While most people might deem having toys as a very childish hobby, you would just change your mind when you see this. Introducing Tomica, one of the toys that has existed over 40 years. It is very similar to Hotwheels and Matchbox. The only difference is that, most of the cars in Tomica are based on real life cars, mostly JDM vehicles. There are other American and European car models in the mix, though very rare like the Lamborghini Gallardo, Lamborghini Reventon, Mini Cooper, Hummer, Jeep Wrangler and so on.
So building a town like Sim City is one of your quest? Your prayers has been answered in a the form of a miniature scale. Tomica Town has existed about 30 years in a form of miniature building sets, that could be interlinked to form a large township. You could build the town however you want it, the way you want it, arranged the layout you want it to be.
I started my first purchase of Tomica, when my friend told me that there's a Nissan Dealership building for sale. I always wanted a miniature toy dealership shop. When I first gotten hold of the toy, I unpacked it from the box, read the manuals and slowly attached the decals/stickers to the toy building. I must say, the building looks pretty real if it you knew how to use a good camera, point and snap at it.
These toys were available from Jusco and Parkson, as these toys were brought in by the local distributor, Litt Tak. These sets retail between RM49.90 to RM69.90. I am not directly affiliated with them, but I must say, they've done a good job bringing in these toys. Sadly, they didn't know how to promote their products. Tomica is doing quite successfully outside of Malaysia, where it is a quite popular toy to be played in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, China, Singapore and the United States. I wish they did more advertising on them, so the general public is more aware of them.
There is another product that fits into the Tomica world, which is the Pla-rail series. Both range of toys, created by the Takara Tomy company, can be interlinked in both worlds. You could build networks of train lines and run many locomotives on the track you build. Your imagination is the only thing holding back your creativity in this case. Trains can go for metres around your bedroom. There is an active Pla-rail community in Malaysia, so check it out. Log In | Facebook
Slowly my addiction grew so much, I was just buying every building there is in the catalog books. I was even buying some obsolete models of the 1980s and the 1990s, to actually fit into my town. These buildings added realism to the town. Soon I was having some proper miniature restaurants in my town, like McDonald's , Yoshinoya, 7 Eleven, Mister Donut and other food chains. I was really building a fully functional town with police stations, fire stations and a hospital. My showroom collection grew as well, I added a Toyota and Honda dealership later on to the town.
Soon I realised what I was missing in township. While I had a subway line with a subway locomotive, I was lacking a proper Shinkansen
(Bullet train) line from the mix. I bought the N700 locomotive from eBay as it was not locally available. Adding that locomotive made it look like a proper Japanese city.
Since my city wasn't lit up at night, I decided to buy some LED lamp poles from Jusco. They were not cheap, as they were about RM39.90 for a box of 3 lamp poles. I've bought about 10 boxes, so I have about 30 units of the lamp posts.
The city looks pretty good at night now. I brought my friend over and he came with a Nikon D300 DSLR camera. He managed to capture and give a surreal feel to the town. From a glance this looked like a photo snapped from a plane above, but in reality, these are just toys. The lighting and the mood was just perfect, it was as real as you could imagine until you put your eyes closer to it and notice it a few times.
Overall, I spent about more than RM2000 on the toys. Some might see it as a waste of money, however if you know you are spending it correctly and doing constructive things with that money, then certainly it is not a waste. I believe I've created one of the most functional Tomica towns in Malaysia, that looked proper with roadways and layout. If there is another person out there who could trump this, feel free to show your set. Check out the few videos below of my functioning town set, with running trains and traffic lights.