Bandai Tamashii Nations Exhibit Feb. 2015

Here's a look at the latest exhibit of current and upcoming Bandai figures. Quite a range of stuff, including Star Wars, One Piece, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, The Avengers, and lots more. Not much I can add with words this time, so I'm just going to let the photos do the talking.

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Bandai Tamashii Nations (11/2013) Mecha Mania!

The current Tamashii Nations exhibit, featuring a look at Bandai's new releases and upcoming figures, is heavy on the mecha. There are plenty of new toys based on Japan's robotic legends like Gundam and Mazinger. Plus there are new figures from Saint Seiya, Yamato, Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, Iron Man, and many other properties.

Yamato!

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Bandai Tamashii Nations Exhibit (May, 2013)

Here's a look Bandai's latest Tamashii Nations exhibit of its new and upcoming figures. The exhibit changes pretty often and is in a room in an underpass beneath the train lines. The passageway connects one side of Akihabara with another.

Once again, the toy titan shows the breadth of its product line with figures from Sailor Moon, Kamen Rider, Dragonball Z, Ultraman, and on and on.

Lots of upcoming Sailor Moon figures

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Makaimura/魔界村 (Ghosts'n Goblins) over the years

 

Makaimura (aka Ghosts'n Goblins, but we're focusing on Japanese releases, so we'll stick with the original name) is one of those games you just don't forget. The iconic arcade game, first released by Capcom in 1985, featured its hero - Arthur - on an epic quest to free a princess from side scrolling hordes and, eventually, Satan after you've fed enough quarters into the machine to give it a copper addiction. (Our sources in the Googlesphere tell us that quarters are mostly copper. We're learning things together!)

It was definitely one of my favorite quarter munchers, though I was never very good. Anyway, over the years the game has shown quite a resilience, and I wanted to do a writeup of some of the ways Makaimura, and its iconic artwork and characters, have stayed current over the decades.

Let's start with a look at the Nintendo Famicom game, which features box art that appears over and over in Makaimura products:

Funny story here. I bought this Famicom game loose in Kobe last year. Then, about a week ago, I found a store in Tokyo selling just the box, plastic container, and instruction manual - for 50 yen. Capcommish serendipity!

Here's the manual that came with the game,

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Bandai Tamashii Nations Exhibit (Feb, 2013)

Bandai's latest Tamashii Nations exhibit (located in the passageway connecting the East and West sides of Akihabara station) of new and upcoming figures from Dragonball Z, Kamen Rider, Star Wars, Disney, Mazinger Z, and a ton of other properties.

Bandai does a top notch job posing and displaying their figures, so you get a really good sense of what you're getting before buying something.

 

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Bandai Tamashii Nations Exhibit 8.15.2012

 Latest Bandai Tamshii Nations exhibit in Akihabara.

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Bandai Tamashii Nations Exhibit (Nov. 2011)

In a passageway next to Akihabara station, Bandai maintains an exhibit space where they show off some of their anime, robot, SD, kaiju, and other lines. It's a nice way to see a lot of new toys out of the boxes, and often on rotating dais, so you can see the figures + accessories from all sides.

Click here for a look at a previous exhibit, from July.

Here are pics of the latest line up:

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Bandai Tamashii Nations Exhibit (July, 2011)

One of the mind boggling things about Tokyo is you can walk around a corner and literally stumble on a toy exhibit, right out of the blue. Maybe that's not so surprising in Akihabara, where I wandered through a tunnel adjacent to the JR station and found myself staring straight down the shiny barrel of a loaded toy bazooka: The Bandai Tamashii Nations Exhibit.

Googling the Interwebs, I found another Bandai show a couple years back at the same location, so maybe it's a permanent fixture with a shifting exhibit? Anyway, the current exhibit is more like a double barreled bazooka (I'm sure some character in anime land has such a thing). One side is like a temple to Saint Seiya, the venerable anime series that's still churning out sparkly figures decades after the show's initial run. The other side features Gundam and other toy properties.

Now, I'm the first to admit this isn't my area of expertise, but I figured enough folks out there are fans of the toys and would enjoy a gander at the shiny geese. One thing's for sure (as I said about Bandai's exhibit at the Tokyo Toy Show) - these guys sure know how to put on a display!

Saint Seiya:

Check out the above pic to see the scale of this thing!

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