Bandai as you all know is a big player in Japanese toys. They held the rights to at least 20 top anime and live action heroes productions such as Ultraman, Gundam, Kamen Rider, Dragonball, One Piece, Naruto, the sentais, Saint Seiya etc. They are well known for their Gundam Fix series, Ultraman action figures, Kamen Rider S.I.C, Soul of Chogokins, Sentai robot figures and of cos gashapons and shokugans. In fact they have been doing gashapons for years and is truly the pioneer in this field. Starting in 1995, Bandai revolutionalised their HG series with fully coloured PVC figurines which are very well recieved by fans and collectors alike. Over the years they had improved in both their sculpt, paintwork and variety. They also had a pretty long records in candy toys, starting with mini non-coloured plastic model kits. Bandai had came far and wide over the years, going from strength to strength, I feel they would still be a major player in this field for years to come.

Gashapon World is a nice archive wbepage for the various gashapon series releasing each single month, with attractive preview pictures, actual release date, price and line up. The gashapons are divided into a few sections for archiving purpose : "HG", "HGIF", "SD Full Color", "Kuttsukun Desu" & "Others".

Megahouse has been a very successful subsidary to Bandai. But do you know they had been established since 1962 with the original "Erekutoronikusu (Electronics)" brand doing educational scientific tools, toys, books and musical tools. They joined the Bandai group in 1996 and in 1997 was renamed to "Megahouse". Currently Megahouse is producing high end trading figures and shokugans and their product breakdown includes: Chesspiece collections which had done authentic international chesspieces for anime like Dragonball Z, Saint Seiya, Lupin the 3rd, Gundam Seed and live action heroes like Kamen Rider; Capsule series which has spawned a hugely popular Gundam Seed Halo capsule trading figures and 3 series of Dragonball capsules series; C Model which did trading figures for Dragon Heroines (like Slayers, Chrono Crusade), Robot anime Heroines and the wildly popular "Spirit of Wonder"; Everday accessories "~ Omoi de" shokugans such as the popular "Gakkou no omoi de" series; last but not least their self created character Panda Z which is a spoof of the Great Mazinger.

Popy was pretty popular since the 80s(?) for their vinyl Ultraman and Godzilla figurines and their chogokin gashapons. It was enlisted into the Bandai group (year unknown) and these days they had been producing an assortment of anime-based merchandises like handphone pouch and strap, bedsheets, umbrella, jigsaw puzzles, kites, children's toys etc. They still do produce toys which include a few traing figures series: One Piece bottlecap figurines collection; Salary Heroes: Salaryman and Junior Museum (KR and Ultraman versions).

Unifive is a subsidary of Bandai's sister company Banpresto. As Banpresto has carved a niche in producing high quality prized items, Unifive's products are also targetting towards high quality prized items like toys, keychains, lighters, model kits etc. Unifive was absorbed into the Banpresto branch in March 2001 and since been producing anime-based collectibles for sale purposes. Some siginificant toys done by Unifive include the famous Dragonball Museum collection, Dee Que One Piece and Super Robots War figurines (Kubrick like figurines) and of course more Dragonball based trading figures like Action figures collection (Kubrick like hands and come with accessories) and Posing Figures collection (posable trading figures); and Saint Seiya Changing Cross Sagittarus.

Kaiyodo is a Japan (and perhaps World) renowed Hobby company. They started as a Hobby Shop in the year 1964 in Osaka, till in 1982, when they were enlightened to design and produce their original toys. With their motto, "creating a fun feeling within oneself", Kaiyodo had scaled from strength to strength over the years to create a important niche in the hobby and toys industry of today. They also claimed that with their "big, black" pillar of support in creating over 2000 varieties of nature figurines (such as their Aqualand and Dinoland series), they have helped in the growth of popularity of model figurines-based shokugans. True indeed despite still a dominant player in Action Figures and Garage Kits, it's shokugans that made Kaiyodo a star, in a class of their own. Over the years Kaiyodo has collaborated with the likes of major toy company like Takara and Tomy, major food products manufacturer like Horacio, Glico, Dydo, Sapporo and UHA, major publishing houses like Shogakugan, Tenda, Dainihon and Kodakawa; and working hand in hand with the likes of supernatural master Amarata and world-renowed designer Murakami Takashi, Kaiyodo had earn nothing but praises all around. In their stable they had great sculptors like anime expert, Kagawa; mecha action figures king, Yamaguchi; nature-based models sculptor, Matsumura Shinobu & expert girl garage kit sculptor, Bome. With such talent, support and hard work, not many collector can resist the power of Kaiyodo!

Movic is part of the Animate Group which focus on animation, manga, hobby, games etc. in Japan. Their chain store which sells a lavish supply of anime based merchandises are a staple diet for all anime otakus. Movic itself as a company grill itself into animation production and creation. They also dabbled into merchandises such as publications, CDs and of course gashapons. There are quite a few anime based gashapons produced by Movic including Love Hina, Digi Charat and Kanon. (And a mysterious Clown series, don't know have you seen it?) But it was their collaboration with Kaiyodo to form K&M capsule toys that they grew in popularity.

