Plush Jabba the Hutt Prize for Japanese Crane Games/Claw Machines
I stumbled upon this when doing a random search of Amazon Japan. I hadn’t heard anything about it, and decided to order it right away — especially since it was only 800 yen, or less than $8. Unfortunately, Amazon Japan is picky about what it will send to the US, so I had to use a buying service that buys things from Japanese sites and sends them on to you.
This thing is huge! It measures roughly 14″ tall by 19″ wide. When it arrived, I was surprised to see that the label said that it was actually a prize used in Japanese arcades. In fact, it’s made by SEGA! Crane games and similar types of machines are extremely common in Japanese arcades — in fact I would say they make up the majority of the machines in the typical arcade. Here’s a photo I found on Instagram of some of these in a machine:
It doesn’t quite show you how you played the game, but this video I found of someone playing a crane game online (!) should give you an idea. I’m totally sure I would’ve paid way more to try and win this if I had found it in person — in fact I don’t think I’ve ever won anything from a claw machine in my entire life.
Speaking of videos, I made one about this item if you’re interested:
