Gacha
Gacha is the trademarked name TakaraTomy uses for their gashapon products, largely because their arch-competitor Bandai owns the "Gashapon" trademark in the United States.
Gacha and Gashapon
What is gashapon?
Gashapon is a type of machine that functions like a gumball machine. After depositing a coin in the machine, the crank is turned and the capsule is dispensed. Much like blindpacking, the toy you receive is completely random. However, since the machine provides the randomization, gashapon capsules can (and often do) have transparent shells. Unlike the cheaper gimmicky capsule toys in America and other Western countries (such as sticky hands and fake teeth), gashapon toys are usually small figures (often based on Japanese anime, manga or video games) with high quality plastic and paint jobs. For these reasons, they're often sought by collectors both in Japan and abroad. Sometimes, there may be chase figures to give collectors even more incentive to use the machines.
In regards to Transformers, however, the first (and only, so far) gashapon figures are the Arms Microns line.
List of Gacha figures
- Optimus Prime Blaster
- Bumblebee Sword
- Zad
- Gob
- Arcee Blade
- Bulkhead Knuckle
- Megatron Cannon
- Dado
- Ratchet Spanner
- Wheeljack Kunai
- Starscream Boomerang
- Dobo
In addition, there were special clear variants of these molds. The Autobot toys were dubbed "MX" and the Decepticon toys "TC".
