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Japan’s realistic railroad crossing capsule toys bring back painful memories for Mr. Sato

Master Blaster Dec 3, 2021
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Some wounds never heal, and some stains never come out.

Capsule toys enjoy seemingly endless popularity in Japan and are a veritable stream of consciousness when it comes to all the different designs and concepts, from bad origami to animals weighing themselves. With new ones coming out almost every day, the total number of capsule toys that have existed is incalculable at this point.

Among all this, though, one new toy stood out to our reporter Mr. Sato. It was called the 1/24 Railroad Crossing Collection 2 and consisted of six scale models of railroad crossing signals. As an added feature, they all make a realistic warning sound, and this is what both intrigued and troubled our writer.

Mr. Sato grew up in a relatively rural part of Japan and while walking back and forth to elementary school he always had to cross some ground level railroad tracks. Normally, it’s a rather idyllic scene, but for safety reasons the bar will lower well before and after a train passes and this can eat up a lot of time for people who want to walk across the tracks.

This was especially a problem one day when little Mr. Sato felt a peculiar rumble in his tummy while waiting for the train to pass. What began as a leisurely walk home became a race against time when the future star reporter began to feel pressure building in his rear end.

Each clang of the warning bell seemed to stretch and echo into eternity and the normally short walk from there to his house became increasingly too far…

After coming back to his senses in modern day Tokyo, Mr. Sato took three spins of the gacha machine for 500 yen ($4.40) each, hoping to at least get one of the big ones. They came in appropriately yellow and black colored capsules.

He opened one and discovered a bag of parts and some instructions. The sizes range from 13.5 centimeters (5.3 inches) to 18.5 centimeters (7.3 inches) tall, so naturally some assembly is required.

The yellow capsule contained an A-Type Railroad Crossing with Old Warning Lights, and the two black balls each had a B-Type Railroad Crossing with Old Warning Lights.

▼ “A-Type Railroad Crossing with Old Warning Lights”

Mr. Sato was surprised at how big it was after putting everything together.

The level of detail was very high and even the length of the bar seemed to be exactly to scale.

Looking at all three together, he regretted not having any model cars to park in front of them.

However, it was their beautiful yet cursed sound that our writer was interested in. He reached to the back of the base and pushed the button…

警報音が鳴る踏切ガチャ。3台同時に鳴らしてみた。音がデカいんだよ pic.twitter.com/CJn1eMvJMK

— 世界の佐藤 (@Foodqueensatou) November 16, 2021

The volume was surprisingly loud too, enough that his neighbors might have even heard it. Mr. Sato did notice much though, his mind was already spiraling back to that overcast autumn day when he lost his innocence and learned that the world can be a cruel and unfair place.

Why did his mother get angry at him? It was a natural bodily function that he simply could no longer contain. On the other hand, he was incredibly lucky that none of the other kids noticed and branded him with a disgraceful nickname like “Mobile Poop Gundam.”

The fact that these capsule toys brought back this childhood trauma clear as day is evidence that they’re really accurately made. We highly recommend any fan of traffic safety novelties to check them out.

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