Our World Hobby Festival Ariake 17 coverage continues with a look at what the official industry presence had to offer at the event, as well as what I took away from it personally. Includes what may be an HD exclusive look at the original resin cast of Orchid Seed’s Tsuzuki Shiori, with hopes that it bodes well for the PVC! Needless to say, this post is not safe for work.











As our report of the previous iteration of WHF Ariake explains, the event catalog is necessary to gain admittance to the venue (cheap at 1,000 yen), and if you want to take pictures you need to register your camera and pick up a sticker/badge. Prior to picking up the badge I roamed around a bit in search of loot, my first stop being Hikouki Dake wa Kanben na, who didn’t show up, and my second stop being Vispo, who didn’t show up either. It’s some consolation in Vispo’s case that he spent the day sculpting his new Yoko kit instead.
Next I swung around to circle Cherry Blossom, who was being swarmed by one of the longest queues in the hall for their Konata and Kagami figures. I decided to stop back again later, as I was aiming for the Toria original Nanbu Tsukasa kit and guessed from past experience that it likely wouldn’t sell out. As I wandered away from Cherry Blossom I came upon what for me was the amazing surprise of the event: a phenomenal Queen’s Blade Menace kit by circle Komotsu-Tei. A painted sample wasn’t available at the event but the lines of the sculpt were extraordinary and the price was right, so I snapped it up… pictures of the prototype coming in the next post.
The third kit I picked up was the resin version of Orchid Seed’s Witchblade Tsuzuki Shiori. I picked her up despite the announcement of her PVC conversion primarily because I was curious about her castoffability, and didn’t want to risk missing the chance to pick up a castoffable version of the kit if the PVC turns out not to be. As the pictures above reveal, the original sculpt is very deliberately detailed beneath her bikini top, and while of course we don’t know what Orchid will do in the PVC version the potential for something really nice is definitely there. :3
A trend I’ve been noticing at figure events recently is that the most popular circles are less able to produce kits for sale at these events because their production schedules are full with PVCs. The ballooning of the PVC market means that a lot of circles are being co-opted into the industry relatively quickly, thus starving the resin market of some of its most talented artists; whether this will ultimately have any real impact on the resin scene is unknown, but there are only so many A-rank sculptors out there. A case in point from this event is Tandem Twin, who was unable to produce a new kit for the even because he was busy sculpting the prototype for his new Doubutsu Nee-chan PVC coming from Yamato, as seen below:
Wafuudou Ganguten
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Art Road
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Yamato
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Keumaya
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Orchid Seed
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The only real news here that hasn’t been reported yet are the three new items on showcase from Yamato: their Air Gear Ringo, Yuria Hyaku-shiki Yuria, and Doubutsu Nee-chan Inu B. All three were on display here for the first time, with price and release details undisclosed. We’ll be keeping an eye out for further word on all of these from Yamato.
Thanks for the wonderful uncensored pics, especially of Shiori. Hopefully, the castoff is retained for the PVC version of this meter maid. 8)
Nice, the ones from Yamato definitely looks worth keeping an eye on. I can already see my money going bye-bye because of ’em ^^;;
Those boobs in picture #10 would make a great keychain ^_^
Yamato has been really impressing me of late. Same can be said for Alter’s latest figures.
Your pics of Komotsu-Tei’s Menace on your last post left me drooling and wishing for a PVC version (not to mention more pics)!
Like you said, those are some really magnificent lines; what else have they done?
oh man I’m mighty impressed by the Ringo figure!
Hmmmmmm…….I like the Tandem Twin figure, but again she is an old resin sculpt. But her chest wasn’t near as big as this one.
Gonna have to keep my eye out for that one.
Thanx for the pics Shingo!
Extremely interested in the 3 from Yamato, and I love that 1 is a Zenko (Yuria), 1 is an Essence (Ringo) and 1 is a Tandem Twin. 3 top-tier sculptors, all of whom have worked with Yamato before, with good results.
Personally, as someone with no chance of ever getting to an event to get legit resin kits, that also knows full well I’d either fuck them up or never built them even if I did, I’m all for the best sculptors working on PVCs. At least PVCs I can get and afford. Though I hope that more of the greats settle into a groove so that they can still be productive when it comes to turning out new sculpts. Zenko’s got it down, Tandem Twin seems a little slow, but at the same time the revisions he’s doing to the old GKs to make them into great PVCs are worth the time, me thinks. For anyone that hasn’t seen the difference in Alma:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/1167645301/yamato_pcv_inu017.jpg
Rather taken by a few of these. Glad I’ve got the Nao by Orchid Seed on preorder (the both of them), and can’t wait for the Yamato ones..
Anybody knows the name of the character in pics 04.jpg and 05.jpg and what show/game/whatever she’s from? That figure looks gorgeous.