Super Festival 49

Another quarter of the year had passed and it's time again for another Super Festival event at the Science Museum in Tokyo. The 49th Super Festival was held on 26 April. Info about the event and coverage of the 48th Super Festival can be found here. Poster illustration was drawn by Yasushi Nirasawa-sensei. Met him at the event as always and he promised to meet me at the upcoming Hobby Complex to be held on 6 May and sign my black Man Chrysalis. Can't wait! ^^

Dropped by Aoshima's booth to see what's coming next. Pictured below are 1/12-scale model kits of two versions of the T-800 Endoskeleton from Terminator 2.

Aoshima's 1/6-scale T-800 Endoskeleton black version die-cast action figure. Silver version is in the works. I'm personally looking forward to the silver one!

Aoshima's Tread coming in July. To be sold without Legioss.

1/48-scale model kit of Gernsback M9 from Full Metal Panic! finally unveiled. I never built any of Aoshima's kits before but had seen the plastic parts and they look like they're made of real cheap plastic material compared to Bandai's stuff.

Fewture unveiled the first two entries in their new ES (Excellent Short) Gohkin series: Koutetsu Jeeg and Goshogun!

Retails for 7,800 yen each and coming in September. They look absolutely fantastic! I always wanted die-cast figures of classic super robots in SD form like they appeared in the Super Robot Wars games! The second wave coming in October consists of Getter 1, 2 and 3, and third wave coming in December will be Godam (odd choice) and Baikanfu! In the works are all four of the Dancougar bots that will be transformable between three of their modes and also form Dancougar! Looks to be a very promising toy line!

Transformable figures of "uniquely" designed robots from Chogattai Majutsu Robo Gingaizer. Produced by Reigning Looney and distributed by Art Storm. Fewture Direct exclusive. More info and pics on official site.

Fewture's next EX Gohkin Roboshi Works entry will be Shin Getter 1!! This was announced in hobby mags last month but I'm still excited about it as a Getter fan and I can't wait to see the prototype to be unveiled at the upcoming Wonder Festival in July!

Also another EX Gohkin Roboshi Works entry currently in the planning stage are the Blocker Gundan IV Machine Blaster bots. News was previously announced in last year's Wonder Festival. I guess we should be able to see some prototypes at this year's summer Wonder Fest.

EX Gohkin Gatchaman Mecha Collection A Set: G-1, G2, and Red Impulse. Retails for 24,800 yen and due out in December. More pics here.

EX Gohkin Gatchaman Mecha Collection B Set: God Phoenix, G-3, and G-4. Retails for 24,800 yen and due out in December. More pics here.

Hordes of bargain hunters.

Reigning Looney's table.

This is what I had for brunch. ^^

Onell Design had a table at the event selling highly customizable Glyos System Series figures.

Some of Matt's brilliant custom works.

These two customs of Samus's Power Suit from Metroid really caught my attention. I just love how customizable these figures are with interchangeable parts to create your very own figures or famous anime or video game characters.

Another awesome custom figure. Love the paint job on this one!

Only 1,500 yen each for the latest figma releases! Great deal!

More toys at dirt cheap prices. You can probably still be able to haggle down the price a bit more if you buy multiples.

I didn't take much pics of the designer soft vinyl stuff this time because there weren't much there that caught my attention except for a few including these, which are Hobby Japan mail order exclusives if I remember correctly.

The 48th Super Festival had an Ultra Q exhibit and interviews with the cast of the show. This time the spotlight was on Ultraseven with some classic toys, memorabilia, scripts, and costumes. There was a talk event too but I didn't stay long enough at the show to attend the event.

My haul from Super Festival. Didn't get much this time. The only thing I bought was the CRM Toys 12" action doll of Rick Deckard from Blade Runner. I will post a review of the figure up sometime next week and will auction one off on eBay soon after. The Glyos series Buildman Ranic and Crayboth figures were given to me by Matt (super friendly guy!) of Onell Design. Thank you very much, Matt!

Got two Crayboth figures from Matt that he was giving away at his table. Looks very reminiscent of the Inbits from Mospeada, and he made one that's close to Inbit colors, too!

These lil' guys glow in the dark, too! Awesome stuff!

I was also given two Buildman Ranic figures that were sold at the event first and will then be made available for order through the Onell Design store soon.

Tried to build Samus's Power Suit from Metroid based on the custom piece that was on display but I don't have enough parts to complete it. These are the best I could build with the parts I have. Will need to find time to paint them, but first I gotta get more parts!

Check out more pics in my flickr gallery linked below:

Super Festival 49 flickr gallery

Super Festival 48

Held on 11 January 2009, Super Festival 48 was the first hobby event of the new year in Japan. For those who are new to the event, Super Festival is a small hobby flea market held once every four months in the convention halls of the Science Museum in Tokyo. The event is run by Art Storm/Fewture Models, the same company that organizes Hobby Complex.

