Archive for August, 2008
Today we’ll be taking a look at a number of the company booth that were there at the Wonderfest. First up will be Alter. They are one of the companys in Japan known for constantly releasing high quality figures. You don’t even have to like bisojo figures to appreciate their work that’s how good they are, The pictures talk more about them then anything I can write so take a look at these pictures. Takara Tomy Booth. Had a bit of everything as you would expect. They had some Cool Girl figures as well as the Yatterman stuff they are pushing a lot this year. The ever present Transformers and Votoms toys were of course there representing the mecha side of Takara Tomy. Some of the new Marvel Crossover series were on display. Megahouse Booth: The Black Ride Armor seen in the first picture was one of the event limited items being sold at their booth. As always the best selling Queensblade and One Piece figure series was being featured but many other good looking items were also on display. The Macross Frontier Clan Clan Figure that was showed a few week before was also on display. The figure of Doara the popular Chunich Dragons Mascot was also being pushed. Believe it or not ths figure should be one of the best selling figures this summer. The Revoltech booth by Kaiyodo is next. The new Fist of the North Star line of revoltech’s called “Fist of the North Star Revolution” was being highly pushed as you can tell by the photo’s but there was much much more. Some Hauri stuff as well as other not yet available Revoltech’s such as the Full Metal Panic mecha can also be seen. Good Smile Comapany and Max Factory Booth is next. Two of the best selling figure makers in Japan joined hands in producing there booth. They may be famous for their bisojo PVC figures but they make a few male characters too like the Johnathan Joestar from the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure manga series. Kotobukiya Booth: This one has it all from Eva figures to there newly announced Marvel figures. Wave Booth: CM’s Booth. A lot of their mecha stuff was there on display. More photos will be put up later. Atlier-Sai: Their original Duel Maids series were on display as well as a few odd balls like a Megaman figure. A few more companys will be bunched together as there wasn’t enough photo’s.
On Augest 5 Bandai held a anouncment session for their newest line of robot toys that will be called “Robot Damashi” (Robot Spirit). To be released as part of the Tamashi Nation brand it is aiming to be the next standard in collectable toys. The reason they chose to use robot in the name and not something like Mobile Suit is that not only will it cover Gundam it will cover many other robot and mecha from other series such as Code Geass, Eureka Seven and Macross Frontier. Before we start there are various rumors about the Bandai main headquaters that are always out there. I can personally confim at least one but more on that later. First let us take a look at what it looks like from the outside. Yes this is what the headquarters of one of the largets toy companys in the world looks like. As you can see from the photos it was raining so some of the character are wearing their very own raincoat that was tailor made to fit them. They don’t wear their raincoats when it’s not raining of course which means that there’s someone in the building who’s in charge of putting them on whenever it starts raining. Ok the rumor about the Bandai headquarters that I was talking about earlier is that the elevaters there talk using the voices of various anime characters. I didn’t believe it too but now I can personally confirm this rumor. The elevater I used was the Amuro Ray elevater and while it wasn’t that loud you could tell it was Amuro telling you that you were on the third floor!! Ok Here how the session went. We were in the third row right behind the press so we had a pretty good view of everything. They showed a short movie before the President of Bandai Kazunori Ueno , a postion that is called CGO (Chief Gundam Officer), made the announcement of the name of the new line. The curtains come and out comes the Robot Damasi Logo with a large picture of the Gundam that will be the first product to be released in the middle!! What is the concept for Robot Damashi? Here’s the movie they showed about it. It shoul combine the good parts of plastic models with new methods of manufacturing that are used in there to Chogokin Damasi series to make a collectable figure that will look much closer to the original mold. They are calling it a combination of Hybrid Modeling and Hybrid Materials. Next the two mecha designers Ebikawa and Yanase who did the mecha designs for the new Gundams from the soon to air “Gundam OO Second Series” were introduced and their new designs were shown on the screen. The next speaker was Harutoshi Fukui the best selling author of the “Gundam Unicorn” novel series as well a such novels as “Lorelei The Witch of the Pacific Ocean”. A well knowned Gundam freak he talked about the new toy line and the possibility it had to change the market. Next was the detailed marketing plan for the new line. I won’t post most of them but a photo that may be of interest is the second one that features the release schedule for the new line. The design for the package can also be seen in the third photo. Following a speach by the president the sesion was over and everyone there rushed to the table in the back to check out the new toys and take pictures of them. First there were a few tables that explained the history of Bandai robot toys. The tables explaining about Robot Damashi was next. There was also a example of how the Robot Damashi series would look when it was placed in a store. Finally we get to the toys. First as this is Bandai the Gundam stuff will be up first. All four of the new Gundam OO mecha’s were shown of course but to show it won’t be just about the new stuff Turn X a mecha from “Turn A Gundam” series was also on display. Next will be the Code Geass mecha toys. Last was the Macross Frontier and Eureka Seven items. A uncolored sample of the VF-25 Messiah was on display. The retail price for the items have yet to be announced but as they as collectable toys they shouldn’t be too expensive I would believe.
This will be a report on the products that were on display at the Yamato booth. There were various item such as the VF-1D two seater , Destroid Defender, Patlabor Ingram and 60 cm China Dress Minmay Figure that were on display but there will be no photos of them as it was not allowed. Lets starts for a change with some photo’s of the non mecha things Yamato is making. The two figures in the first picture are part of their Creaters Labo series. Next are the popular character from Shugo Chara! anime series. They will be released begining in November. The new figure series that Yamato is currently pushing is the Moe Moe Block series that allow you to combine parts from different characters to make your own figure like you would do with lego parts. A example of what you can do with these parts can be seen with the Hyper Armor Block that can be seen in the fourth photo.
