Post-Pandemic Surge of Gacha Shops in Vacant Spaces
Before long, gacha specialty stores are popping up one after another.
In busy shopping districts, malls, fashion buildings, station concourses, and underground shopping area, capsule toys, or gacha gacha, specialty stores have been popping up. This trend seems to be growing stronger.
Many of the specialized stores seen in recent years feature clean, white, or calm black store designs, with rows of capsule toy vending machines, sometimes numbering in the hundreds or even over a thousand. Three years ago, Bandai’s official shop “Gashapon no Depaato Ikebukuro Sohonten” opened at Ikebukuro Sunshine City, featuring the world’s largest collection of 3,010 machines, earning a Guinness World Record. Additionally, on another floor of Sunshine City, another capsule toy shop, “Gacha Gacha no Mori,” is also operating.
In Shinjuku, Bandai also runs a direct shop, “Gashapon Bandai Official Shop Shinjuku Marui Annex.” In the Shinjuku Subnade underground shopping area, after the closure of the long-standing Fukuya Bookstore at the end of 2022, the space was transformed into “Gacha Gacha no Mori,” bringing new vitality to the area. Meanwhile, a new capsule toy corner has emerged in a part of the South Exit Mosaic Street in Shinjuku, which is currently undergoing redevelopment.
In areas like Shibuya, Harajuku, Asakusa, and Odaiba… and not just in Tokyo, gacha specialty shops and corners are rapidly opening, and it’s common to see people spinning the levers. In these urban areas, it seems that it’s not only children and enthusiasts, but also many adults, particularly women, who frequent these stores. Additionally, inbound tourists visiting Japan can often be seen excitedly engaging with the machines, which is becoming more common in the city center.
One of the early examples of this trend, where vacant stores and spaces were turned into capsule toy corners, was in 2016 at Narita Airport’s Terminal 2, where a dedicated corner was set up to utilize an unused space.
It serves a role like a customer attraction device.
Katsuhiko Ono, the chairman of the Japan Gacha Gacha Association, comments on the current surge in store openings:
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been accelerating rapidly.”
He adds,
“Specialty stores and corners dedicated to gacha machines and capsule toys are playing a role as ‘customer attraction devices’ in places where they can draw in crowds. This has created a situation where visitors often go on to explore other shops in shopping districts or tourist areas, generating a synergistic effect.”
Why are capsule toy stores increasing so rapidly?
