Wood Puzzles

First up is this sorta common gachapon I tend to see when browsing, I can’t say I was ever tempted to get it though. I’m not a big fan of puzzles unless they are flattened cardboard pieces making a big picture- or those really pretty crystal puzzles of characters and various items. I got a handful of those that I love to admire in passing.

Anyhoozles, there are 5 different types featuring their own difficulties, and the brand is Koro Koro. Mine is “mystery difficulty“, which I found to be quite strange since as a pyramid it looks super easy to put together. In fact it came together already.

But... as it turns out, it’s not easy. I can see how it’s supposed to look, but the pieces want to keep sliding and won’t hold still. So I’m not really sure what I’m not getting...

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

I’m not a big fan of this one- but I do know that there are people who like mental puzzles like these and would probably love this set. The pieces are clean and perfectly shaped, and I could see maybe coming to enjoy it for what it is if I played with it a few more times. I kinda lost interest after the first few <3<

Hungry Kirby

Kirby must be trending right now because he’s been appearing a lot in these boxes; not that I’m complaining. I love Kirby. If only they would start giving us some Mario Brothers now~

This series is by Takara Tomy Arts and there are 5 possible variations you can get: 2 kirby, 2 waddle dee, and 1 chef kawasaki serving as the rare piece in the collection. The figure was assembled, although you do get to put the little fork in his hand and I assume the other figures share that feature. 

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Besides the collection being ultra-cute, this would be perfect for re-ment. The details are really nice. The fork seems a teensy bit flimsy but I don’t think it’s really a problem or anything. This is also a minor detail but there are visible seam lines in various spots but some figures are just made that way. It’s not extremely noticeable to be an annoyance.

Kingdom Hearts Figure

I was extremely excited when I saw this one :3 who doesn’t love Kingdom Hearts? I have the games and manga, and I LOVE this series!

This is another collection of small, but detailed figurines. This series is by Bandai and includes 6 characters: Sora, King Mickey, Maleficent, a Shadow heartless, Donald, and Goofy. The included little sheet lacks detail and images and is full of some Disney information, so I suppose it’s from there, or is a collab or something?

Anyway I can’t say my favorite Kingdom Hearts character is included in this line (but we’d be here for like 10 minutes if I wrote down everyone I liked), but I always had a soft spot for Sora and he is who I would have wanted to get out of the options here. 

The figures feature a chibi anime style and a few of them include an item and a small base with their name and series logo on it.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I love this little figure, but it leaves me with some confusion. From the top to the mid-section is extremely detailed, including the metallic keyblade. But from the mid-section down (I know its probably hard to see in the picture) I feel like they started neglecting detail; but with a small figure it’s probably expected right? The rest of it is very impressive.

Cat Wind Chime

(Sorry for the blur, I couldn’t get it to stop moving)

As a lover of both cats and wind chimes, this is the purrfect combination :3 Wind chimes are popular in Japan during summer, when people put them outside to listen to the jingle of the bells and feel the cooling breeze as it blows through them.

This series is by Epoch, and there are 5 kitties available; and all but 1 of them seems to have a gold bell. The 1 has silver. The dangle part, as you can probably see is the kitties tail, and each kitty has a clear bead on top to keep the string from falling through the hole.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

The detailing is really nice and simple, it looks a lot cuter than my horrible picture makes it out to be. The bell has a sweet little chime, but I did notice that when it’s hung up the tail piece becomes stiff? But when holding it, it moves fine in the breeze so I feel like it should still work fine.

Pokemon Paint

These paint palette gachapon have been pretty popular as of late I noticed. They either feature a variety of characters with art supplies, or a specific color theme- or in this case both. This series is by Kitan Club and each costs 300 yen, which I feel like is a bit expensive for such a tiny figure...

There are 5 pink adorable Pokemon to get in this collection, and if I had to choose I think I would have liked Mew or Clefairy the most. But they’re all very cute, and as you can see I got Chancy (whose Japanese name is “Lucky”).

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥

As cute as this is, as I stated above the price has me a little iffy. I mean I can see why it’s that because it’s Pokemon- but I’ve gotten cheaper gachapon with more detail/bigger size. I noticed mine has a fair amount of color issues (there not visible in the pic at all), but at the same time it doesn’t detract from the general cuteness of the concept. The seams are fine and the figure is overall smooth, and while the colors are right, they could have been applied a little better.

Dragonball Z Figurine

Our last item.... is in pieces!

That’s right, our final item is a Dragonball Z figurine that you get to semi-assemble.

Yes that is a cat next to Frieza. He wanted some attention and wouldn’t leave me alone so at this point I decided to hurry up and finish to focus on him.

