By Lisa Hix — If I told you I knew of a middle-aged man who’s devoted to creating a miniature World War II village, you’d probably shrug. It’s a little nerdy, but so what? If I mentioned he was staging elaborate battles with action figures and photographing them, you might think he was a little childish, or possibly an avant-garde artist. But if I put it to you like this: A grown man has spent 14 years building an elaborate imaginary world in his backyard for his collection of Barbie-scale dolls that...

Attack of the Vintage Toy Robots! Justin Pinchot on Japan’s Coolest Postwar Export

By Lisa Hix — Everyone is always looking for the next big thing. In the 1960s, it was going into space. In the '40s and '50s, the frontier was technology, with a particular focus on "What's going to make our lives easier?" For the very first time, you had cars with automatic-transmissions, automatic washing machines, and perpetually cooling refrigerators. I mean, we were coming out of an era when you scrubbed your clothes on a washboard and cooled your icebox with a big block of ice. Even the first...