G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Ultraman Cityscape

It is the bane of blind or random selection that you won't always get what you want, what you hoped for, or what you need to complete a run or set, and while this set has three nice figures, both Adrain and I ended-up with the same simplified, micro-building, hay-ho!

 

The machine!

 

The capsule, and prize, I couldn't work it out until I'd got it out of the packet and studied the sheet! It's a small (1:600th or even 1:1200th) type micro-bulding, to be made-up, with five others, into a cityscape, for the 'Giant' Ultramen to stand amongst as they battle Godzilla or Mothma, or something equally daft and rubber-suit sized!

 

Paperwork, I don't know if the three figures are different heros. different generatuons/movie-versions of the same guy or what? Having never really followed the franchise (I haven't seen any of the recent big-budget Hollywood takes either, and I'm not in a queue to!), it always struck me as a kid's daftness, and while you can have nostalgia for your own (I wish someone would find a stash of Hector's House recordings), I don't think you can retro-establish a love for something aimed at kids, as a cold, cynical, logical adult?

 

Powered by a sealed watch battery, the novelty has a limited life-span, in its illuminated form at least, but you can, hopefully, from the right-hand image, get an idea of how a bunch of them would look with one or two of the figures looming out from the midst of them!

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Ultraman Monsters

I forgot to shoot the figures with this post, and they are long buried in the storage unit, so this one's just a quickie now, to get us to the end of the sequence, and my favourite set! Not that these were in any way shabby, and I actually ended-up with two sculpts, the 1st and 3rd in the line-up below.

 

 

 The machine responsible for this truncated post!

 

 

 Pink balls . . . Ooo-eerr missus!

 

Paperwork, and that's a wrap! Well, more of a fold . . . bah-duum TISSH!

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Samurai Warriors

Some 'proper' toy soldiers types, here with medieval warriors, followers of the Bushido code, and one time powerhouse in Japan . . . God! I over-egged that pudding, didn't I? I like them, a nice 54mm, albeit with thick, plinth bases.

 

Paperwork! Note they are manufactured in the Philippines, China is slowly losing that crown, I've seen several toys made in Taiwan, Vietnam or Korea (South, of course) recently, as people try to divest themselves of exploitable links to the next Superpower, while still  looking to follow labour-costs below their own!

 

The simplest figure had a two-compartment bag, with the whole figure and a base (ABS), along with the long, thin paper.

 

While this chap gets five compartments!

 

As with the golds in the Shogun Palace line, these had polychrome or all-black versions, and I got one of the latter, but left it in the packaging for now, having the full colour one to show and look at.

 

The three of them, the guy in the middle will benefit from the old hot-water treatment at some point to get the separate rear of his pole-arm/weapon (a Kara/Jumonji Yari) to line up with the front, and a touch of WD40, or a pin drill may help the front locate in the hand a little better.

 

Left; Kanbee Kuroda      Middle; Yukimura Sanada      Right; Hideyoshi Toyotomi

 

Kanbee (also Kanbei, Kambē or Yoshitaka, December 22, 1546 - March 20, 1604), was a mighty Samurai of the late Sengoku and the early Edo period. Yukimura (also known as Nobushig Sanada, 1567 - June 3, 1615) was famous from the siege of Osaka, while Hideyoshi (27 March 1537 - 18 September 1598) was a famous Samurai from the same period, who came up from the peasant class to become one of the major Daimyo's and an Imperial regent, as the 'aristocracy' lost its tight-grip on things.

 

Western sites reverse the names, I've copied the paper for the middle line, as the Japanese fashion is to place the 'surname' or family name first - Walter Hugh, obviously I wasn't a Samurai, but once I was a warrior, and Donald J. Trump; you can go fuck yourself, you bone-spured, shirking, gobshite, wanker.

 

Close-ups; the decoration is exquisite, presumably some kind of tampo- or pad-printing, the detail is like ink-jet quality, or three-dot magazine colour of the 1970's. And I assume they are all based on surviving or replica sets of armour from Japanese museums - like the Artesania figures from Spain's Royal Armouries?

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Onepi No Mi

Here, we're looking at a Bandai set known as the 'Fifteenth Naval Battle' of the Onepi No Mi series, and you probably have to be a pretty dedicated follower, or Japanese, to understand that, but it's the one set you're most likely to encounter going forwards, in Western 'head' shops (which, these days, seem to be very expensive gift shops with no smoking or drugs paraphernalia at all!), or mixed lots/rummage trays at shows, as it has been prolific since it's teased-launch in 2021, this set being issued in January 2024, shortly before Adrian was popping them out of the bottom of . . .

