Tag: Toys

The Koppu no Fuchiko ("Fuchiko on the edge of the cup") by Kitan Club and Katsuki Tanaka was first released in 2012 as a Gashapon capsule toy. In a nutshell, it's a series of cute figurines of an ...

We have long ago run out of those "standard" Japanese gifts that we can get away with sending out relatives back home. You know the ones, right? Green tea. Chopsticks. Sake cups. And so on. What ...

It used to be that Gashapon capsule toys were ostensibly just for kids who wanted to collect and play with small toy items and character figures from their favorite anime, games and comic book ...

The Japanese language is a creative thing, not least due to its multiple scripts -- kanji ideographs, and the syllabaries hiragana and katakana, plus there is distinctly Japanese use of the Roman ...

After years of campaigning, Mt Fuji, Japan's highest peak and an ingenious piece of natural symmetry, was recently finally elevated to that status that perhaps of all people the Japanese seem to be ...

For a country with a declining birthrate (and by extension, the population as a whole), Japan's toy manufacturers are not showing any signs of giving up. Granted it hasn't been plain sailing for ...

A long time ago, long before we had augmented reality toys or flying gadgets that interacted with your smartphone -- long before even anime had really got going and brought with it the toppling ...

Every now and then you come across an idea so neat that you wish the whole world knew about it. And in this case, I also wish I was six years old ago and could experience the joy of playing with ...

Remote control or radio control toys are big the world over. As well as the usual planes, choppers, UFOs and flying "space balls", though, Japan's toy makers have given us some more... well, let's ...

Remember the Tamagotchi? You know, the digital pet from Bandai that was all the rage when it was first released in 1996? It went on to sell 40 million units around the world but then the boom ...