Fuchiko the gachapon capsule toy office lady seems to have a knack for always getting herself into strange situations. She’s wrapped herself in sushi, fooled around with Tuxedo Mask, and has been caught red-handed… sitting in some fold-up chairs.
Of course Fuchiko is not the only cup/bowl caddy that you can get out of a capsule toy dispenser. The company that makes her has teamed up to do collaborations before, and their most recent one is by far their most unusual. Instead of choosing another anime or manga character, they went with the bizarre Tower of the Sun building from Osaka.
If you’ve never heard of the Tower of the Sun, then before you do anything else, take a look at it:
▼ It’s… fantasti-confusing!
Flickr (nekotank)
The Tower of the Sun was originally built for the 1970 World’s Fair, the first one held in Japan, and it’s just kind of stuck around since then. Standing at seventy meters (230ft) tall and twenty meters (66ft) wide, it’s quite the intimidating figure, especially with its outstretched wings and three displeased-looking faces.
Perhaps because of its unusual appearance, the Tower of the Sun has popped up in Japanese pop culture before. We’ve seen it before transforming into a giant Gundam, and now – probably as a merchandizing opportunity from it recently opening back up to the public – you can get your own Tower of the Sun in gachapon form.
400 yen (US$3.39) and a turn of the crank will get you one of these seven possible toys:
▼ There’s adorable bowl-caddy Tower.
▼ Seductive bowl-caddy Tower.
▼ Bathing bowl-caddy Tower.
▼ Tower showing off his rarely-seen backside.
▼ Tower sniffing out trouble.
▼ Uh, apparently you can also get a shirtless figure of the artist who designed the Tower, Tarō Okamoto.
▼ And the last one is a surprise. You’ll just have to keep putting in yen and turning the crank until you have ten copies of all the others before you find out what it is.
If having a Tower of the Sun (or its artist) hang out with you on your cereal bowl or wine glass sounds like an awesome idea, then check out your local gachapon store after February 25, which is when they will be on sale. If you simply cannot wait that long, then head over to the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum in Tokyo where they’ll be available starting February 11.
Just look for the things that look like this:
▼ No, they’re not screaming one-eyed robots, they’re gachapon machines.
Taro Okamoto was known for saying, “Art belongs to the public. Art that cannot be touched by the public is meaningless.” Well, it doesn’t get any easier to touch than a capsule toy, so we have a feeling he would probably approve of his art being used in this collaboration.
▼ Well, either that or he’d rip off his shirt and start beating us with a spoon.
Source: Kitan Club, Wikipedia
Featured/insert images: Kitan Club
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