We wrap up our coverage of World Hobby Festival Ariake 17 today with a look at all the other great stuff that didn’t make it into the earlier posts. Contains a run down of garage kits in the following categories: Anime / Manga, Game, Group, Misc., and Ero (18+). I believe most of the miscellaneous kits are originals, but there are probably a few anime and game ones that I wasn’t able to source; if you can correct me on any of these it would be much appreciated. On to the gallery!
Anime / Manga
Game
Group
Miscellaneous
Ero (18+)
And that’s a wrap. The next figure event we’re likely to cover in person is Wonder Festival 2008 Winter on February 24th, so stay tuned! Just two short months away…
I’m just wondering Shingo, will some of these kits be remade and sold out outside the convention? I tend to find a lot of them never make it to the online outlets.
Desu spotted. WANT..
That sasara looks sweet.
Thanks Shingo for the pics. Now I got some reference on how to display figures at booth :)
>>Optical
That’s because the online outlets are triad mafia pirates and they don’t have enough peg-legged staff to buy up all of the kits at events like this so they can bring them back to their volcano lairs outside Hong Kong and create forgeries designed to plunge daggers into the hearts of starving Japanese artists and deprive them of the one bowl of instant ramen a day they subsist on while sculpting these kits.
Put another way:
Sculptors are not allowed by original copyright holders to sell these kits outside of the one day, limited license system in place at events such as WHF and Wonder Festival. Original kits are another question altogether, and many sculptors sell their originals year round online, but “parody” works based on popular anime and games require explicit approval to be sold.
With that knowledge, you’ll know that any kit you see at an “online outlet” is an unauthorized forgery. The original artist isn’t receiving a single yen from the sale of the kit; that money instead goes to organizations with very loose ethics that may be funded by organized crime.
While this is the only way to obtain some kits, I hope HD readers will think seriously about whether that’s the sort of organization they want to support when they purchase a bootlegged kit. I live in hope that eventually legitimate avenues for purchase of these items will open up beyond the borders of Japan, but until then I can’t help but disapprove of organizations making money illegally off the hard work of others.
That’s just my personal position and I understand there are other points of view on the subject, which I can certainly respect. I don’t disparage anyone who chooses to purchase from these shops, I just hope they know what they’re doing when they do so. ^^;;
My my some really nice stuff there, here’s hoping some of it gets PVC incarnations.
>>Shingo
Any major events after WFW2008? Say sometime in April or May?
>>Y
Hobby Complex 03 Tokyo is on April 6th and WHF Ariake 18 is on May 5th… I’m not sure whether I’ll be at either of them at this point, though Hobby Complex is slightly more likely (if I recall correctly there are a few other events going down on May 5th that might be higher priority). No firm plans in that regard yet, though.
Nice stuff in there!! Wow! Thanx for the great pix Shingo!!
Wow, I’d love to see that Yggdra Union figure get a PVC release.
PVCify that QB Menace, Megahouse. That’s the best pose I’ve seen of her. And I 100% believe it will sell out like hot saki in winter. 8D
You promised me a Kaede.
I cannot find her ;__;
Wow much nice things together can`t see ^_^ .But please Shingo in the next conventions take some photos not only from the girls(pvc,resin etc) but also of the ships robots,i`ve seen in one of the photos a part from a ship of the game Silpheed but alas no photo : (
That chick with the blade wings looks freaking awesome. Except that I can’t see her other leg in any of those three pictures.
And do I see some Touhou? I think I do! Too bad those ones really don’t appeal to me, but I’m glad to see that there’s a big enough fanbase for it.
The Rozen Maiden group is pretty impressive in its detail.
Well said, Shingo. Spread the word.
What is touhou?
Hi Shingo, thanks for the photos you had taken during your trip to World Hobby Festival Ariake 17! It’s always good to get the latest update from your website! It’s so fortunate to be in Japan to be able to attend such fair everytime. Too bad there isn’t any here in SG. Btw, may I know are all the figures shown here Resin or PVC? E.g. under the game category photo No. 19 & under the ERO (18+) category photo No. 17, are they Resin or PVC?
@Dan: Touhou is a series of vertical-scrolling shmups (“bullet hell” games) that are massively popular in the doujin scene. The fan community in Japan has apparently grown to the point where there was a Touhou-centric convention earlier this year.
Check out touhouwiki for more info, or take a look at some gameplay vids if you want to get an idea of how crazy the bullet patterns are.
That Saber one is THE figure I’d die to get in PVC form! I just love the action involved in it! ^^
>>Cheez
I think so too! I’m trying to figure out where she is from… though the outfit makes me think “Alice in Wonderland” thoughts. Though its listed under ‘Games’. Maybe that old, darker PC game by McGee.
Anyway, great pics!
>>Wildarmsheero
My bad, I’m terribly sorry. I had mistaken Asa for Kaede (a cardinal sin, I know). I can only pray for your forgiveness. ;_;
>>dexeni
I figure since I’m in the position to go to these events I should try to document them as well as I possibly can, for those unable to go themselves.
That said, I’ve deliberately limited the scope of my investigation to bishoujo figures; partially out of preference and partially because there just isn’t enough room in my brain (or flash memory card) to encompass all of the awesome ships, mecha, and other vehicles out there. Even if I did have the room, I’m not sure I’d have the time to really do them justice. I apologize for the lack of comprehensiveness in this respect, but I hope the detail in which I’m able to cover HD’s specialty subjects makes up for it somewhat.
>>serogane
Thanks, I’ll try, though I don’t want to be pushy about it… I try to bring it up when the subject arises, but that’s about it. No sense in alienating other like-minded figure fans who differ just on a single issue, right?
>>Dan
I think cheez sums it up pretty well. Thanks cheez!
>>Deibi Manabu
That figure was really hard to shoot given the dynamic pose and black background. Hopefully it’ll be on display again at a future event when I can tackle it with better equipment or in better lighting conditions.
>>Tan
You can find more information about Touhou here, if that’s what you were wondering about.
I really like that Cutey Honey figure. I’m not into CH but that figure has something aobut it I like.
Took me a while but I finally recognise the 18th picture in the ero category as the recreation of the(in)famous Hokusai woodblock print art titled “Dream of a Fisherman’s Wife’
Shingo, you didn’t have a spare copy of that resin kit, do you? Guess I have to go auction site hunting, or worse, go look for a bootleg copy…