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Bandai’s Vendor Division announced on October 1st the Kicking off a new series of capsule toy brand Gashapon. their new series, ‘Cup in Gallery,’ is themed around art toys. Even though it’s called a new series, the art-type versions have already released five kinds from 2024 up until this August. It has been released as an accent for popular items, like characters or unique products. Bandai chose to bring it together as a series and develop it further. For turning it into a series, they set up three types of product lines: original, collaborations with creators, and characters. From now on, they’ll keep releasing new products based on this product line. The first product in the series will go on general sale at Gashapon shops nationwide in Japan from the fourth week of October, and sales overseas will start accordingly.
The first product in the series comes in six types (some are exclusive to the Gashapon Bandai official shop). The lineup includes three products featuring characters like magical girls with a Halloween vibe (one of which is a re-release), as well as Miffy and others. The collaboration product that distinctive in the new series is the ‘Kae-chan figure‘. Those are five types of cat-eared girls designed by the illustrator Kae Tanaka. Items other than resale products will be sold for 500 yen each including tax (resale products are 400 yen).
The products planned for release in November are ghost and bear figures in collaboration with two creators, and Sanrio characters colored in a red and white two-tone scheme. Bandai will introduce a differentiation strategy in how this series is rolled out to raise awareness. They set up a special vending machine decorated in silver. On the front, they’ll put a POP display with a tilted frame design that reminds you of an art gallery. Bandai plans to quickly establish the popularity of the series with these.
The main target audience for this series is women in their 20s to 30s. For this, the design of the product is overall rounded, and it has about 2.5 heads in shaping, similar to a plush toy. They say that creators for collaborations are chosen based on their popularity with the target audience. Popular capsule toys are characters, funny ones, and corporate promotional items. Corporate promotional items have been shaped like food or nostalgic products, and they’ve been effective. Similarly, Bandai hopes that this new series will serve as a stepping stone for creators to gain worldwide recognition.
