GASHAPON 
Remember the surprises that vending machines were very popular twenty or thirty years ago? Large glass and metal boxes full of plastic balls which were contained in transparent animals, toys, magic balls. Just insert a coin into the slot, turn the crank and wait for the ball roll between the hands of our children, eager to find out what magical object the luck we had reserved. Even today, one can encounter in any descendants of these vending machines to small dreams, perhaps in some large supermarket, but less frequently and sometimes unexpectedly have adjusted to modern tastes as much as temporary. In recent times, for example, if they can meet someone new age flavor, which dispenses with the traditional method of random small stones from the vaunted therapeutic value. The place on Earth where those plastic balls roll still contain many cool items, collected by children and not only is Japan.
Walking along the streets of Tokyo, especially in large shopping malls, and in particular near the arcade, comicshop and toy stores, one can encounter in whole rows of these distributors. Blocks colored in exchange for two 100 yen coins to anyone who tries to offer la sorte un gashapon. Non è chiaro da dove provenga il nome, forse fa riferimento al suono che la pallina fa rotolando all'interno della macchina (si pronuncia infatti "gasciapon"), infatti le stesse palline sono spesso chiamate anche gatcha gatcha oppure semplicemente gacha, sempre rifacendosi al suono. In ogni caso, un gashapon è una sfera mezza colorata e mezza trasparente dentro cui è contenuto un "pupazzetto" smontato in alcuni pezzi (da due a una decina), che una volta ricomposto si dimostra alto circa otto centimetri, ben colorato e dettagliato. I personaggi dei gashapon sono quasi sempre televisivi o cinematografici, e appartengono in genere a uno di questi tre filoni: kaiju, tokusatsu, anime. Kaiju significa letteralmente "mostro", and to understand what we are talking about monsters think of Godzilla. I have tokusatsu television series with special effects (tokusatsu tokushu satsuei is short for "special shot"), one of whose founders is Ultraman. Finally, there are anime, Japanese cartoons, which have seen dozens of old and new series hosted between gashapon: Mazinger by Heidi, from Gundam to Evangelion. Gashapon
I were born in the mid nineties, and now a magnet for fans and collectors of mania. Feature concerned is that vending machines are single-issue. In other words, are always structured to gashapon series usually consisting of six pieces (sometimes five or seven). Each vending machine contains solo pezzi della medesima serie, ben evidenziati da coloratissime foto messe in bella mostra. Ogni serie resta in circolazione per un tempo limitato, giusto i mesi necessari perché si esaurisca, finendo magari sugli scaffali di qualche negozio di collezionismo, dove ogni pezzo può anche raggiungere la cifra di 8.000 yen (quaranta volte il suo valore iniziale). Se una serie ha successo, non è prevista una "ristampa", ma più furbescamente una seconda serie con nuovi soggetti. In questo modo anime di grande successo come Gundam vantano ormai decine di serie di gashapon. Il Mobile Suit bianco, grazie anche al fatto che nuovi anime vengono prodotti quasi ogni anno, è infatti uno dei più gettonati, ma molto apprezzati sono anche i robot senza time, born from the imagination of Go Nagai (Mazinger, Grendizer, Getter), the orphans as Heidi and Anne of Green Gables, and many others including mention just Lupin III.
difficult to say how many gashapon are released since 1994 - certainly hundreds of series, thousands of people - but it is certain that their success with Japanese youth continues to increase, not a month goes by without the Banpresto (branch of the giant Bandai ), mainly the manufacturer of these items, new series launches. Fortunately (or weighted choice of production), the small size of these beautiful objects allow the average Japanese to preserve many even in tiny apartments in Tokyo. Who wants to buy
of gashapon (old and new) may request to info fioridiciliegio@alice.it
