My girlfriend and I recently had the fortune to be able to attend Wonder Festival Summer 2010, having planned our holiday to Japan especially so that we could attend. Wonder Festival (abbreviated to WonFes) is a twice-yearly event that brings together a mixture of official and unofficial manufacturers of anime, manga and game figures and ‘garage kits’. As avid figure collectors we’d both been keen to visit WonFes and decided earlier this year that we just couldn’t wait until February next year!
WonFes Summer 2010 was held at the Makuhari Messe, an exhibition centre in Chiba prefecture and about an hour train ride out of Tokyo. In previous years WonFes has been held at the Tokyo Big Sight but moved to the Makuhari Messe after a well-publicised escalator overcrowding incident.
WonFes was well advertised and signposted – no getting lost here, even for foreigners unfamiliar with the area. Guidebooks were available from stores in Akihabara prior to the show, which also acted as entrance tickets.
It took us about an hour and a half from joining the queue to getting inside. The queue wrapped around nearly the whole of the exhibition halls that WonFes was being held in. Most of the time was spent out in the sun – survival strategies by others included frequent wiping of heads with tissues, towels wrapped over heads and umbrellas to create some shade.
Once opening time arrived, the queue moved much more rapidly and the shadow from the exhibition halls gave relief from the sun.
WonFes spanned 8 exhibition halls of the Makuhari Messe. To give an idea of the size in real terms, this is about four times the size of the MCM Expo that is held in London. Considering that this is a event held just for figures and figure kits, the size of the show and the attendance of 40,000 people is mind-boggling compared to events in the UK.
One of the highlights of WonFes are the exclusive figures that manufacturers sell and usually only available at WonFes itself. The queues for these figures can be very long; I joined the queue for the K-On! Nendoroid set from Good Smile Company but after 20 minutes of waiting without the queue moving, I decided the time would be better spent exploring WonFes and hunting for bargains.
One of the most flamboyant displays in halls 1 and 2 was by a business based in Akihabara which specialises in decorating figures with crystal gems for clients. Not only did they have a wide range of their work on display, they also had two decorated Lamborghini Diablos in order to turn heads.
Perching inside the first of the two Lamborghinis and turning even more heads was this Lum cosplayer, posing for photos by members of the public.
Various figures receive the decoration treatment – including characters from K-On!, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Black Rock Shooter amongst others.
The large display of Kappa figures below was a strange sight. Upon studying the guidebook it appears they were part of a sculpting contest, but a lot of them were quite hard on the eye! I’d certainly have a difficult time picking one out as a winner.
With Toradora being a favourite series of mine, I’m looking forward to the release of these figures in the Beach Queens series from Wave Corporation. I already have Taiga on pre-order, but will have to wait until her release in October before she arrives.
A nice garage kit rendition of Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion in Nendoroid form – not sure about the legality of using the Nendoroid logo though! The entry plug cockpit is a great touch as the official Evangelion Figmas will come with cockpits too.
Garage kit rendition of Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Overall it looks like a good kit but the face lets it down slightly for me though.
I’m not familiar with the series To Aru Kagaku No Railgun but I really like the dynamic pose and the sculpting of this figure. Comes from the same sculptor as the Fate Testarossa garage kit, but I much prefer this kit.
I was pleased to see a few garage kits of the Toradora characters as well as the mass-produced figures - here we have Ryuji and Taiga as they appear at the end of the series.
This rendition of Taiga dressed in a Chinese gown is adorable – almost wish I’d picked up a kit now! Choosing a garage kit to buy isn’t a logical decision – if you wait, chances are that it’ll sell out by the time you want it.
A smooth and softly designed Hatsune Miku kit. I like the way she hangs over the edge – she’d be ideal for perching on the edge of shelves.
Impressively painted garage kit of Mahoro from Mahoromatic. Kits based on manufacturer product series – such as Good Smile Company’s Figmas in this case – seemed to be quite popular.
Love these chibi Toradora figures, but they’re hard to get hold of. Even in the secondhand figure shops in Akihabara, they were hard to come by and expensive.
This kit of Mari Illustrious Makinami from the latest Evangelion film was particularly dramatic – helped not only by the terrifying expression but by the red underlighting from the base and lit eyes as well.
Another Hatsune Miku kit. She’s based on an existing figure series but I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the name of the series.
A reasonably nice kit of Mio Akiyama from K-On!, but a little on the basic side in terms of pose and expression.
Not a kit for the faint hearted – this kit of Tsumugi Kotobuki from K-On! was about 1/3 scale and a little on the buxom side for my liking.
A couple of garage kits of characters from the Clannad series – Tomoyo Sakagami and Kyou Fujibayashi. Sculpting and poses are good but perhaps not the most accurate of colours chosen to paint Tomoyo in.
These garage kits are from another favourite series of mine, Kannagi – Zange-chan, Nagi and Tsugumi were available. These looked quite professional and I suspect from a team of sculptors.
I found this kit humorous – what would your rather take into a fight? Pistols, a banana or an aubergine?
There’s plenty more figures to come in part 2 of this article but if you can’t wait to take a look, all of my photos are uploaded to my Flickr account and can be seen here.