 

. . . this machine!
 

Created by Bandai specifically for the Gashapon machines, and based on a Manga series, just called One Piece (following the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, as they seek the legendary One Piece treasure), from 1997, the capsule toy title, like 'Gashapon' itself, is hard to directly translate, as it's part title, part verbal pun, and all pictogram in the original, but sort of breaks down as One Piece [of my Devil]-Fruit!

 

Which isn't enough is it, but Google Translate can't, Google AI is struggling as much as me, and the websites assume prior depth-of-knowledge. And it's in part due to the design of the capsules, which we'll get on to in a minute! 

 

Through the 40-plus issues (around four a year, plus specials - 200+ items, and still counting) a set of typical Japanese 'popular-culture' themes show themselves, being, part Steampunk, part pirate, part recent/current popular culture and part pre-pubescent schoolgirl fetishism, which touches most of the standard Manga/Anime bases, just missing giant robots and fast motorcycles!

 

The capsules look like any others on first sight, but the Japanese are the masters of exquisite design, folding furniture, sliding doors, miniaturisation and such like, and their skills have resulted in capsules which can be assembled to resemble a fruit (the devil fruit), or can be stacked as an ever-growing display case, or - it looks like - used as Christmas tree-baubles!

 

Which is how the Gashapon series ends up being called Onepi No Mi, "Onepi" for 'One Piece', "No"  is a possessive - 'Akuma' or 'Gomu Gomu no mi', the Devil's Fruit, or Fruit of the Devil (the capsule design), and is further tied-in to a battle-cry in the Manga strips!

 

Here, you work it out if you need to! It's killing my brain-cells, trying to get my head round it! I think maybe if you say it quickly; "Onepinomi", it makes sense, if you speak Japanese!?

 

I've ended-up with a definite pirate type, and an electric bagpipe player (?), who in the first instance I think is called Shiryu (and an enemy of the Monkey D.?), while the other should be Helmeppo, who I see being played by one of the less salubrious personae of Bill Nighy!

 

It's all very . . . Japanese! 

G is for Gashapon - Introduction

Well, these have been in the queue for nearly two years! A mate, Adrian, was doing the Cherry Blossom trail in Japan, with his wife, and I said to him "Oh, you'll be able to fill your boots with Gashapon!", which required a quick explanation of the particularly Japanese take on capsule-toys, as they evolved from Western gum-ball machines, themselves evolved from earlier, Victorian postcard dispensers, a mutual friend - Gareth - backed up my enthusiasm, and Adrian was clearly intrigued enough to look them up while he was out there.

 

What I didn't know was that when he came back, he would present me with results of his research as a fiftieth birthday present! So we're looking at them over the next few days, purely as a brief overview, their full story is far greater and there are catalogue-type books on the subject available in Japanese, rather like the O-Ei-A books on the similar, but tending to more juvenile, Kinder Toys.

 

So, Gashapon, from Gasha (the cranking of a 'one-armed-bandit' handle) and Pon, the actual capsule; Japanese capsule toys; not the occasional tray of chocolate eggs, or the odd machine outside a convenience store, but rather a semi-industrialised craze, primarily 're-invented' by Bandai in the 1970's, with Tomy ('Gacha') and Kaiyodo also heavily involved now. There have, since the late 1990-early 2000's, been whole stores dedicated to banks of the machines, which we are looking at here, all shot by Adrian.

 

Clockwise from the top left we have, 'luck dip' mystery prizes, highly detailed miniature firearms, specifically semi-automatic military rifles, I guess pistols or machine-guns will be separate issues/series? Some kind of miniature viewers (?), construction-brick bunk-beds, cat's arse rings (who knew there was even a market for them!) and Tama and Friends keyrings - more Hello Kitty knock-off?

 

Squishies, manga deforms, some kind of pump-dispenser keyrings (?), Halloween wallets, more cutesy keyrings and miniature lunch-bags - it's quite an eclectic collection of subjects, and materials, especially when compared with Kinder*, but that - in part - is explained by the larger capsules, and the fact that adult collectors don't hide under Edwardian leftover shame as we do, in the West; the Japanese 'grown-ups' happily, openly collecting them, as an expression of Shōwa nostalgia.

 

*Kinder do seem to be moving (at a glacial speed) in a similar direction, with more keyrings, phone-hangers and luggage tag type prizes, appearing these days. 

 

A canyon of gift-dispencers!