Anyway, this series includes very detailed figurines from Dragonball Z and is the 3rd series/wave of the collection and includes Frieza, Super Saiyan Goku, Vegeta, and Bulma. I definitely wish I got Bulma or Vegeta, or even Goku would have sufficed, I wasn’t a Frieza fan. There is also another sheet in the gachapon, I think hinting at another possible set of characters you can get for this series. 

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

The detail is obviously there, which is why I’m giving this a high rating. I also like the little put together detail and how it includes a small base piece. I’m not sure if I used it right though cause it looked like it could fit on a few places...

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Quality: 4 out of 5. I feel like it was very easy to see in each and every piece. There was no major complaints other than the color touch-ups I feel like my Pokemon needed.

Items: 2.5 out of 5. Don’t get me wrong, I did like them; especially the Kingdom Hearts figure, my cute little Waddle Dee, and the kitty wind chime. But in comparison to our previous box I feel like this one was a little bit of a letdown and pretty much was full of figurines that are just set for display. There isn’t too much to do with them and I feel no sense of practicality in this box (which isn’t you would think isn’t normally a thing with gacha, but so far our boxes have been including it and there are actually a lot of practical ones you can collect) other than the wind chime. Plus a lot of the items were on the tiny-small side and for the price we pay...

Total Rank: 6 out of 10 cuties. Detail was there, as was the cuteness with the exception of 2 capsules. I feel underwhelmed by this box though and I can’t say it’s the best representative of gachapon or Gacha Gacha Crate.

♥ Cutie Scale ♥

1. Cat Wind Chime - I mean come on, this should be obvious :P

2. Kingdom Hearts Figurine  - I love my little Sora~ I’m very happy I got him. The tiny keyblade is even cuter.

3. Hungry Kirby - Pretty simple, but very adorable. The whole collection would be great for a Re-ment display! Or to add to the other Kirby re-ment series.

4. Pokemon Paint - It’s cute and I like the metallic paint tube. I just wish the base looked more like actual paint, like I’ve seen the other paint series do.

5. Frieza - Even if he isn’t my favorite, I really appreciate the detailing put into him. The tail part is even missing its tip like in the actual anime. I remember that part, but I can’t say I remember it extremely well, I saw this series when I was like 6 or 7. I’m thinking of giving it to old babysitter, he was the one to introduce the series to me.

In the booklet this month we get a page on the early history of Gachapon/Capsule machines. There is also a page about a contest the box is doing, where you take a creative picture using your most favorite gacha from the box so far. You can win a full set of said gachapon if you win!

As soon as I saw this I had a really cute idea, so I’ve been wanting to get this done before I put that together. I’m not sure when the contest ends, for all I know it might already be done- but I just got this box like a week ago. But I still plan to at least make the picture because I thought it would be a lot of fun :3 it has to be posted elsewhere, but I’ll be posting it here too.

But for now let’s focus on this box and it’s contents!

Inflatable Neck Pillow

Our first item is this creative travel companion, based on various food items. Like a croissant, shrimp, an eggplant/cucumber (not actually sure...), a banana, sausage, and a decorative chocolate.

I got the banana, as you can see.  I think they all would have been cute, but if I had to choose I would have waned the chocolate.

I’m just glad I didn’t get the shrimp <3< I would have been too weirded out to use it... maybe.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

For travel or just around the house it’s nice to have a neck pillow once in a while. It’s very comfortable -surprisingly- but at the same time, it’s a bit strange. Like, it feels nice but at the same time the material feels odd and sticky. I don’t think that would bother everyone though.

It could also be used as an inflatable Frisbee if you don’t care for the neck pillow idea. Or maybe a fun toy for the pool or bath because it should float on the water without much applied pressure.

Doggo Desk Buddies

I was very excited to finally get one of these; these types of practical Gacha where the character or animal works as various useful desk ornaments. I love them!

This specific series features 6 ceramic puppies, each one a different species with their own function, including: a paper clip holder, a pen stand, a stamp holder, masking tape hanger, a post-it note stand, and a message holder. 

As you can see I got the adorable post-it stand pug. It also comes with a kawaii little set of pink sticky notes. The puppy is put into bubble wrap to ensure it won’t get broken, which is a detail I really like. The post-its were in their own, separate tiny zip-lock bag.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

First of all, I really like the care put into this set. I’m guessing that if the capsule was jarred too much the puppy could risk breaking or damaging the sticky notes, or opposite. It’s really nice to see this type of consideration.

