Forgive the double figure-related posts, but if you haven’t noticed already, I may be a little obsessed! And you know what’s the worst event for a new figure fan? Wonder Festival. Wonder Festival, or WonFes for short, is a bi-annual event for Japanese figure companies to show off their latest sculpts and announce exciting new additions to their catalogue. It’s a great chance to see what everyone is working on, but it’s not so great for your wallet!
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not particularly interested in non-posable figures, so for the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on newly-announced and upcoming posable figures from the company I’m most interested in as a new fan, Good Smile Company.
Of course, the figure I’m most excited for right now is the 2014 Snow Miku Nendoroid! The more I see of her, the more I can’t wait to get my hands on one! As you can see in the first image, she comes with her own storage book that also doubles as a display stand. Her bunny familiar, magical wand, and witch’s cap are all so adorable! I also love that she comes with a mini stack of books. Note the details in the second picture, such as the snowflakes in her pupils and the quaint design on her dress! Amazing.
Perhaps the most exciting announcement of the day was Sakura Kinomoto (Card Captor Sakura) Nendoroid! Apparently this figure has been in the works for a while, but this is our first time seeing it, and I have to say I can’t wait to see her other facial expressions and additional parts. It’s a little unfortunate that she appears to be holding that Clow Card with her middle finger, though!
Next up is Aoba Seragaki and his AllMate (familiar), Ren, of the boys’ love game DRAMAtical Murder. To my knowledge, this is the first character from a BL to get a Nendoroid, so needless to say I’m extremely excited. I think his colorful character design will translate really well to Nendoroid form, and I can’t wait to see the painted sculpt! I hope he sells well enough to encourage more male Nendoroids, perhaps even other DRAMAtical Murder characters.
Other exciting Nendoroid announcements include some more game-related figures: Solid Snake (Snaaake!!), Wind Waker Link, and Rina Ozawa (Touch Detective), who comes with her own Funghi! While they all look like they’re going to be pretty awesome, I don’t think I’ll end up getting any of them unless GSC comes out with some really stellar accessories. I imagine Snake, in particular, though, would be a lot of fun to pose!
While Nendoroids are easy for me to swoon over, I’m not as quick to jump on the more “realistic” figmas. The above Snow Miku, however, is too cute to resist. I love the gradient on her hair, and the adorable snowman statue (he’s even holding a microphone!). Other Miku-related figures that caught my eye include this year’s racing Miku design and this adorable schoolgirl Miku figma (the same design is also getting a Nendoroid).
One thing’s for sure: after seeing Good Smile Company’s offerings at the first Wonder Festival of the year, I know I’m going to need to hold on tight to my wallet if I want it to make it through 2014 in one piece! What about you? Have any of these figures caught your fancy, or do you think I’m completely nuts?
I am most looking forward to the Aoba Nendoroid OF COURSE, but I’m also super excited that the Cardcaptor Sakura Nendoroid was finally revealed — and in full color, no less! I’ve already pre-ordered my Snow Miku 2014 and I’m hoping that she won’t take as long to ship out as 2013 did (I think I finally received my 2013 Snow Miku from GSC in … October.)
As for scaled figures, I was looking forward to Tiki from Dragon’s Crown but so far I think her coloring is a bit too yellow for my tastes: http://myfigurecollection.net/item/165805
The one that is possibly a must-get for me is this Kaworu and Shinji from Vertex: http://myfigurecollection.net/item/198470
Seeing 2 characters in one figure is mind-blowing enough as it is, but for it to be THE ORIGINAL BL couple for me.. well.. I gotta have it, as long as they do a good job on the sculpt and colors in the end. 🙂
Yuki Miku is so cute, I really want that Card Captors figure though :O
SAMI★SPOON
Oh no, last year’s Snow Miku took until OCTOBER to get to you?? That’s crazy! I was reading some forums and I thought I saw GSC had changed whoever they were using for shipping since then, so I really hope they arrive more quickly this time! Good thing I put in my parent’s address, as I have no idea where I’ll be living later in the year.