 

Choices, choices!

 

Advertising display cabinet, I believe all the larger Gashapon stores have something like this, with a selection of current or recent offerings, to kick-start the consumer urge, among the undecided!

 

Platform shoes and fishing lures! And the lures, conveniently telling us - in English - that they are the 5th wave, I think? And - even more weirdly - without actually knowing much about it, I suspect, you could remove them from the keyrings, tie them into your tackle line, and use them to fish?!

 

Miniaturised, or doll's house scaled, tea-ceremony furniture, and necklaces of . . . Japanese mythological themes?

 

Miniaturised foods or foodstuffs seem common themes, both modern and nostalgic, and the display of cartoon, Manga or Anime figural models, above the machines, might be some of the staff's own duplicates? Or maybe leftover/end-of-line stuff, or damaged capsule contents . . . something like that?

 

Likewise, here, where more necklaces and keyrings feature in the machines themselves, including miniature beach sets, blood bags (?!!) and two different 'Juggler' related things, which I can only guess - badly - at!

 

Watch-battery illuminated, stand-ups of Harry Potter characters.

 

Sci-fi feature quite heavily, along with historical's, and here we see stuff related to The Rocketeer, Batman, Star Wars and The Avengers

 

More Anime/Manga stuff, either side of miniaturised Pioneer Hi-Fi decks!

 

An amazing maze!

 

A mystery to finish, not speaking Japanese, I can only guess these are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland coasters? Featuring Sir John Tenniel (the first commercial illustrator to be knighted)'s original artwork? Which would require the largest size of capsule? There are different sizes and designs of Capsule, as we'll see working through them, while a few sets seem to be cheaper or more expensive than the 'standard' Gashapon.

 

Many thanks to Adrian for all these images, which give us a good flavour of the subject, and for the toys which we will be looking at over the next few posts.

 

These two consumer sheet/covering leaflets came-in with some mixed paperwork, and sadly i don't have the figures to show, but it gives an idea of the type of stuff you get in a capsule, along with the toy, novelty or model, very similar to the sheets you get in Kinder or other chocolate eggs.

N is for November's Sandown Park - Sci-Fi &etc.

On to the odd-and-sods of the last show, and these are a bit of a mix, nothing exciting, but it's all grist to the mill, and there's always something new!

 

I think the devil is probably a rather naff Valentine's Day 'thing', but it IS a bendy! While the green chap, also a bendy, is probably more modern, and wasn't easy to shoot, but I decided to leave him in his crinkled bag for now. He has something of the Muppets about him?

 

Straight from a shop-stock / counter display box, three colours/poses of the Cherilea 60mm astronauts, interesting that the whole box, only had these three poses, the non-EM2 Bullpup armed chaps? And colours tie-in with the Tibidabo issues, so I think it's fair to say the Italians just bought-in the product, but never had the tools?

 

If there's anything exciting in this post it's the left-hand of these two from Yolanda, of Spain, being a large Anime/Manga type robot, Marked Toei, while the other chap is marked Troma I think, the US pulp-Video Nasty producer, and both are the earlier polyethylene, some Yolanda were later issued in a softer PVC-substitute.

 

Adrian gave me this, his head is broken-off, so will need pining at some point, but in the last few years several whole, and part, Cherilea Batmans and/or Robins have come in with one or two bases, so I'll sort them all into the best pair and Blog them again properly, one day!

 

'Gygax' spikey, one of the Crossbows & Catapults figures mentioned the other day, home-painted and play-worn, he needs a good clean, along with a Bandai Power Ranger's villain - I think!

 

What looks like a 1:48th scale aircraft kit's gunner, and one of the Aurora figures from the Lost in Space set with the rock-throwing cyclopean alien. He's lost his hand, but as a first sample, will do for now, although I may have these in white-plastic (Mobius) somewhere?

T is for Thunderbirds' 2, 4, 6, FAB 1, and a Whole Bunch They Didn't Bother to Number . . . are GO!!

Funny story behind this one, the guy wanted (and I don't normally deal with the grubby stuff, but it's central to the story) 55-quid for this, a bit steep I thought, but I know this imported stuff commands a premium, so I thought "Fuck it, I'm playing catch-up with bushy the twig, I might as well?", and got sixty out, "Have you got a fiver?", I asked the dealer, at the start of the day . . . bear in mind, the dealer I was with, had a wad of fivers, and a bag of £1 and £2 coins, because he's prepared his float!

