Worlds Within Worlds...

Laura pointed out this great link, a gallery of some of the vending machines in Japan. Everything from eggs, to toys, to fishing, to toilet paper, to fried foods. Basically they have vending machines for almost everything and they appear everywhere. Click on the image for Kids Toys, which despense plastic eggs of "gashapon". Little figures from various anime and games. If you look closely, that picture shows Lupin III, Sailor Moon, Godzilla, Namco, Initial D, and Chobits among others. There are even some stores devoted to those machines. You could fill up your house with tiny figures. :) As for the infamous machine at the very end, it is true that they did exist, but I think I read that they were recently outlawed for sanitation reasons...