Wonder Festival (Winter 2016) Report

Wonder Festival is a bi-annual event hosted at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. It’s a place not only for big name companies to showcase their up-coming figures, but also for people to sell their self-made non-official figures (garage kits).

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There is usually enough coverage of this event that it’s possible to see photos of most if not all up-coming figures on-line without attending the show, or even being in Japan. Sometimes, however, companies will have “no photo” signs next to figures that are still in early development stages, and although oftentimes sneaky photos of these figures make their way onto the internet, sometimes they don’t. (One example of this from this past show was an un-painted Elsa figma. I couldn’t take a photo because there was a staff guy standing right next to it at the time). Pokemon merchandise in general tends to get lost from reports, probably as a combination of there not being much Pokemon related merch available coupled with “no photos allowed” signs. Being able to report on this year’s Wonder Festival and see up-coming Pokemon figures in person was one main reason I wanted to finally attend Wonder Festival.

I’ve lived here for 7+ years, so why did it take me so long? The main reason is I hate crowds, also why I tend to avoid attending festivals or conventions of any kind here. (I only attend the summer festival in my city because the festival center is along the street just outside my apartment building, meaning I can go out, get food, and eat it inside my home!) Taking into consideration that Wonder Festival only lasts for 1 day, I was very concerned about how many people would be attending. My worries were basically for nothing; it was crowded, of course, and there were lots of lines for everything, including taking pictures of some of the more popular figures, but the lines moved pretty well, and it never got crowded to the point where you couldn’t move or didn’t have some semblance of personal space.

In short, it was a very enjoyable experience, more so than the Tokyo Game Show, which honestly isn’t very enjoyable. I hold more than a passing interest in figures, and I had a lot of fun seeing figures in person that up until then I had only seen on the internet. If you’re ever in the Tokyo/Chiba area when a Wonder Festival occurs, I highly recommend attending!

Moving on to the meat of this report…

Upcoming Pokemon figures!

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Wonder Festival Summer 2015 – Pokemon Report

Wonder Festival is in full swing and the internet is being flooded with tons of images of new figures! In Pokemon related news, we have the following plush and figures to be excited about.

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Pokemon is collaborating with the famous Steiff German-based plush toy company to bring us these amazing high quality Pikachu plush. For those unfamiliar with the company, Steiff is credited with creating the teddy bear in 1902. They previous collaborated with Hatsune Miku through Good Smile, and based on the price tag for that teddy bear, it’s likely the Pikachu plush will sell for around the same price ($300+).

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Preorders for the Pikachu plush will start this summer on the Good Smile official online shop. Release date is currently unknown.

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Images of the Megahouse G.E.M series Jesse and Wobbuffet figures have been circulating Twitter since the beginning of the weekend, but now we have a photo of the actual figures. Jesse and Wobbuffet are billed as Part 1, leaving hope for a James and ?? figure for Part 2. At this time, we only know a release date of spring 2016, but hopefully we will have more information soon.

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Kotobukiya announced a collaboration with Pokemon for a new series of figures, with the first figure in the series being Red. No pictures aside from this announcement poster. Currently in production, so no date either.

This post will be updated if/when more figures or plush are revealed.

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Jesse/Wobbuffet figure 1
Jesse/Wobbuffet figure 2
Steiff Pikachu
Steiff Pikachu 2