Japanese company purposefully designs dull and boring toys

“Bus disembarkation button”, “Shipping pallet with crate and pallet truck”, “pedestrian walkway” and “subway bench” don’t sound like the name of award-winning toys. And they’re not meant to be. Instead, Toys Cabin, a Japanese toy maker, is contributing a bizarre genre of miniature toys that are supposed to be unattractive.

“You want people to ask, ‘Who in the world would buy this? ”, Said company founder Yoshiaki Yamanishi. The New York Times. Last year, Yamanishi designed a miniature replica of a mini split air conditioner — and not even the part that goes inside the house; instead, he made the outer part of the unit which is mounted on the outer walls i.e. the metal box with the fan vent which is ubiquitous in Japan. It would be like Mattel selling a miniature replica of the electricity meter outside your home.

The genre is called gashapon, gachapon and or gachagacha, and it consists of tiny replicas of mundane objects that are sold inside capsules distributed by vending machines.

Image: fukhops

Legitimately fun gachagacha exist and are purchased by children, but Toys Cabin’s offerings are aimed at adults; and the Japanese sense of humor being what it is, there is a greedy market for them.

Still, “the products aren’t particularly profitable for most manufacturers,” according to Japanese toy columnist Hiroaki Omatsu, “but they do provide designers with a creative outlet and find a ready customer base in a country that has always had a taste for it. fantasy.

Some of Toys Cabin’s offerings might be considered fun, like these “Dogbirds…”.

… But for each of them there is a “station employee identification badge” or a “miniature cassette”.

“Creating an adult gachapon is all about dedicating yourself to doing something worthless,” says Omatsu. “‘This is ridiculous’ is the highest form of praise.”