だんごむし　|　Dangomushi

Originally posted: 10th January 2026

Another banger from Bandai is the Dangomushi series (だんごむし) of Gashapon collectible figures. In Japanese, "dangomushi" normally refers to an isopod - it literally means ball-shaped bug. The figures are mainly styled after isopods and their many species and morphs, but sometimes other insects such as beetles, and even other types of animals like armadillos and tortoises are included in this series.

If you don't know what Gashapon means, they are normally small, affordable toys and models that you can buy from vending machines, and they are packaged in ball-shaped capsules. The main selling point of the Dangomushi series is that they don't actually come in a capsule like other Gashapon, they ARE they capsule. The figures are able to physically be rolled into a ball shape, just like some species of real isopods!

The series was originally conceptualised by Honda Tsuneyuki who wanted to expand upon his previous capsule-less design of Gashapon series and took inspiration from already ball-shaped isopods. The series is incredibly successful, and there are many subsequent series of Dangomushi figures, featuring dozens of colours, morphs, and designs for the bug models.

Dangomushi are highly collectable, and I think that's because they are easy to create new designs for. They're also really fun to handle, I know because I actually own some!

I only own these three Dangomushi, but I'd love to collect more in future, right now I have the Realistic, Clear Orange, and Green Beetle models. The Isopod models seem to be mainly based on species of Armadillidium Vulgare, although I've also seen pictures of Armadillidae Cubaris based gashapon models as well. The green beetle model I have seems to be based on the Ceratocanthus Aeneus species of beetles.

I often find myself playing with these Dangomushi models at my desk while I'm waiting for something, it's really fun to roll them up and unroll them again. All of the individual legs can pivot, and their antennae can also be moved. The isopod legs and antennae are some sort of rubberised material, so they're a bit softer than the hard plastic body. The beetle model (part of the same series, see image above) is so satisfying to roll into a ball, as it all perfectly fits together when it has been rolled up.

I really want to get the Rubber Ducky and Magic Potion coloured isopod models in future! Some of them can be really expensive because of the rarity factor a lot of gashapon series employ.

I got most of my information about the original creation of these figures from Bandai's article about them, you can read it here. It's all in Japanese, so I had to rely on Google translate to get a decent idea of what the article was getting across, unfortunately Google translate isn't very good at translating Japanese, but I still got some interesting information from the article.