Gachapon - what are they?

Gachapon, also referred to as capsule toy, is a Japanese onomatopoeia, made up of two sounds: gacha for the turning of a crank on a toy vending machine, and pon for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle. It is collectively used to describe both the machines themselves, and any toy obtained from them. Though gashapon is the more common spelling as seen in the US, it is primarily a corruption of gachapon, which is more technically accurate.

Gachapon machines are similar to coin-op toy vending machines - but while such toys are usually cheap, low-quality products, sold for a quarter or 50 cents, Japanese Gachapon can cost anywhere from 100-500 yen ($1–$5 US) and are normally a much higher quality product. They are often constructed from high-grade PVC plastic, and contain more molding detail and carefully painted features.

However, gachapon are not simply toys: they are collector's items, with rare ones fetching extremely high prices. The toys are often based on popular character licenses from Japanese manga, video games, anime and popular icons. These highly detailed toys have found a large following among adults in Japan, and the trend is filtering to the West with other popular culture influences such as anime and manga. It is not at all uncommon to see sets based on licenses explicitly for adults, with figures of naked or near-naked women.

Virtually all gachapon are released in sets - each series will have a number of figures to collect. They are, by nature, a "blind purchase"; a person inserts money and hopes to get the toy or figure they desire. Most collectors, however, will buy sets from gachapon stores. Depending on the store, the sets are usually cheaper than buying them randomly out of a machine.

Source: Wikipedia