When it comes to keeping up with the latest trends in the Zelda series, I’ve always been a bit late to the party. I didn’t receive a GameCube until Christmas of 2006, I never even heard a whisper about Twilight Princess until a family friend showed it to me in 2008, and since I own neither a Wii U nor a Switch, I still haven’t partaken in the blockbuster phenomenon that is Breath of the Wild. This isn’t too much of a problem nowadays, because even if I haven’t played a certain game, I can still stay somewhat up-to-speed by watching gameplay videos and reading articles online. But as a kid in the early 2000s with a rudimentary internet connection and only two older consoles to play with (the SNES and the N64), my Zelda universe revolved around just three games: A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Majora’s Mask. For the longest time, the idea that there were other Zelda titles out there never even crossed my mind.
This began to change in late 2003 when I became aware of the existence of a brand-new game that threw everything I knew about the Zelda series into question. You might be surprised to learn that it wasn’t the infamous Space World 2001 trailer that brought this new game to my attention (in fact, I watched that for the first time just a few weeks ago). Instead, I have a collection of bizarre little toys that my mom randomly bought on eBay to thank for that.
Yujin is one of many Japanese companies known for manufacturing gashapon toys and machines. Gashapon, or “capsule toys,” are small trinkets that can be purchased via coin-operated vending machines throughout Japan. They tend to be far higher quality than the toys we find in vending machines in the west, but they still manage to be budget-friendly, hovering somewhere between 100 and 500 yen each (which, based on the current rate of conversion, would be between $0.75 and $3.60). Finding in-depth information about Yujin itself has proven difficult; the official website is little more than a blurry page that says “Site coming soon”, and when I finally found a Tokyo address for its headquarters and typed it into Google Maps, the building that came up sported a logo for a different company. So the only thing I can definitively tell you about Yujin is that it has produced a wide array of Nintendo-themed gashapon over the years.
In 2002, Yujin began developing a series of gashapon sets known as the Nintendo Box Figure Collections. These toys were specifically designed with the popular Kubrick style in mind, which is probably why they are referred to as “box figures.” Volume 1 centered around characters from the N64 game Mario Party 3, while Volume 2 upgraded to the GameCube with a set of Super Mario Sunshine toys. I haven’t been able to find any information about Volume 3, though I assume that it also showcased characters from a newly-released GameCube title (maybe Mario Kart: Double Dash or Luigi’s Mansion?). And finally, we come to Volume 4, which pays tribute to the cel-shaded underdog known as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
These toys were built in a rather unusual way: not only can the arms and legs be manipulated, but the heads can also be swiveled left and right to make the eyes move (a feature that gashapon manufacturers refer to as the “Kyoro Eye System”). The set featured five different figurines that each came with its own collection of adorable little accessories:
- Happy Link with a Hero’s Sword, Hero’s Shield, and a Bomb
- Normal Link with a Hero’s Sword, Hero’s Shield, and a Tingle Tuner
- Angry Link with a Hero’s Sword, Hero’s Shield, a Blue Rupee, and a Red Rupee
- Aryll with a Heart Container and her iconic Telescope
- Tetra with a Green Rupee and a Yellow Rupee
If I understand things correctly, this Wind Waker collection could be purchased two different ways at the time of release: you could buy them one at a time from Japanese vending machines for 200 yen each, or you could bid in online auctions to obtain the entire set. I have no idea how much my mom paid for the collection in 2003, but in the present day, individual figurines are listed for about $30 on eBay, so I think that the entire set could conceivably sell for over $150. Though, as I mentioned in a previous article, I could be a bit reckless with my toys growing up, so the chances are pretty slim that I could ever sell my collection for this much money. All five figurines are missing their little hook hands, Aryll lost a pigtail, Tetra’s head can no longer rotate because the swivel mechanism snapped, and several of the accessories have been misplaced– I’m pretty sure that Aryll’s Telescope is literally just rolling around in my side table drawer.
But even if I could make a small profit from selling this set, I would never even consider giving it away to a new home. They may seem like cheap, goofy little trinkets to the outside observer, but I cannot stress enough the essential role that these toys played in the expansion of my Zelda universe. The SNES and N64 libraries had painted a very clear – and very narrow – picture of what the Legend of Zelda series was all about, and eight-year-old me took it all as gospel. I believed that Link always had to be a stoic hero, with a pensive frown plastered on his face at all times, and that saving Hyrule was always a high-stakes venture with very little room for humor or levity. So these Wind Waker toys rattled the very foundation upon which I had built my vision of the series, and they set my mind ablaze with questions. Why does Link look so wide-eyed and expressive? Is the cute blonde girl supposed to be Zelda? If so, why is she dressed in a simple sundress? And who is the cool pirate with the crazy hairdo? If there are pirates, does that mean that Link can go treasure-hunting and sail on an ocean? This game sounds amazing, how soon can I play it?!
So yeah, I won’t be parting with my collection any time soon. These gashapon toys served as my very first introduction to the colorful, delightfully quirky world within the Great Sea, and they will always be more precious to me than any treasure buried beneath the waves.
(Credit for the featured image goes to Manveri’s Collection.)
The Wind Waker is 20 years old on December 13, 2022! We’re celebrating with dedicated articles throughout the first two weeks of December!