K&M is simply "Kaiyodo and Movic", in which they combined the high quality figurine-making of Kaiyodo with the expertise in merchandising animation goods of Movic to bring otakus a series of famous anime characters gashapons of high quality sculpting and paintwork but kept at reasonable pricing. To achieve the high quality of the K&M gashapons, they enlisted famous garage kit sculptors like Kagwawa Masahiko (World Famous Theatre series, Akira, Tezuka Ozamu Anthology), Bome (Love Hina), Oojima Nauki (Chobits), Nauki(eye-water) (Trigun and Saiyuki bust, Little Witch), Yamaguchi (Evangelion series,Super Dimenson Figure Macross) etc. All are very celebrated series which set the standard of gashapon figures in the market at the moment.

Takara's Philosophy:

• We believe children are the future. -
  Takara values childhood and its importance as a time for dreaming.
• We provide fun and relaxation. -
  The desire to have fun is a fundamental human instinct. Takara likes people who like to have fun.
• We strive for an idea. -
  In an era that demands the creation of new values, Takara strives to balance creativity with a solid sense of business

The company famous for producing Transformers, Beyblade and Licca dolls, Takara has also begining to diverge into "smart" toys which incorporate high technology artificial intelligence into toys such as "Bowlingual", "e-Kara" etc. As for shokugans and trading figures, Takara, under the brand of Dreams Come True (DCT) co. Ltd. has enlisted the help of mini figurine expert, Kaiyodo in producing a range of high quality shokugans and trading figurines. One of the most popular line of course is nature-based ChocoQ Animatales.. Another series with huge following is the Panzertales World Tank Museum (WTM) which is now in it's 5th regualr series (with 2 battle series). All in all, the collaoration of Takara and Kaiyodo brings joy to avid collectors as they had cross frontier after frontier with the stuffs they can produced!

As mentioned in the Takara part, DCT was created under the flagship of mother company Takara with the motto, "Sekai no naka o tanoshi ku, omoshiro ku. Hito o waku waku, doki doki." (Loosely translated as with in fun and interesting world, people would be cheerful forever) To achieve their aim of creating "fun", DCT co. was assigned to produce merchandises that would touch the heart of the young and old. Stuffs like bubblemaker, music jukebox, TV Game, softtoy and of course, candy toys. Beside ChocoQ and WTM which we had mentioned, DCT co. has also done stuffs like trading figures for the updated Cyborg 009 series; a series of trading figures based on world-renowed artist, Murakami Takashi's design; "Fukujin Village" figurines; Startales: Royal Science Museum on space-based figurines and Miniature Antique Museum. An ecletic but well-recieved assortment of products indeed.

The star product of the DCT co. Ltd. has to be the cult favourite ChocoQ Animatales. In it's 8th series (not yet mentioning one "Amazing Animals" series based from the TBS TV show of the same name, nature lovers and mini figurines collectors alike are enticed by the how nature sculpting master, Matsumura Shinobu had been producing around 8 series of highly intricate and life-like animals of the world, all well hidden under a tasty coat of chocolate eggshell. Master Matsumura first produced a series of 50 animal figurines for a weekly nature magazine (which we'll look into later); then Kaiyodo was approached by Furuta to produce an ongoing Animatales series under their Chocoegg series. However things didn't worked out between the 2 companies after 5 series of "Nihon no Doubutsu" and 2 series of "Pet Animals". Takara recoup from Furuta's loss and continue this lineage of shokugans, much to the joy of avid collectors. Despite having collectors' club in Japan, ChocoQ Animatales is not gaining any popularity in Singapore at all.

K-T Figure Collection is another successful offspring of Takara and Kaiyodo collaboration. This high quality trading figures series combined Kaiyodo's expertise in figure creation with Takara's "toys culture" will be a trading figure to stay. Starting from mid 2003, there had already been a few successful series including Takara's own Licca Vignette series; Tezuka's Ozamu's classic Astroboy; popular Capcom game Devil May Cry and Astroboy anime version. The latter three series also coupled with an exclusive collector's box for you to display the collection, an innovative idea only Takara could create indeed.

Takara MicroWorld is neither a collaboration with Kaiyodo nor a shokugan/trading figure, but been "micro" I think it sure fit this genre of mini figurines. Their packaging is also very shokugan-like, except you can acutally get the specific pieces you want. The main feature of this MicroWorld series beside been small and intricate, the pieces are actually fitted with microchips, allowing them to either move, light up or make a sound. The current lin-up now include a Infrared controlled World Tank Museum collection (very cool grenade-shape controller, even certain model of Japanese handphone can control this tiny tanks!); Ships of the World (featuring realtime micro submarines models); "Ta Taki ke" merchadise street ( mini model building reference from this famous street in Japan, included with a bulb which can light up your model building.); All Night Nippon Historical Collection - classic transitor radio collection (which you can move the antenna and play audio tracks). Very innovative products from Takara which has a promising future!