Meanwhile, as I already gushed, I love the concept as a whole when it comes to these. I would have been happy with any of them. I do find the tiny size of the sticky notes to be a bit of a let-down, but they can still be used for a lot of things, like bookmarking pages or “last-second emergency tape”. I also noticed that mostly the entire sheet seems to be sticky, but they still easily peel off the pad. Plus you could swap them out with other, smallish sets of sticky notes too.

Fish Game

I grew up with this game, and I’m sure a lot of you will recognize it too :3 in fact I still have mine. But if you’ve never seen it before, this toy is based on the electronic game that includes multiple people trying to catch the moving fish using their fishing rods.

It’s available in Purple, Blue, Pink, Green, and Yellow. It requires very minor assembly, you basically just connect the piece included with it that works as the “brain“ of the game. You then put the fishies into the slots and you can set the rod on the stand when not in use. 

Rating: ♥

I fell in love with the adorable miniaturization of a beloved childhood game- I’ve really liked these game gachapon we keep getting as of late, I hope we get more~

I’m also delighted I got pink! It’s my favorite shade and everything!

But in saying that... my game is either wonky, or everyone’s is like this. For some reason I can’t get it to work, it barely wants to move/spin around like it’s supposed to. I also noticed one of my fish has 2 magnets in it’s mouth while the others only have 1, but that has nothing to do with it. It’s pretty disappointing.

  Pikachu/Eevee Trainer

I think these might be “balancer“ gacha, due to the various poses they’re in. In a set of 6, we can get 1 of 2 Pikachu or 3 Eevee, all dressed up and ready to join up with their Trainer for an adventure! This series is by Takara Tomy Arts.

This one looks exactly like my Eevee from the game, so I was very happy :3 but mine is a girl, while this one is oddly a boy. I mean that isn’t to say guys can’t like flowers too, it’s kind of cute how the boyish looking Eevee in the set is a girl. Both Pikachu are boys.

Now, by this point I was beginning to have difficulties trying to get pictures. As soon as I would snap one, this happened:

Fluffy really wanted to play with them, he kept trying to carry off the puppy!

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

I think these are very cute, especially if you played one of the Let’s Go games x3 Getting the flower Eevee was perfect for me, since I usually used them and the bow accessories on mine. 

I wonder if the people who make this box saw the screenshot I uploaded of my Eevee months back...

Game-Box Mini Genesis

We’ve already established that I play video games, so this gacha especially caught my attention! This tiny, adorable glittery device (that Fluffy also went after) has 26 games in it! Ranging but not limited to shooting, driving, block destruction, puzzles, and image adjusting games.

Besides red, it also came in purple, black, white, green, and orange.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Definitely one of my favorites from this box, I love it~ It works perfectly, it has sound, of course the images are all made from pixels due to the retro nature of the device, but it’s really fun. The only problem is that as you can see from the instruction page included with it, and the game itself... it can be really hard to understand and use if you don’t understand the writing system.

But it’s not hard to turn it on and start playing, even if you don’t know what’s going on like me :P

Retro Gachapon Machine

This is kind of a spoiler but not really, because I will be covering this in a separate post! Only because like our previous Gachapon machine capsule, it has to be assembled and I thought I could get a handful of pictures from it. It’ll also serve as a comparison piece between the two gachapon machines I have.

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Total Rank: 8 out of 10 cuties. As usual there isn’t really a theme behind these so I can’t really point it for that. I liked every capsule we got, and almost every single one features a form of practicality or use. I was especially surprised by the size of the inflatable neck pillow, it’s the biggest thing we got yet!

I’m pretty much only removing points from this one because of the possibly broken fish game. I don’t know what it’s problem is. I also think I might have liked last months a bit better than this one...

♥ Cutie Scale ♥

1. Dog Desk Buddies - Being a ceramic figure, it’s obvious the detail would be there. What I like about these is that if I really didn’t want to use it for a desk item, it would be a cute figurine to put on a shelf.

2. Pokemon  - Mine would have been spot-on if it was a girl eevee, but I love him regardless of gender. The detail is very well done and they all have flawless paint jobs.

3. Gachapon Machine - What’s cuter than adorable Gacha than a put-together model of the machine? It’s perfect for re-ment. 

4. Mini Genesis - I love sparkly translucent things~

5. Fish Game - Even though it behaves weird, I think the fishies are still really cute looking. They have different expressions, which is a cute little detail.

6. Neck Pillow - It’s cute in a really silly kind of way. Realistic-looking food goods always look kind of silly though, don’t they?

Okay, so that will be doing it for this review :3 I plan to be focusing on my “possible entry” for the boxes contest, then I’ll be doing my review/put together of the retro gachapon machine. Then we can finally begin the January boxes!