Discovering Flat Gashapon, later than everyone else!

In the last few years my children have brought home cute flat drink coasters. When asked, they told me they got them from a gashapon. Gashapon are the Bandai brand of Gachapon. I didn't think twice about it. I imagined that they got them from the usual capsule machines and that they were rolled in the capsule and somehow became flat when taken out of the capsule. I was wrong!

Little did I know that around 2022 / 2023 Bandai actually released a new product line, called Flat Gashapon, that are actually flat! And don't come in the usual capsules! I was yesterday years old, when I made this realization, because I saw the flat gashapon machine in a local bandai capsule store! Unfortunately our local store doesn't have a good selection currently, but I read online that you can get all sorts off cool things from these flat type machines. Such as cards, stickers, clear files and other thin acrylics. 

Flat items have existed for decades, but the hardware, the machines which dispense items flat came out around 2022. Other gachapon companies still use capsules, but they have been modified for storing flat items better so they don't have creases in them. But as far as I know Bandai is the only one that has actually made hardware, like the one in this photo, that is designed to dispense the gashapon completely flat.