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The Gaming Figures of Winter Wonder Festival 2016

• by Heidi Kemps • In Figures, Rad stuff •   2

Y’know, with so many gaming websites now printing a bunch of general “nerd news” amongst gaming-related articles, I find it saddening how much Wonder Festival gets ignored. Here’s where all of the coolest gaming figures on the planet are being showcased, but nobody’s talking about them! It’s not even a matter of “well this stuff is only available in Japan” anymore – hell, GameStop and Hot Topic are stocking Nendoroids and scale PVC figures these days! It’s never been easier to get a lot of these things! But no, we’re gonna focus on unboxing whatever garbage Funko pooped out last week, I guess.

Oh, uh… I guess I got a little ranty there! Eheheh. Anyway! Winter Wonder Festival 2016 was last weekend, and with it came a whole mess of figure news! As usual, I’m here to collect the coolest gaming figures that were shown and put them all in one handy little article for you! Hooray! This year brought us some super cool surprises – while I was a little disappointed overall that my favorite manufacturers didn’t have much truly “wow”-inducing new stuff to show, the out-of-left-field announcements of stuff like a friggin’ figma Iron Fossil and Beat from Jet Set Radio more than made up for it.

The usual disclaimer: I know things like the Fate series. Shining stuff, KanColle, etc. fall under the “games” category, and I am excluding them because there are just so many of those figures that you can very easily find pics and info elsewhere.1  We’re focusing on the more under-the-radar gaming figures – the sort of stuff that doesn’t get merchandised in shiny plastic form all that often.

Click on the photos to see bigger versions if they’re available. And, as always, if I missed anything, let me know in the comments!

Images are sourced from Akibahobby, FigSoku, Dengeki Online, and the official Good Smile website.

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  1. I would also like to welcome Granblue Fantasy into this category. Damn, does it EVER have some gorgeous figures, though. ↩

The Gaming Figures of Summer Wonder Festival 2015

• by Heidi Kemps • In Figures, General, Rad stuff •   0

Oh boy, it’s Wonder Festival time again! Yes, Japan’s twice-yearly figure and modelling extravaganza just had its annual summer outing, and there’s plenty of great new stuff on display – especially if you like games! It’s a bit tough to find the interesting gaming figures amongst the massive amount of goodies on display, however.

That’s where I come in to help! I’ve been carefully searching for info on gaming-related figures from the show, and I’ve collected everything I’ve dug up here on this page to serve as a one-stop information source to know what kind of delightful game character figures you can expect to see go up for preorder from your favorite importer/exporter in the near future.

You might notice that this list doesn’t include *all* the gaming figures shown at the event. Like I said last time I did this feature, I understand that I’m omitting a lot of stuff from series like Im@s, Love Live, KanColle, Tony’s Shining stuff, etc. I’m not going to argue something stupid like “these properties aren’t games” because they are, obviously! But there are just so damn many of them that they’d dominate the list. I’d rather give the focus to more obscure stuff because hey, obscurity is our lifeblood here! I’m also skipping over stuff that’s already out for preorder, was shown elsewhere very recently, and/or hasn’t changed significantly since its last showing (i.e. that Orchid Seed Sorceress from Dragon’s Crown that still lacks a color prototype).

Images are sourced from Akiba Hobby (possibly NSFW), Dengeki Online, MFC, Figsoku twitter and website, WHL4U, the Hobby Search blog, and the AmiAmi Blog. As always, if I’ve missed anything, let me know and I’ll add it ASAP!

So normally I try to sort by manufacturer, but this time I’m going to put what are by far the MOST IMPORTANT figure announcements first. I’m not even “Read more”-ing them, this is how important they are!

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Yes, it’s Sarah and Akira! From the original Virtua Fighter! In their beautiful circa 1993 blocky polygon glory! In figma form! Holy crap, FREEing, you know how to get this girl’s attention (and, inevitably, money). Besides the crazy Sega nostalgia on display, this also means we are that much closer to the Vanessa figma thousands of fans are craving! (I count for thousands of fans, trust me.)

And now, everything else.

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The gaming figures of Winter Wonder Festival 2015

• by Heidi Kemps • In Figures, General, Rad stuff •   10

It’s that time of year again: a weekend where rampaging figure nerds like me mash their F5 keys across numerous Japanese webpages to get sweet, sweet pictures of pretty new plastic figures from the twice-annual Wonder Festival. Wonder Festival is a celebration of all things figure, bringing together garage kit makers and builders, prepainted figure manufacturers, traditional action figure makers, and a whole brigade of fervent otaku.

Every Wonder Festival brings with it a plethora of pictures of new wares from numerous Japanese figure manufacturers. While I’m certainly a fan of figures in general, I’m most excited when my passions of gaming and figures collide to create gorgeous pieces of three-dimensional art. And I’m sure I’m not alone! Yet with so many manufacturers large and small competing for the attention of showgoers and photographers – and with juggernaut series like Kantai Collection spawning huge amounts of merchandise – it’s hard to sort through everything to find the gaming-related goodies.

That’s why I’ve done it for you! I’ve assembled a gallery of Wonder Festival’s gaming figure announcements, both prominent and obscure. Given how much gets shown at a typical WonFes, I may have missed a few things – if so, let me know and I’ll add them ASAP!

Some notes: I’m not posting garage kit pics, because as awesome as resin kits are, a lot of them are extremely difficult to obtain (since the creator probably makes less than a hundred of them). I’m trying to focus on stuff you actually have a chance of seeing in your hands sometime in the near future. I’m also aware that KanColle/Tony Shining Series/Love Live/Idolmaster/Senran Kagura etc. would technically fall under the gaming figures category. My major excuse for excluding them, in this case, is because there are like a billion of them and I’d rather look more at the gaming stuff that doesn’t get the plastic treatment quite as often.

Images are sourced from Akiba Hobby, Dengeki Online, MFC, Figsoku twitter and website, WHL4U, and the AmiAmi Blog.

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