Wonder Festival is an amazing bi-yearly event for fans of Japanese figures, and this year’s winter Wonder Festival was no different! Just like last year, I wanted to round up some of my favorite announcements from the event. For the full rundown of all of the announcements from all the major companies, I highly recommend checking out Plastikitty’s Wonder Festival 2018 Winter coverage. Now, on to my own personal highlights!
When I visited my family near Portland this past holiday, I was introduced to the wonders of the Japanese supermarket chain Uwajimaya. It’s pretty much heaven on earth! (Well, outside of actual supermarkets in Japan) In addition to everything you’d expect to find in a Japanese supermarket, the Beaverton location also had a small Kinokuniya bookstore inside, and it was packed full of manga, magazines, Studio Ghibli goodies, stationery, and piles of anime blind boxes. I wish we had Uwajimaya in Brisbane!
Since I had a limited budget and luggage space, I refrained from buying everything in the store, but I did pick up three Re-Ment boxes featuring some of my favorite characters. I held off opening them until now… But I couldn’t wait any longer! Watch my unboxing to see what I got:
If you’re interested in grabbing any of these, the Re-Ment sets are called Hello Kitty Cat Cafe, Rilakkuma Honey Sweets (Hachimitsu Tororon), and Gudetama Cafe. The full Gudetama set is available on Amazon, and they also have singles of Rilakkuma Honey Sweets and Hello Kitty Cat Cafe. If you end up grabbing any, I would love to hear what you got!
Wonder Festival, a bi-yearly event for Japanese figure enthusiasts, is upon us once again! With each WonFes comes an onslaught of figure-related news, and there is a lot to get excited about this year. Plastikitty has a full rundown of all the figures at this weekend’s event, but I’ve rounded up some of my favorite figure announcements and reveals to share with you!
The holiday shopping madness is now in full swing! Luckily, it’s easy to get in on some great deals without having to manage high-tension shopping crowds, or, if you’re like me, live in a country that doesn’t really do the whole Black Friday/Cyber Monday thing. With so many good deals flying around, I’ve decided to round up my favorites to share! From cute, nerdy apparel and accessories to discount games and figures, there’s more than enough here to get your holiday shopping out of the way or treat yourself for being awesome!
I’d never thought the day would come when I owned a Nendoroid wearing a bikini, but here we are! I just couldn’t resist grabbing a Nendoroid based on one of Kinako’s amazing Gatchaman Crowds character designs. While Ichinose Hajime is actually my favorite character from the series, I was unfortunately a little disappointed by her Nendoroid‘s accessories. When I saw Utsutsu’s adorable Nendoroid form, however, I just couldn’t resist!
Can you believe this is the last Sunday Spotlight of October? Before you know it, it’ll be 2016! Ok, I’m going to try not to dwell on the inevitable passage of time. I know just the thing to lift the spirits: cute figure photos!
This week’s Spotlight features Ataro, aka ataro878, an amazing figure photographer on Instagram. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t have any other social media or a website, which is a darn shame, but at least there’s one way to ogle his gorgeous photos:
Check out Ataro’s stunning use of color! His main subjects are Nintendo figures such as Link, Kirby, and Splatoon items, but he also features Danbo and a Metal Gear Solid figure quite often, as well (apologies, but at this point I have no idea which Snake is which).
This guy deserves a lot more exposure, so go give him a follow on Instagram if you can!
As a rule, I try not to buy many scale figures (talk about expensive!), but after I saw Altair’s Rin Matsuoka sculpt, there was no way I could resist. I preordered him in a heartbeat and pined away many months until he finally arrived on my doorstep late in September.
Of course, a new scale figure calls for a new unboxing video! I try to show off all the details in my latest video, so if you’re interested in this figure, I highly encourage you to give it a watch:
Unfortunately, it seems like there is an ongoing problem with this particular figure, which I only found out after browsing user comments at My Figure Collection. Multiple people have reported that there is a small, yet noticeable, gap between one of Rin’s feet and his swimsuit. Low and behold… Mine has it too! I probably wouldn’t have noticed this if I hadn’t seen complaints from others, which may be a cautionary tale in not reading comments, but it also goes to show that I don’t inspect my figures with the true eye of a collector. Luckily it’s not a particularly glaring flaw, but it’s likely the reason why Rin is still available for sale, despite the other Free! Haruka and Makoto figures selling out so quickly they needed re-releases.
Regardless, I’m still very happy! Would a flaw like this ruin your appreciation of a figure?