What is "gashapon"

The terms or refer to variety of vending machine-dispensed capsule toys popular in Japan and elsewhere. "Gashapon" is a Japanese onomatopoeia composed of two sounds: "gasha" (or "gacha") for the sound of a crank on a toy vending machine, and "pon" for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle. Gashapon may describe both the machines themselves and the toys obtained from them. Popular manufacturers of gashapon include Tomy, which uses the shortened term for their capsule machines, and Kaiyodo. In the United States, "Gashapon" is a registered trademark of the Bandai Company, and gashapon are generally referred to as blind box sets.