TOYSREVIL #TopTenToys2015: No.10 - "Gashaphons"
WHAT IS #TopTenToys2015: "I'd asked for YOUR Top Ten Toys of 2015, and THESE were what you shared with us on TOYSREVIL! I will be featuring your lists on the blog in the month of January, so hit me with your favs via "toysreviler [at] gmail.com" - This post you are reading now, is the #TOYSREVILTopTenToys2015 List!"
I remember one of my entries last year was "bootlego". I still remember being intensely entrenched in the collection and the concept of them, they filled my mind and shopping anticipation with glee and toyjoy = something I had not felt for along time! I even started a hobby blog #mybootlego specifically dedicated to them - especially realizing i'd forgo the usual "bottomless-pit" of sustaining such a hobby!
Then, without warning, the passion switched off to a level of near-zero. Simply put, my neighborhood shop where most of my supplies had been gotten from had all but dried up. I walked in one day and the usual shelves of merchandize were replaced y more stationary. And when I asked the lady abut them (whom in the past had even prompted me to look thru their stock bags of product beyond the shelved goods) simply replied straight into my face; "We never sold anything like that!".
Of course I suspect they had been busted. The lady no longer works there in the shop now too.
And while my current collecting criteria is primarily associated with "affordability" (aaahhh but the perils of a struggling poor near-penniless-blogger … don't worry, I am as tired of whiningg about it as you are constantly reading about it...), another requirement is "accessibility"-slash-"availability", and the shop which did not carry my plastic crack aside, I had issues with attempting to procure said bootlegos at an elevated price point at the local weekend flea market, and very quickly stopped collecting them.
Sure once and awhile I might gleefully "find" bootlegos are different parts of Singapore here I might be at, and snag a very select few - but I realized - as I am typing this, I've not opened / deboxed them at all, not even to instagram them, with even instead my current stream filled with screen-snaps of media viewed, and cat pics LOL
Even tho said-source at local weekend flea market ha since slashed their price, the feeling ifs different now, I suppose.
I am well aware that GASHAPONS might fall into such a happenstance, but I indulge and revel in the toy-joy I have over them now! The anxiousness and longing boiled to a point when I ordered a boxful of goodness online, and have since posted pics and as well launched a dedicated blog @ #gachaGachaGACHAAA for them too!
In the recent years I am veered more towards the smaller sized figurines, but I was not stranger to the notion of collecting themtho … With continued spacial constraints, I have begun to adapt, but mind you, gashapons might not necessarily be as "cheap" as one would expect! BUT, they can be cheaper alternatives to my toy-desires.
Most of my collecting focus is on anime-related, or film-inspired characters, as opposed to the cuteness which prevails over the hobby these days. Films like Pacific Rim and RoboCop, are mixed in with animes like Evangelion (which I am collecting profusely this time too), World Trigger, Tiger and Bunny, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul (mostly closely associated with my anime/otaku-mode too - get the picture of #iNotOtaku! now?), and the closest one has to the current TOYSREVIL-blog? Uglydoll gachas!
Its funny now, as I type this particular paragraph, in reaction to my taking of images of my small humble collection, posted here in this particular article … remembering before, having a slight "disenchanted" notion of gashapons, especially with the bulk of this post-featured typed up a while back, and worrying if "gashapons" might continue into my consciousness forward in 2016?
Sure it had been huge part of my collecting antics back in 2015, but I was unsure, truth be told … BUT as I unpacked and prepped and shot the gachas shown here, I begun to feel rejuvenated again! I begin to feel the toy-joy of "some assembly required", of amazement looking at the details in such a small figure, and as important, starting again to imagine what characters and anime would be perfect to be made gachas!
"Imagination" is as well a major factor in having the collective notion of GASHAPONS now ranked #10 in my Top Ten Toys of 2015, and I have more gachas to show off too, well into the early 2016! LOL
Cheers and have a swell toy-day ahead!
Andy TOYSREVIL
