Japan’s biggest and best figure and model show returns with VTubers, action heroes, and the kind of figure that makes us wish we had an extra two thousand bucks to spend.
Last weekend Wonder Festival returned for the summer iteration of Japan’s biggest figure design and modeling celebration. Taking place on July 30 at the Makuhari Messe convention center half an hour east of downtown Tokyo, the event drew anime enthusiasts and otaku culture appreciators from around the country, including, of course, SoraNews24.
WonFes Summer, as the event is nicknamed, is one of the biggest stages for Japan’s figure producers to show off their newest creations. Making our way to the section of the venue occupied by Good Smile Company/Max Factory, we saw that they had a slew of figures for the virtual YouTubers of Hololive Production.
▼ Shirogane Noel
▼ La+ Darknesss
▼ Yukihana Lamy
Otaku are an infamously detail-oriented demographic, though, and it takes a lot of time to get all the aspects of a figure accurate and attractive enough to please the superfans who are the core market for high-end figures. Because of that, at Wonder Festival you won’t just see finished, ready-for-market figures, but also prototypes of products still in development.
▼ Sakamata Chloe
On the video game character front, Good Smile/Max Factory was showing off its work for Tsukihime’s Arcueid Brunestud…
…Goddess of Victory: Nikke’s Volume…
…Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s Mio…
…and an extremely well-crafted figure of Chun-Li in her original outfit from Street Fighter II.
Even when displaying otherwise all-gray figures, though, Good Smile/Max Factory still painted the eyes, as you can see here with Macross Frontier’s Ranka Lee…
…and Bocchi the Rock’s Ryo Yamada.
▼ Bocchi the Rock protagonist Hitori Goto was displayed in full-color though.
This Halloween-like version of Uma Musume’s Rice Shower proved the horse girl franchise still has legs…
…and the same could be said about Blue Archive, represented by figures for Alice Tendo…
…Hoshino Takanashi…
…and Shiroko Sunaokami.
As in most years, cute girl characters made up the largest proportion of the figures at the show. Manufacturor Medicos, though, had a contingent of flamboyantly macho characters, like Bastard’s Dark Schneider…
…and Dio and Rudol von Stroheim from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
Also representing JoJo were a pair of supernatural Stands, Star Platinum and The World…
…and Guts of Bersek, looking like a statue built as a monument to his mighty dark fantasy deeds.
Over at the Tokyo Figure booth, we were greeted by a quintet from guns-as-girls smartphone game Dolls’ Frontline: UMP9 Bees’ Knees, UMP40 Full Moon, UMP45 Corona Sunset, G11 Mind Eraser, and 416 White Negroni.
For those who prefer games about anthropomorphized battleships, Azur Lane’s St. Louis…
…Glorious…
…and Dido were present…
…as was one more Blue Archive character, Wakamo Kosaka.
Over at the Prime 1 Studio, we knew to expect something impactful, since the company is known for its extra-large, extra-detailed figures that are almost more like statues. And they didn’t disappoint, with a jaw-dropping 1:3-scale rendering of NieR:Automata’s 2B.
▼ That 275,000-yen price tag works out to around US$2,000 at the current exchange rate, but Prime 1 Studio’s figures aren’t exactly known for their easy affordability.
And wrapping things up, we swung by the Kadokawa booth to check out their figures for two characters from recent breakout hit Oshi no Ko, Ai and Ruby.
As always, we went home from Wonder Festival with a newly deepened appreciation for the dedication and artistry of Japan’s figure designers and craftsmen, plus a renewed longing for more shelf space in our apartments to fill up with figures.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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