Taxonomy term | Designer Vinyl Toys & Art Culture | Clutter Magazine | Category | Japan

In Japan there is an art collective that have been installing goldfish tank phone booths on the streets of Osaka. The name of the five member collective is Kingyobu, which translates to "The Goldfish" in English. The tanks/phone booths are interesting, but the installations leave me with a few questions: How long can the tanks last? Are they going to let the fish starve or will they be fed? What about maintenance? And, the main question, why is Kingyobu doing this? 

Photographer Adrian Storey has assembled a series of photographs titled 'Let The Poets Cry Themselves to Sleep'. The series shows people sleeping on the streets of Tokyo. Every city has people sleeping on the street, in doorways & in subways, but this is different. The people in these photos don't look to be down on their luck. Some of them look like they fell asleep on their way home from work. On his website, Adrian says the photo series is "a commentary on Japanese society". 

Check out this incoming Andy Warhol Vinyl Collectible Doll by Japanese masters Medicom. It's about time the legendary pop artist was imortalised in vinyl form - i think he'd probably appreciate the collectible art toy world.

Tokyo Jungle has captured the imagination of import game enthusiasts in recent months, as the Japanese release for PlayStation 3 spotlighted an abandoned Tokyo that's since been taken over by animals, who then fight for survival amidst the urban wreckage.

When the super-sized Nintendo 3DS XL launches in North America this Sunday, we'll only have red/black and blue/black options available for purchase. Japanese gamers have already had their shot at some other colors for the 3DS LL (as it's called over there), and will soon get an even slicker option in the form of the Pikachu Yellow system pictured here (via Andriasang).

San Francisco-based artist Mark Nagata, the owner of Max Toy Co, recently hand-sprayed one of his King Negora sofubi figures with Monster Kolor paints.

Last spring, Lego had a big party to celebrate its 50 year anniversary in Japan. For the "Build Up Japan" celebration, sections of a Lego map were placed in six different regions in Japan where more than 5,000 children built on the base maps. After each Lego island was compleated, they were shipped off to Tokyo to complete the Lego map of Japan. 

We've not heard much toy-wise from James Jarvis, aside from some wooden editions of his Yod character. But this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Amos brand and to celebrate they are opening the AMOS Generic Character Brand Store in Tokyo for a 5 days only.

Inspired by the classic Yakuza aesthetic, Brandt Peters and Ferg's "TroubleBoys No.7 [Drifter]" — which I suspect was at least partially inspired by the 1966 classic Toyko Drifter — has been produced by Playge and will be released today exclusively through Japanese retailer Tomenosuke.

Tamaki from Peter Kato got in touch with us about a new line of resin figures. The Tetsujin Toy Project!