style gachapon was in Ape Escape 2. In the hub world (or rather “hub room”) there’s a big machine that you can put in little gold bits you pick up from levels, and capsules containing concept art, little stories and minigames pop out.

At the time I didn’t really conceptualize this as something especially Japanese or anything. The Hot Dog Shoppe, a chain of restaurants which formed the backbone of the particular sort of civilization that flourished throughout the network of small towns along the Ohio river in Western Pennsylvannia where I lived until I was 8, had a whole wall of capsule toy machines in the lobby of all their restaurants. The toys were all very lousy, like spiderman rings or a sticky gooey frog thing, but midly exciting to a tiny kid. I was a little surprised later in life to slowly realize that most people associate capsule toys with Japan. I guess it’s another contributor of the mythology of Japan as this place where the most trivial Western things are resurrected in a much cooler form.

thebryanjzx90

saddleblasters were they Japanese gachapon machines with western cheap prizes? I didn’t think spider rings or goopy slap hands were unusual, they were in pretty much every grocery store growing up, just that in America they would be dispensed from something that was basically a gumball machine. Next to stickers and temporary tattoos in one of those machines where you slot in your change standing up and have to cram the whole tray/sled thing straight in.

saddleblasters

thebryanjzx90

oh, i wasn’t trying to say they were unusual. i was just describing the place where i saw them most as a kid. i saw them in lots of other places too, but never such a large selection.

i feel like the terminology is confusing. i’m not sure what to call the american ones. i used the word “capsule toy” to describe them since that sounds most generic, but i’ve never actually seen that word used to describe the american style machines, just the japanese ones.

Cornlord

In European malls gachapon machines with cheap toys (like AliExpress level quality) are quite common. I remember getting a dog in a little bed from one of those.
Before the onslaught of cheap toys when I was around 5 there was a machine at a theme park/zoo in my old hometown that gave you pokemon phone charms! I remember getting a little piplup. Otherwise those types of charms were just sold at the cashregister and you could pick one. They had awesome hello kitty ones. In general blind bags had a point in my childhood where they overlapped with what would be sold in gachapon machines. Now the toys greatly differ in terms of audience and aesthetic.

I only have ever used one with Japanese prizes once. It was at an anime store of course. It was hot dog themed and I got a hot dog bun dog out of it.

There is a store here dedicated to Gacha machines. I have never been able to visit

Chopemon

I love gachapon! Always buy loads when I go to Japan. Here are some of them.

HeavenlyHalberd

Chopemon Oh man, I am so jealous of that Brook! Is that a Gelgoog?

Chopemon

HeavenlyHalberd it’s a Graze from the Iron Blooded Orphans series. Really like the industrial look of the grunt suits in that series.

HeavenlyHalberd

If we’re talking about crappier American capsule toys, when I was at a very dying mall in Ohio in 2019, I found a leftover WCW capsule machine that looks circa 1998 WCW. Reminder WCW died in 2001. I wish I was into wrestling then because as a hardcore wrestling nerd now, I would have bought a bunch of these with ironic glee.

IrishNinja

oh man there was some really cool godzilla ones when i was in japan years back - i’m always hunting for classic sega ones online, but if you just put “sega gashapon” into ebay, i hope you’re ready for an avalanche of loli stuff 😅😅

HeavenlyHalberd

IrishNinja I am a Gamera weirdo and I would do anything to collect Gamera and his associated kaiji.

Chopemon

Picture of my current desk gacha. Sexy Nico Robin is not a gacha and a couple of these are blind boxes not capsules BUT WHATEVS.

Cornlord

Chopemon Did you get that little bridge from a Gashpon? I think it is really neat but seems quite big to fit in the little ball

HeavenlyHalberd

Chopemon Who is that character with the Dreamcast controller crown? That is amazing.

Chopemon

Cornlord They are two separate capsules. They are lots of parts.

They actually came from a shop in Nakano Broadway that sells gachapon outside of the capsules so you can buy what you want. I tried a couple of these shops but couldn’t find another staircase to complete it.

Funbil

HeavenlyHalberd Had a hunch it was Neptunia, and yep

Chopemon

HeavenlyHalberd That is Dreamcast from the Sega Hard Girls project that started with anime and manga and then spawned the cross over game with Neptunia. Just want to be crystal clear on this as I don’t want people thinking I play Neptunia games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Hard_Girls

IrishNinja

Chopemon this is dope, i adored that series and seeing one of them here is really cool

i hurt myself laughing at the virtua fighting episode

wickedcestus

We walked through a shop that was just entirely gachas while we were in Osaka on our recent trip, but it was one of those situations where there was so much choice that you ended up not wanting any of it. We did grab a Jack Frost that I need to give to a friend next time I see him.

However, when I was in Japan 8 years ago I got a few neat things, including these Earthbound keychains I found in a game store in Akihabara:

And a Graveler and Goemon, who sit with all the other little doodads on my shelf, including a goaltender I ripped from a broken table hockey rink I had as a kid; a posable wooden penguin I bought at a Japanese flea market; and another penguin who used to be the handle of my favourite mug before I dropped it on the floor.

HeavenlyHalberd

wickedcestus Seeing your awesome EB keychains reminded me that another gachapon figure I have I completely forgot about because I didn’t get it out of a machine myself but ordered secondhand online many years ago is this figure of Jeff!

wickedcestus

wickedcestus I brought the two Earthbound keychains down from the shelf to ask my wife if she knew who they were, and she said with absolute confidence, “Yeah! That’s Ed and Ed!”