The only industry companies that set up tables to showcase their new and upcoming stuff at Super Festival are Fewture and Aoshima. Most of the dealers there are small hobby shop owners and private sellers. Stuff sold at the event consists of a mix of old and new collectible items, both at heavily discount prices, except for vintage stuff but prices are negotiable depending on the sellers. I once spotted a pair of Mothra wings at the event priced at 980,000 yen! Tons of bargains to be found for collectors on tight budgets, too. PG kits at 60% off, latest toys and PVC figs just released at 25-40% off, and there are items there at prices so low, they're practically giving them away. ^^;

One of the big draw of the event is definitely the designer vinyl and soft vinyl kaijyu toys. Those things don't really interest me much but there are quite a few that do look really, really cool. They can be pricey though since they are all hand made, painted, and produced in very limited quantities.

Then there are special guest appearances of stars from old Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and other Tokusatsu shows. At previous Super Festival events, I got signatures from Tomohito Sato (Kamen Rider Gatack) and Satoshi Furuya whose most famous role was the Ultraman suit actor in the classic 1966 Ultraman show. And of course, one of my favorite sculptor and creature designer Yasushi Nirasawa makes his usual appearances at almost every Super Festival either as a special guest or just there to help out his friends and meet his fans. Nirasawa-sensei sees me all the time at Super Festival and Hobby Complex events that he now knows me by name and can recognize me easily. The following picture is of the famous artist taken at this latest Super Festival. Still kicking myself for not bringing any of his books or sculptures there for him to sign. I'll be sure to be prepared at the next event to at least get a white board for him to draw an original creature for me! Oh, almost forgot to mention that I asked him if he will have an autograph session at the upcoming Hobby Complex event and he said yes. Also asked if he is involved in designing creatures for the new Kamen Rider Decade show. There will be some of his past creatures from Blade, Kabuto, and Den-O appearing in the show as well as some new ones.


































Takayuki Takeya's Alien statues produced by Fewture will be reissued later this month.















One of my favorite pieces--the Alien Pile! Retails for nearly 30,000 yen! Will need to save up for this beautiful masterpiece. Gotta find a shop here that's selling it at a discounted price, too.

































Will you take the purple poop or green poop? Craptastic crap from Fewture!















Designer vinyl Microman figures. Shiny heads!















Aoshima announced that they're working on a plastic model kit of a 1/48 Gernsback M9 from Full Metal Panic!















Shinji & Rei entry plugs by Aoshima. Still being delayed...















Never seen this one before! Pretty cool design for a bottle. Looks to be only available in the US perhaps?

Upcoming Ninja Jaja Maru-kun soft vinyl toys from Pleasant Angels.

Gayla!! Nuff said.





























Not all items are original stuff though. Some dealers do sell bootlegs from China. More for novelty and customization purposes than anything else.
































Bastard child of Transformers and Ultraman!

A Many Mey custom show was also held at the event that features Many Mey vinyl customs by famous artists around the world, and the one-of-a-kind customs were sold at the event by lottery. Buyers who wanted to buy one of the customs will be entered in a draw and only the winner was eligible to buy the item.
































Beautiful colorway and a truly magnificent custom! I don't remember the price for this one but I think it it was close to or exceeding the six digit range in yen.
































Some more cool customs.




























































Classic Ultra Q toys and memorabilia.





























Check out the cosmic rust on this thing! The lunch box had probably gone to outerspace and back!















The staff and cast of Ultra Q were the special guests at this event. Hiroshi Watari (Sharivan) was also one of the special guests that attended the show for a signing session later in the afternoon but I didn't stay long enough to catch him. I would have stayed for Kenji Ohba (Gavan) though!












































Apparently, the Force and loin cloth are all this lil' semi-naked Yoda needs! A seller had a completed model of it for sale at 5,000 yen. Would you buy this?
































Godzilla on a tricycle! Awwe!















I had always been keeping my eyes down looking at the items on dealer tables in search of hidden treasures at hobby flea market events, but this time I decided to look up for once and see if I noticed anyone I know attending the event or perhaps the rare chance of meeting celebrities that might be at such events. Just when I started to look up after a quick round of the event halls about 30 minutes before the event began (I got in with a dealer pass), I spotted none other than Yasuhisa Furuhara (Go-on Red from Go-onger)!! Picture of him below. I didn't manage to take a pic of him so I hijacked the pic from his blog. ^^; It took me a few looks to confirm if it was really him, then I took up the courage to walk up and asked him if he's Go-on Red. He smiled and replied yes. Shook his hands and told him I'm a fan of the show. He then replied "Thanks for the support and keep on cheering the Go-ongers!" and off he went with his friends after he bought some toys. I'm quite surprised that no one else recognized the guy and no one surrounded him for autographs. There were crowds of Sentai fans there but I guess they were too busy looking for bargains to look up like I did.

MASSIVE Tetsujin #28 figure by Inspire to be released in April. Retails for 12,800 yen.
































Looks like Godzilla's having lobster for dinner! Yummy!
































Hey! Careful where you point those things!
































Big pile of cheap stuff up for grabs. Sellers tend to give more discounts for large quantity purchases. You can't normally bargain with the shops in Japan though. So some people tend to save up and go on a shopping spree at hobby flea market events such as this.

Check out more pics in my flickr gallery linked below:

Super Festival 48 flickr gallery