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| Hanako-san, Hanako-san, I want a nendoroid! |
Round trip airfare to Narita:
$538.10
3 nights' stay at the APA Hotel and Resort:
$231.45
Admission to the world's largest hobby figure trade show:
¥2500.
Being one of the first people in the world to see your current anime obsession take 3D form:
Priceless.
Since the school closure started time has gotten a little wonky, kind of like it does on vacation. There's little to differentiate one day from the next. A day and half into this strange state, it occurred to me that if I was ever going to rectify the lapse in judgement on which I based my decision NOT to go to WonderFest the last two years, there was no time like the present. Although my school is still working, we're only in the building a few hours each day, since our classes take place online, thus I figured there was no reason why my admin would say no.
Well, it wasn't quite as simple as that, but it's amazing what you can claim as professional development when you teach art. Since I am not above using such flimsy excuses for my own evil means,* bright and early Friday, February 7th saw me cursing humanity on an early flight to Tokyo. There are all sorts of things written that tell you what WonFest is all about, so I'm going to skip the in-depth explanation of the figure industry and garage kits in favor of telling you about my experience.
I didn't go early. I considered it, but there wasn't anything I felt like I'd die if I didn't get, and I knew I was going to torture my feet enough as it was. So instead I walked across from the hotel at 10 and got in line...eventually. It was a little tricky figuring out where to start. There's a system of elevated walkways around Makuhari Messe , and after crossing over the street I could see the mob trudging forward, but wasn't sure how to join in. I ended up walking through the top part of the exhibition hall (a
sukoshi bit jealous of the people who were already inside) and out next to hall 5, where I took the escalator down to buy my "ticket," a 2kg book of all the exhibitors, from whence I joined the horde.
I'd seen photos on Twitter of the diehards standing in a line wrapped all the way around the building and it gave me pause, but I really wasn't standing around long. I didn't slow down til I got to the back of the building, and by the time I'd read one page of the homework I'd been putting off for two weeks, my wait was over. I was being shuffled into the industry side, which was halls 1-3, and it only took a moment for me to spot GoodSmile's banner, way in the back, and start my beeline there. The cat was out of the bag as far as discovering Hanako-kun was going to be a nendo, thanks to social media, but I had to see him IRL. Before I could track him down, though, I found another treasure - a 1/7 scale figure of Hyakkimaru. I'd seen images of this sculpt last year on Twitter and mourned the fact that he wasn't for sale, so this was a big shock - so much that for a minute I thought he was the sample Figma.
Have you ever thought about what you would do if you could commit one crime without any consequences? Well, I figured out my answer that day. I'm not sure if I would have stolen Hanako-kun's prototype or Hyakkimaru's, but I definitely would've walked away with one of them. Sadly there was no way I could've pulled it off, so I'll be waiting another six months (if not longer...thanks, coronavirus), but I guess that's better than prison. Probably.**
There were other interesting announcements - mostly things I knew the Kawaii Kingpin would be glad to hear about. Inuyasha's nenoroid prototype was there, but I was more interested in the noodle stop FuRyu's releasing as a prize in September. At first I thought it was a scale, that's how badass it looked. They finally had a prototype of Hyakkimaru from ther f:Nex line as well, but that was such an utter disappointment, especially since GoodSmile's was of such a high quality. MegaHouse had their Kimetsu no Yaiba prototypes on display, including some very kawaii little chibi Hashiras, but I was bitter that they hadn't painted Tomioka-san in the two and a half months since I caught my first glimpse of him online.
I also felt a strange mix of indignation and satisfaction over two of GoodSmile's displays. The first greeted me at the entrance to their area: their range of Fate series figures arranged like a Hina matsuri display. As you might remember I did that with MY nendoroids last March. THEN I came across FOUR new Bungou Stray Dogs nendoroids...the same four they've already made, but dressed up like their key visual for the Narita Anime Deck promotion that begins next month. What you may not realize is that when they announced the rerelease of Dazai and Chuuya I was a little cranky. Dazai was my one valuable nendoroid, and by flooding the market with more of him my net worth plummeted. So I commented on the announcement that instead they should have released him in a different format, suggesting the Black era, so my investment portfolio wouldn't suffer, but they'd still make money hand over fist. Well, here they are. With all these ideas of mine they're using, they really ought to be paying ME, not the other way around.
