Character Toy Museum opens in Yokohama

Character toys ranging from Astro Boy and Masked Rider to Disney and Star Wars are all on display in the world’s first character-toy museum called Yokohama Character Toys Specialist Museum. The museum opened recently at “Cross Gate” in Sakuragicho, Yokohama City. The exhibits occupy four floors, displaying 40,000 items from the famous 100,000 item collection of Teruhisa Kitahara. Various character goods including figures, capsule toys and prototypes from antique to modern are all on display. The collection even includes food packages featuring well known characters. The rarest and most valuable item in the museum is probably the “curtain from the Tokiwa apartment.” This character-decorated curtain was hand painted by various manga artists including Osamu Tezuka (creator of Tetsuwan Atom/Astro Boy), Fuijio Fujiko (creator of Doraemon) and Shotaro Ishinomori (creator of Cyborg 009) when they were living and working together in the now famous “Tokiwa apartment.” The museum is open 365 days a year, from 10:00 – 20:00. Admission is 700 yen for adults and 400 yen for children.

Source: AniMaxis