Tiki is really cute, but I agree that it’s a bit too yellow at this point. Is it possible they’ll adjust the coloring before release?
Also, yes, that Kaworu x Shinji figure!! If I was at all into scaled figures I would totally get it. I can’t believe they’re making it, honestly!
I can’t wait to see what else she comes with!
It’s funny how we get obsessed with things, isn’t it? I’m not exactly sure what got me started on figures, but as you can tell I’m pretty into them now!
And there’s definitely nothing wrong with being a little obsessed with GB games! If I had anything to play them on with me, I’d probably be buying more myself. My Japanese GBA obsession has cooled down a bit, but that’s mostly because I’m trying to avoid looking at Hit-Japan on eBay, haha.
I believe I was talking about preordering the Snow Miku on Twitter. The website got hammered when preorders first opened, so nothing was working properly, but it was fixed within 24 hours! I still had to fuss around with the payment… I ended up using PayPal and choosing to have them ship it to my parents in the US :/ A bit of a pain, but at least it’s all sorted! It’s a lot cheaper to preorder it now than wait till it releases and pay a premium to buy it off someone else.
We must both have obsessive personalities, Anne. And there’s nothing wrong with that! Well, unless we blow all of our money on GB games and Nendoroids and can’t pay the rent as a result, I mean 🙂
I’m actually obsessed with JP games for the original GB at the moment, although I’ve bought a few GBA games in recent months, too. I really have to get posts about all of them up ASAP, but you know how it is–you’ve got to space them out a bit so people don’t think you’re nuts or start to hate you.
Finally, I’m glad to hear you worked things out RE: that Snow Miku Nendoroid. Can’t wait to see more photos of it once it arrives on your shores!
“you’ve got to space them out a bit so people don’t think you’re nuts or start to hate you” I better be careful about these figure posts in the future, then! haha 😉
I actually did buy one Japanese GB Color game recently that I’ve been meaning to do a post about, but as I said I can’t actually play it right now! I was thinking of downloading a rom just to try it out so I can at least talk a bit about it and show off the adorable box art/manual.
Speaking of which, I think I’ve even picked up a few JP GBA games I haven’t written about yet… better get on that!
Ha! I meant that more for me that for you, obviously! Also, you’ve mentioned in the past that you were worried about the latter, haven’t you? Or is my mind playing tricks on me again? Anyway, I was kind of teasing you about that with my comment 🙂
My motto: it’s your blog. Write about what you want! If people don’t like it, well, they can always go somewhere else.
You should write about those GB Color and GBA games at some point. And playing a retro game via emulation rather than using actual hardware is quite OK with me I do it all the time–even when I own both the actual hardware and software. Sometimes it’s just easier that way.
Oh, I was teasing you right back! Hahaha. I do worry that I get on a “kick” of sorts and post too much about a single topic at times… Like FFXIV, for example! Now it’s figures! Oh well, you’re right, it’s my blog and the people who stick around are the ones who enjoy the way I do things, I suppose!
And yeah, I don’t really have a problem with emulating retro games, either. I’ve even download a ROM of something I’m interested in but not sure I want to buy… 9 times out of 10 I buy the game anyway, but it has saved me from some bad purchases (rubbish games that aren’t even cheap)
Oh, all of the Nendoroids you’ve shared here are cute! They’re not the kind of thing I’d buy myself, but I love that you’re obsessed with them 🙂
Don’t worry, I’ve got my own obsessions in the moment — with the main one being about Japanese GameBoy games. Seriously, I’m going a bit crazy. Oh, well, pretty soon I’ll have every Japanese GB game I’ve ever wanted and then I can turn my obsessive thoughts to something else 😉
BTW, I saw you mention on Twitter the other day that you were having a hard time ordering at least one of the Nendoroids mentioned here. Did you ever work that out? I hope so!