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.

>>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. ^^;;

>>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.

Wow, I’d love to see that Yggdra Union figure get a PVC release.

You promised me a Kaede.

I cannot find her ;__;

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.

What is touhou?

@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.

>>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!

I really like that Cutey Honey figure. I’m not into CH but that figure has something aobut it I like.