The PVC figure section included the following items. A Yuria Hyakusiki doll that is selling well in Japan, a Nasbi character designed by the artist Okama and the newest from their SIF EX series a figure of Isejima Aya from Zetai Syougeki series. We should have a review of the Nasubi figure up on this blog soon.
Now to the mecha section. As photos of most of the new items wasn’t allowed there wasn’t a lot of stuff to write about but the enemy from the Bubble Gum Crises series that is available from Yamato as part of their mail in offer was on display and though it is tiny looked really good. A review of the Danguard A should be up on our blog in a few days.
Last but not least is the fantasy section of Yamato. Monsters from the popular in Japan “Monster Hunter” game series are being released and now they are getting into bisyojo figures in fantasy too. I’ll be putting up a post on the other company booths tommorow so don’t forget to check them out too.
The summer Wonderfest 2008 was held at the Tokyo Big Sight on Sunday Augest 3 on a hot and humid day in the summer. First I’d like to talk about the escalater incident which you may or may not have heard of. Click here for more details in English. To tell you the truth it happened right in front of me and scared the heck out of everyone who was in the building. I hope everyone who got hurt recovers from injuries quickly and the people at the Big Sight and Wonderfest make sure something like this never happens again. Now on to the report. I’ll be writing about what a day spent at Wonderfest is like. The items seen at wil be picked up on another post. This is mostly a report on what’s it like to go there. I got to the Big Sight at around 8AM and already the tempature was close to 34 °C (Around 94 °F) with the humidity really really high. The train station in the photo is the Kokusai Tenji Jou Station ( International Exhibit Hall) which I used to get there. Though the Big Sight can be seen in the distance and may seem close it’s actually a 10 minute walk to get there. That Star Wars battleship kinda looking thing you see in the third photo is where we’re going. The scary thing about this Wonderfest was that despite the heat and humidity the lines were a lot longer then the lines for the winter Wonderfest. The first photo was where the line curved and went in a different direction. In the end the story was that the line got two train stations long before the event started. I know it looks like a refuge camp but don’t worry it gets worse once you climb that stairs you can see in the distance. We’re now at the stairs you saw before. This is believe it or not around the halfway point and there are still tons of people in line above us. A look behind tells you how long the lines are.
A few minutes later the first sign that shows this is actually the Wonderfest can be seen. Of course we’re not quite there yet so there are people still in line. About 800 crazy people usually get in line the night before the event so most of the people you see here probably have spent the night in line. Finally we’re inside and looking down on the company booths that were set up in the center. As it hadn’t started yet it’s not crowded yet but once the doors open you can bet it’s going to be a jungle in here. I’ll be doing a detailed company booth report later so check out that for what they had at each booth.? Ever wonder what’s it like to get in line for a event limited item? The first photo is what the CM’s booth looked before the show started. You may notice the pile of Ride Armors that are on the table that’s a part of what they were selling this year. The second and third photo were taken when I was in line to get them for a few friends. It took around 15 minutes from once we got in line till we got to buy the actual item. After the event I didn’t take too many photo’s of the crowd but the few I took looked like this. The first was taken at the Gurren Lagann booth around 30 minutes after the doors opened. How peaceful it looked when it wasn’t so crowded can be seen in the first photo of the now I’m inside section above. The second and third were taken around 1PM at the amature section when the crowd is at their worst. As a bit of humor I took a photo of the vending machine there at around noon. Already most of the drinks were sold out and guess what was remaining? You guested it a few cans of coffee and a energy drink were all that were left. In the end coffee won the war and officially was declared the drink you don’t want most when you are dehydrating. I may sound like I’m joking but it was that hot and sweaty I may add. I’ll be putting up posts each day from the Wonderfest covering everything from the company booths to the Godzilla hand puppet that was seen at our booth at AX so don’t miss it.
This will be a simple list of items that have been put on our web site https://www.over-drive-inc.com/store/login.php?osCsid=a737a39702c68db5ae25aa6cd95db957 If you find something interesting please click on the link below to go http://www.over-drive-inc.com/store/default.php July 26 to Augest 1 2008 New Item List Fist of the North Star Revolution #1 Kensiro Fist of the North Star Revolution #2 Zeed Gang Member Nedroid Shana (Flame haired red eyed version) 1/7 Seto Sun Human Mage 1/12 D-Wheels (Yusei version) Omae wo Sinjiro! T-Shirt (Black) Omae wo Sinjiro! T-Shirt (Red) InuYasa T-Shirt Hinagiku Katsura Hugging Pillow Cover Shana Coat Movie Masterpiece – 1/6 Scale Fully Poseable CosBaby Iron Man (Assortment) Kubrick No.242 BE?RBRICK Kubrick No.241 BE?RBRICK Real Action Heroes #424 Batman (The Dark Knight Suit) Real Action Heroes #416 Batman (Batman Begins Suit) Real Action Heroes #417 Joker Real Action Heroes #415 Piccolo Progect BM! #19 Masked Rider Nega Den-o Nendroid Kagamine Rin Nendroid Kagamine Len Ryomou Shimei 60cm Doll Figure Full Metal Panic Colectable Figure Box 1/5 Yoko PVC Fiigure Pantera Berlinetta
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