While we spent plenty of time at this week’s summer Wonder Festival snapping pictures of the awesome cosplayers, they’re really not what the event is about. Wonder Festival is actually Japan’s biggest modeling convention, with hundreds of displays of the latest figurines and garage kits.
We sent our Japanese-language reporter Meg out to the Makuhari Messe convention center, and she brought back a batch of photos sure to have anime fans clearing off space on their desk for one more figure.
Starting things off is this gorgeous figure of Sakura Kinomoto, the titular heroine of creative team Clamp’s Cardcaptor Sakura.
Facial features tend to be a stumbling block on anime figurines, so it’s nice to see the face on this piece from manufacturer Karumiya looking close to how the character appears in her TV series and manga.
Sakura’s design proved so popular that Clamp later refined it for another character of the same name in its Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.
The maker of this Tsubasa Sakura and its intricate surrounding environmental touches came all the way from Taiwan to show it to the Wonder Festival crowds.
While anime is the big draw, Wonder Festival also covers video game characters. This Etrian Odyssey IV Dancer, crafted by designer Sisiro for Shunshudo, was such a hit that its entire stock is already sold out.
Moving from dancers to magical girls, the costuming here is as feminine and frilly as you’d imagine for someone named Love Momozono, who’s also known as Cure Peach.
You’ve got to admire the amount of work that went into her corkscrewing tresses and ruffled skirt.
A-Toys’ Female Titan, on the other hand, is a lot more intimidating.
The Attack on Titan statue is still in its preliminary stage, which is why it was shown unpainted. Appropriately, it’s 90 centimeters (35.4 inches) tall, meaning it’ll tower over most other figures you choose to display it with, just like a naked giant should.
▼ That doesn’t mean super-deformed Mikasa is backing down, though.
There’s no rule that says monster girls have to be scary, though.
For example, Nyarlathotep here, as designed by Goddes for Megami Jimusho, is one of the many Cthulhu-like entities that populate the series Nyaruko: Crawling with Love.
Well, technically, since she comes from outer space, she’s more an alien girl than a monster girl. Either way though, she sure does have nice hair.
Another combination of cute and weird, here’s designer Kafu N’s Matoi Tsunetsuki for manufacturer Hakomusu.
It looks even better painted, since the serial stalker from Sayonara Zestubo-Sensei is sporting a vividly-colored kimono, in an attempt to mimic the traditional fashion sense of her high school homeroom teacher/object of obsession.
Finally, proving that even almost 50 years after his debut people still can’t get enough of anime’s most famous master thief and his femme fatale, The Cube had Lupin III and Fujiko Mine on display.
The highly stylized versions of creator Monkey Punch’s beloved rogues have us thinking that with manga, anime, and live-action adaptations on their resumes, maybe claymation should be next on the list for Lupin and company.
Photos: RocketNews24
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