After making my way around the industry area (giving the +18 caves a side-eye and a wide berth...my curiosity wasn't worth standing in line and then being stuck in an enclosed space with a bunch of hentai dudes), I began my trek through the jungle of garage kits. The exhibition floor is a teeming mass of humanity, strewn with islands of amateur figures self-produced in small quantities,*** and most mortals have no hope of discerning whether they are passing the same big-breasted, scantily clad anime girl for the third time. Once upon a time my friend Raycie taught me the survivial skills necessary for such life or death situations in the bead-encrusted corridors of Dongdaemun's fabric market. A plan of attack is crucial if you want to make it out alive. But even knowing this, I almost got sucked in and lost my way. Doubting even my own mind, I somehow found myself at the furthest corner and began circling each table. After making it the width of halls 7 and 8 I became confident enough to adjust my tactic, bobbing back and forth between the two sides of the aisle in order to cover more ground. It. Was. Madness. I loved every second of it, even if my feet hated me by the time it was over.
Still, it was not an endless parade of bishies and ikemen. I'd been following #wf2020w for two weeks on Twitter, hoping to discover what I would blow all my yen on, but I'm sad to say the industry still caters primarily to men. Most of the really nice garage kits were of female figures. Most of the male ones depicted OP, repulsively muscular dudes. And of course, a bunch of these - in my humble opinion - really tacky plastic monster things that for some reason Japanese guys dig.**** And that's sad because there was a definite female presence - both shopping and selling.
For example, my must-buy Twitter find was sculpted by a female artist. She made alternate hair parts for Hyakkimaru's nendoroid, to depict the bandage he wears around his head after he gets his hearing back. She was admiring my Boku no Hero skirt and when she realized I was buying her work, got excited and shook my hand, coronavirus be damned! Her neighbor stall, also run by a woman, was selling custom nendoroid legs. That probably sounds a bit weird, but there aren't enough sitting nendoroid parts, and since I'm delving deeper and deeper into the black hole of customizing, I figured I'd find a use for them at some point. There were clothes for a whole range of ball-jointed dolls, although these I resisted, my previous purchase of two nendoroid dolls notwithstanding. Finally, just as my strength was about to give out, I came across a guy selling - I shit you not - a small kit of Wotakoi's Hirotaka in his online game avatar. For only 300 yen. So I snagged that, too.
One thing I shouldn't have worried about was not having enough cash. When I left the hotel I didn't know what I was going to find, and wasn't sure the ¥10,000 I had would be enough. Makuhari Messe has ATMs but not currency exchange machines, so I exchanged another hundred dollars to be safe before heading over. And then when I made my first purchase I realized that they took credit cards - a fact that would have been helpful to know beforehand. So there's my "WonFest for Noobs" exclusive.
Apart from the industry announcement and the possibility of buying anything it was personally worth it to me as a creator. At some point during the day I decided that someday I'm going there to sell my plushies. There were very few stalls selling anything soft and cuddly, and none were as adorable as mine (maybe I'm not the most impartial judge of such things, but since impartiality is apparently out of fashion this year, I guess I'll have to live with that). At any rate, I've got a willing assistant lined up for when that day comes, so now all I have to do is learn to use a sewing machine. Because at some point in the last few years I realized that I'll never be able to sell my fuzzy friends commercially unless I mech out.
*Will I use it in class? I give it a 50/50 chance, mostly dependent on how much time I get to spend messing around before fall. Will I give a workshop for our next PD day, as said admin suggested? Yes, but not about WonFest...but that's a subject for a different blog.
**Remember my last post? About rules?? Well, some rules are made to be broken. For the record, I feel like I can justify breaking this rule because I don't
technically have my nendoroid yet.
***Apparently I
am going to tell you what a garage kit is...blame it on my coursework. I kept getting pissed off because one author kept using a word without defining it, so I'll do you the favor of learning from his fail.
****Or so I assume - I can't imagine girls of any nationality digging these things.
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