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Mini movie theatre seats now on general release, collectors of tiny chairs rejoice

Fran W Oct 26, 2014
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We all love a good gashapon capsule toy. But whether it’s One Piece characters or doggy bread, getting more than one of the same toy is usually a disappointment. No wonder some collectors skip the vending machine step altogether and buy completed sets second-hand. Duplicates are no fun.

There’s one Japanese toy company that flips that idea on its head, however. Unlike conventional capsule toys, Epoch’s scale models actually look better the more identical items you have! And these miniatures of seemingly mundane items such as school desks, shopping trolleys and folding chairs have proved a runaway hit.

So when our reporter Mr. Sato heard about the latest capsule item from Epoch, he immediately grabbed a bunch of hundred-yen coins and headed out to start collecting…miniature cinema chairs! Here’s what he found.

Epoch credits the success of previous hit products such as mini folding chairs and tables with the feeling of nostalgia and familiarity these items evoke in people. Their aim, two designers told RocketNews24 in an interview earlier this month, is for people to look at them and think, “I’ve seen these somewhere before.”

▼ Yep, I have definitely seen a cinema chair before.

One movie theatre seat on its own looks a little lonely, but when a bunch of them are connected together, things start to get interesting.

▼ Well, ok. Perhaps “interesting” is the wrong word.

▼ They fold up just like real cinema chairs though! That’s pretty cool.

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that the chairs do actually come in different colours, including one we can only describe as “movie theatre seat brown”. Depending on your disposition, this either means you can build a cinema with nice complementary tones in random arrangements, or renders the whole “identical” thing obsolete and means you’ll be obsessively collecting one colour only because what kind of movie theatre has different coloured seats dammit?!

Mr. Sato, meanwhile, was particularly impressed with the attention to detail on the seat’s drink holder. Each kit comes with its own teeny-tiny cup of soda! And just like a real cinema chair, the drink holder has cut-out spaces in case you spill your coke while hiding from the scary movie.

▼ That attention to detail is pretty impressive.

▼ There’s even a little dedicated space on the back for the seat number.

Of course, if we were going to test out our sneaking suspicion that these chairs are just like the real thing, the final test would have to be to try them out. Fully Poseable QP was brought in for the job.

▼ The seat is the perfect size for him! But now QP makes the drink look out-of-scale…

▼ There. Not weird at all.

Photos: RocketNews24

[ Read in Japanese ]