 

"Err, no" he says, so I asked him what we were going to do, and he half-heartedly muttered 'the wife' or something, and with no further words, exchanged a glance with her, and said "No". "Well, I'm not going to give you sixty?" says I, and he leaps back indignantly "I never asked you to!", "No" said I, "But that's the other logical solution?" To which he hummed an acceptance of that logic, and after a laboured silence, I said "Well, I'll leave it than, maybe later?" handed it back and walked away.

 

And I would have left it at that, indeed I went back past the stall a couple more times, gave it the once over, and studiously ignored the set, and would have left it. If you're setting yourself up as retailer for the day, no matter what your 'day job', you either go to the bank and get a wad of fivers and a bag of coins, or, if you don't do that many shows, save your one's, two's and five's in the two-to-four months between shows? It's common-sense as much as anything else.

 

However . . . on the other side of the hall, another chap had the exact-same contents of this set, in two window boxes, one with T2, T4, Pod 4 and - I think - Fab 1, the other having all the other vehicles, and the spare Pod 3, he wanted £60 or £65 for the first, and £40 or £45 for the second, I can't remember the exact amounts, but it was going to be over a hundred-quid for the pair, so in the end, I went back to the first stall, and I bought it after all, while he wasn't there, as it happens.

 

But, that was only half the story, as when I first spotted it, it had no price on, and I asked the lady (who would transpire to be the dealer's wife), how much it was, and she said she didn't know, but that 'he' was coming back, so I hung-on for a minute or two, then she said she didn't know what had happened to him, so I left it with her, assuming she would keep it behind until I returned.

 

The standard approach at shows, when someone shows interest in something, and the helper, for whatever reason, doesn't know what's going on. However, when I returned to the stall, it was back on display, for any Tom, Dick or Harry passing-by, to purchase, with it's newly added pink £55 label!

 

It takes the shine off the day, dealing with these fuckwits, you know? It's not rocket science, there are rules to the art of pretending to be a retailer for a day, and this stall literally failed all of them! Fackin' ell, G'want! An ironic cultural reference, as they went through a phase of wearing Thunderbirds Are Go T-shirts!

 

Anyway, I am now the pround'ish, owner, of a maybe cheaper than I thought it aught to be, Thunderbird Two from Bandai, with most of the more memorable pod-vehicles, to add to the already growing collection of micro-mini's we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/01/f-is-for-five-four-three-two-one.html

 

To which I've already added a vinyl tree-hanger, the dug-out 'Colourform' ones, a board-game foursome, and a couple more, in plunder-posts which didn't get the T-bird Tag!
 

 

Mole, Firefly and the Excavator, which should be red, and which I saw in an episode the other night, there's one of these 24-hour live streams on YouTube, which seems to be connected to the remastered Blu-ray, and I'm dipping into it from time to time, but you never know where in the loop you're going to drop-in, so you then have to fast-forward through a few, to get to where you were, after which the episode cursor stops progressing, all very confusing, but great-fun seeing them all again!

 

Fab 1, and the two blueys, the ray turns on the Transmitter Truck, and the grabs (I don't know this vehicle's name? Another Excavator?) are articulated, the only other interactive one is the Excavator above, where the bucket is clip-on and can be configured for travelling in the Pod, or as shown.

 

I'm minded, if I ever get the time, to scratch-build a few more to go with these, the last episode I watched was 'The Uninvited', about the mysterious pyramid of Khamandides, with the half-tracked 'Jeep', it would be fun to do that in this scale!

 

Three more, I don't know what the first one is, a laser-cutter - should it also be red? The second is one of two Recovery Vehicles, the other would need to be scratch-built, and it can be red or yellow? While I remember a trio of the Elevator Cars (which should also be red, or white with a red cab?) trying to save the huge (and rather silly) Firefly, I can't remember the whole story, and will catch up with it soon, hopefully, but I think they sort of succeeded?

 

Thunderbird Six . . . it's not a Pod-vehicle! My late father's Tiger Moth, which was an ex-WWII trainer, had a very similar paint-job, but blue, not red, and I wonder if the MOD-approved sellers painted them like this, to hide the military markings, prior-to-sale, but, like so many things (you realise, after they have gone), I never asked him?

One of the great continuity errors of Thunderbirds, which niggled me, even as a kid, was the fact that Thunderbird Four, was named thus, and got its own Pod, while none of the others got either a number or a dedicated Pod, I don't even know how many Pods there were, was it six? The two Pods in this set are only numbered on the front, they should be numbered at both ends, and the registering of the sticker here, leaves a lot to be desired!