Epoch gashapon Nyanko Kitchen review!

When I first heard of this line of capsule toys by Epoch, the company that makes Sylvanian Families, I was instantly curious. I recently got the chance to buy both the red and blue sets on ebay, and I found them quite impressive. I wanted to do a quick review of the sets, focusing on how they scale with Sylvanians.

I used the easy buy mothers and sisters, since they will run the café/ bakery in my town. I used some furniture from the houseboat to show the scale with Sylvanian furniture. I expected them to be a bit large, as most of these miniatures are made to fit 1/6th scale dolls like licca-chan and pullips. But Sylvanians with their large heads and chibi proportions are pretty forgiving scale-wise.
I bought the full sets, so they arrived in plastic baggies with papers that list the items that come in each set. Here’s the red set:

And the blue set:

Here is a better look at both papers:

The sets are pretty similar, so I’ll present the two similar items from each set at a time. The first are the red jelly and blue chocolate sets.

Both the mixing bowls are full of little balls that you can move around by stirring with the spoon. The static makes the balls stick to the sides, though, so they’re floating most of the time.
The chocolate comes with a mold and three chocolates, one cat head and two paws.

The jelly has a cat head mold and a jelly. It looks quite nice.

The whisk has a cat head on the handle. It cannot be removed from the bowl, and the bowl lid does not come off. The bowl is too large for a Sylvanian to reach on a table.

It is a good size for an adult figure to hold, around the edges, with some sticky tack.

The next sets are the plate sets, the red French toast and honey and blue pancake and syrup. The utensils are just a bit bigger than Sylvanian utensils (but they cannot be held in open hands) but the plates are huge!

I like how the pancake and French toast are detailed on the back as well. The pancake even has a ‘lip’ along the side.

I assume the bottles represent honey and syrup, due to the colors. They look like little cats in tuxedoes.

The bottle has a translucent rod that comes out when it is tipped over, so it looks like honey or syrup pouring.

This is how far it extends.

The backs of the bottles have little tails, and the utensils have the same cat heads as the whisk, with molded eyes and nose.

Next are the red pan and pancake, and blue pan and egg. The pancake from the red set is darker than the pancake from the blue plate set.

The pan is a bit large on a Sylvanian stove, but it can sit unaided. Sticky tack on the bottom helps. The spatula is almost ridiculously long for them, though.

The cat heads on every handle, again:

The spatula doesn’t look too bad sitting in the sink.

The egg is one of my favorite pieces of the set. Look at the burning on the back! You can also see that the pan is very tall. Below the black part are probably balls like the candy sets, and maybe some grooves, so when you shake the pan, it makes a sizzling sound.

Next are the coffee sets. They are identical other than the colors of the coffeepot, spoons, and mugs.

The coffee insert has a little dip for the whipped cream cat head.

The cream is so cute, I love its chubby cheeks. I find the paw prints on the saucer a little busy though, maybe if they were smaller?

There is a little bubble in the coffee insert.

The coffeepot has a tube like the syrup, so it can ‘pour’ coffee. The pot is way too large for Sylvanians to reasonably hold it, however.

Next are the red waffle iron and blue bagel maker sets. Here is a place where I definitely prefer the red set. The bagels are pretty nice shape:

Here is the browned bagel on a Sylvanian plate. I don’t like the spotty screened marks, I would have preferred it without them.

The browned waffle on a Sylvanian plate. I love the texture and coloration.

The waffle and bagel makers look quite realistic. I failed to take a picture of the tops, but they have a cat face on them.

The tongs are another piece that are too big for Sylvanians to hold well. I have lots of Sylvanian tongs, though.

With a little sticky tack, you can do the ‘waffle sticking to top of iron’ trick. All you need now are little bits of foam for the waffle breaking apart.

The tongs have paw shapes on them.

The items fit nicely into the irons when closed. The bottoms of the irons are rounded, and have no feet, so they have a tendency to spin around or slide if not sticky tacked down.

Finally, the cookie sets. These are also nearly identical.
The baked cookies are realistically browned.

There is a sheet of dough with a cat head removed and a cat pressed in, a cat head cookie cutter and imprint, and a rolling pin. The blue set rolling pin is slightly darker.

The cookie imprint is the only piece that can fit into open hands.

The cookie cutter fits neatly between the removed cookie and the hole in the sheet of dough. There’s also a cute little pawprint.

One extra thing, on the papers that came with the sets, there are two little napkins to cut out. They’ll need a little trimming to look even. I like the spotted napkin from the red set best.

I wanted to end with a recommendation of my preferred set. It’s pretty easy to compare them, due to the similarity. So here goes:
Candy set: red, narrowly
Plate set: blue, narrowly
Pan set: blue
Coffee set: tie
Waffle iron set: red
Cookie set: tie
Napkins: red
Overall : blue, probably biased because I like the color blue.
Though, it’s great to have both, so you can mix and match. So, which do you guys prefer?