It's 3:53 AM and I should be asleep. Goddamn jet lag. May as well put on some Coltrane and type.
To say that Wonderfest is a huge event is an understatement. It's so huge, that simply stating it is an understatement is an understatement. If you count the size of the venue, the number of the attendees, and the sheer volume of product that is available, this easily trumps the scale of the San Diego or New York Comic Cons.
Witness, true believers, the power of moe. These photos were taken from the M1GO booth. At 10:00 AM, the bell rang, and the booth next to us was instantly and completely mobbed by a legion of fanboys:
By 10:02, the booth managers had organized the mob into a line:
..which quickly grew and surged out the door in an orderly fashion. 10:03:
We were wondering what the hell it was all about. It turned out to be these cutesy girl resin kits that will probably never be built by their owners (but perhaps rubbed on their genitals):
The M1GO ring toss game commenced, uninterrupted by the throng of sweaty geekery:
Whatever you're looking for, Wonderfest has it. Perhaps you're looking for resin kits, or chogokin, or castings of a human female ass:
Or these super-cool pachimon figures from my pal at Ilanena (
http://www.ilanena.com/):
Apparently the original source of those kaiju designs are a series of trading cards that were included with Kewpie brand mayonnaise. Someone at the show was selling a deck of playing cards with the images on them.
This was on display at a booth where the seller was wearing a full USSR army uniform and listening to a CD of "Marches of the Soviet Republic":
And here is an actual factual doller, a man dressed up like a life-sized doll. Unfortunately I didn't get good shots of the face, but you get the picture. I saw about a dozen of these guys:
Note the look of shame on the convention-goers in the first shot. And then note that in the next shot, the doller is standing completely alone:
I forget which company it was, but someone is making a Curricula Machine figure:
Hopefully the TV show (a children's education program that taught them how to count by gunning down gangsters and how to sharpen their pencils with knives) will get some more airtime.
What else, what else? I met Kow Yokoyama, very cool guy. The new VOTOMS trailer is pretty much a scene-for-scene recreation of the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan (not necessarily a bad thing). And the Chinese restaurant at the top of Big Sight is really awesome.
I actually didn't buy much, aside from a signed Ma.K poster from Yokoyama-sensei and both of the super deformed Melusine and Raptor wind-ups from TTToy. Should have gotten him to sign those, too. Damn!
I also got to connect with Skullbrainers Baikin, Cometdebris, Mark K., and Andy. Datadub, where are you?
I can't say this enough: stop buying overpriced toys and save your pennies for a trip to Japan. Time it with a Wonderfest there. Don't bother asking me, "Can I find (fill in the blank) there?" The answer will always be yes.
