Sunday, February 6, 2011

Wonder Festival 2011 (Winter) / ワンダーフェスティバル 2011[冬]

Wonder Festival is the mother of all Japanese toy shows. With hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of toys across dozens of genres, it's a numbers game that leaves your head spinning and feet aching. An average of 40,000 fans attend the event, vying for mouth watering exclusives from their favorite companies.
Wonder Festival is held at the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, which is to the east of Tokyo.
Wonderfest this way....
This is Kaiju Korner's biggest coverage ever. After the jump, we've got 300 photos for you. Let's go....

Gargamel:

The next four shots feature the day's releases:







Gargamel Gachapon!
Butanohana:

Today's releases
 
 Denboku:
This was a super popular booth.





Linden:



Bullmark:


M1:



M1 also had lucky bags, but they didn't last long. A number of people went in line over and over. I spotted one guy with 4 bags.


Amapro:



Amapro also pased out leaflets announcing the next Pachisummit, to be held this June.

Dream Rockets:
These amazing Gibazas were painted by a number of artists.


Pico Pico



Sunguts

Sunguts
Nerd One:
Chaos Stereo with resin eyes. Limited to 12.
Dr Strange Toys:

Ilanena:
Ilanena's gorgeous rendition of Velocitron's Larvagon
 Ilanena 10th Anniversary Dai Kaiju Card Monsters show preview:
This show is going to rock!!
Sucklord
Irene Fu
Paul Kaiju
Velocitron:






Ricky's amazing Star Wars themed custom for the Ilanena show. Super appropriate as Ilanena is a huge Star Wars fan. (Just check out the font for his logo!)
Ricky's custom for Mark Nagata's Alien Argus show.
Fig Lab and friends:

Kumon


Callgrim
Really love this display.


Kikake:



US Toys:


Today's releases
Shikaruna:
New anime line releases:



Upcoming figures in the anime line:



Yamomark:






Pico Pico and Sunguts:


This resin piece debuted at a show at the Billiken Gallery the other week.




He was hopping around like this for a while!











Restore:





Breaking news on Restore's sofubi plans: His first figure may be released as early as this month!

Max Toy Co:

Dream Rockets paint #1
Dream Rockets paint #2
Mark Nagata design.


Scheduled to be released at the Max Toy 5th Anniversary show in April.

One Up:


CCP:






Cosmo Knight Alpha:


TTToys:


GG'R:
First time I've seen this outfit. They do really nice work!

 Daimos:


Love this Godzilla!!
Three Family Modelers and Kusiya:
Met these great guys today! Such good spirits and amazing resin and mechanical work.
Remote controlled!!!!

Mega articulated resin figure!!
Medicom:





threeA Exhibition:



How 2 Work:


Kotobukiya:



Revoltech:





They had a table where you could play with the toys. The articulation on these figures is mind blowing!
Prince of Pirates:


More Kaiju:










Garage Kits:









One of my favorite pieces from the show.

Sculptures and busts:







Miniatures:



Mecha:
It really walks!!



Kaiju puppetry and animatronics:
This master puppeteer has created a smoke breathing Godzilla!


Mothra is on strings. The puppeteer made it fly. Looks fantastic.


Kaiyodo Hobby Museum Exhibition:
This museum is slotted to open on 4/29/2011






The Last Kappa Exhibition:
This exhibition contained a number of artists' interpretations of Kappa. Really nice display.







Toy dealers:





Cosplay:


 





Try and fit that in the overhead compartment.
 



Live performances:


This group had the crowd rockin'!
 Crowds and lines:



It's hard to overstate how massive Makuhari Messe is. WF is in THREE rooms the size of jumbo jet hangers!
Misc:



Dude was a walking studio!






Someone gave Real Head's Fortune Cat the gem treatment!

Okamoto Taro minis!
Dice game. Contestants climbed onto the stage and rolled for prizes!






Well, that's all for this year's Winter Wonder Festival. Thanks for reading!

9 comments:

krakit said...

Man oh man, Andy!
Your coverage of
Winter Wonder Fest rocks!

I really appreciate seeing
the festival/convention
even if I'm unable to buy
one single treasure there.
It's very inspiring to see
the creations of so many
talented people.

Bob Conge said...

Hi Andy, Thanks for the tour. Bob / Plaseebo

andy b said...

Thanks guys. It was quite an event! Though I focused on the sofubi, I wanted to give a taste of the other stuff out there. Just a small sampling mushroomed to 300 pics. Since there are so many booths, I'm not sure it's physically possible to do a *comprehensive* report on this event during the 7 hours that the halls are open. On top of that, an "all points" report would run at least 1,000 pics. But I do what I can! ^_^

Yardarm51 said...

Damn Andy thanks so much for the buttload of pictures. I gotta say seeing this really makes me homesick. I wish I had been there with you crawling along the tables snapping pics.

andy b said...

Thanks Gord. Yeah dude you should have been there! My dogs were barkin' after a few hours. You could have carried me on your back like Yoda. :p

Maiyabon said...

Ohhhhh, everything is so awesome. Wish I was there.
That Mosura puppet is sick, I would have freaked out if I saw that in person. Thanks Andy!

andy b said...

Thanks for stopping by. That was a really fun booth. The guy running it looked like he was having a blast showing off his ingenious puppetry!

Yardarm51 said...

I've met that puppeteer a couple of times now and he's super nice. You'd do a double take if you ever heard the prices for those puppets though! Strictly for the maniac collector or corporate PR.

andy b said...

No doubt. Seriously some upper echelon stuff. That Mothra would be fun on Halloween though, eh?

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