GUNPLA
In April of 1979, the first episode of one of Japan's major cultural phenomena aired, that being Mobile Suit Gundam. It had a rocky start , with most people expecting a more combat oriented anime with massive robots. Instead, what they got was a drama centered around said robots, with realistic emotions and such. However, Gundam's ratings began to increase as soon as Bandai, a toy company at the time, bought the rights to the series, providing plastic model kits that were very easy to put together. Due to this ease in use, the plastic model kits helped sell the series as a whole, allowing for even more spin-offs and sequels to come out. The cycled back to more model kits being available to be bought and sold, and GUNPLA (Gundam Plastic Models) became a lucrative business . I first got into GUNPLA through my friend. He was super into the main series and building the model kits of the robots from it, and consistently sent me updates as he finished kits, despite me not