Winter Wonder Festival 2012 Preview

Wonder Festival mascots Wonda and Reset, 2012 winter version

Wonder Festival 2012 Winter approaches! The date is Sunday, February 12th, and the place is the Makuhari Messe convention center, as it was last summer.

Catalogs for the event went on sale today, providing both the official entry ticket and a glimpse at what many of the exhibitors are planning to show at the event. For those unfamiliar, Wonder Festival is the biannual celebration of figure and garage kit creativity sponsored by model manufacturer Kaiyodo (known most recently for their Revoltech line of action figures). Amateurs sell original, small-batch unpainted resin figures from popular anime, manga and games under a one day limited license arrangement with the IP holders, while a growing industry presence shows off event-limited and upcoming PVC figures in increasingly elaborate displays.

This post will be updated as plans from notable makers and sculptors become known over the next week or so. The roundup of currently available exhibitor information is below:

Industry

• Goodsmile’s Wonderful Hobby Life for You showcase marks its 15th appearance at the event, with a full schedule of live appearances and list of event-limited items for sale.
• Cafe Reo has a couple of Touhou “Pettanko” figures it’ll be showing, strongly reminiscent of Nendoroid.
• Dengeki Hobby will be there with Kirino and Kuroneko garage kits from Oreimo, along with a couple of robot kits and a “premium nipper” modeling tool.
• Griffon will have several limited color PVC offerings as well as an array of garage kits available, mostly from their Touhou line.
• Orchid Seed will have an event-limited Succubus Silvia PVC available, among other items to be announced (some hints are here). 2/3/12 Update: an event limited pink edition of their Mai Favorite figure is the second item announced. 2/8/12 Update: A Super Sonico (nurse ver.) resin kit is the third item announced!
• A+ will have a mindblowing 1/2.5 scale Queen’s Blade Cattleya figure for sale as a garage kit (coming in March in polyresin). 2/8/12 Update: Also, a finished resin cast version of their Manyuu Chibusa from last time, and the full sales lineup is here.
• Kotobukiya will be there with a clear Anubis mech from Zone of the Enders, and some Ultraman swag.
• Volks will be there with a standard assortment of mecha and bishoujo figures.
• Kaitendoh will be there with a limited edition “daydream nurse” figure.
• Yuzu-soft will be there with a garage kit of Miu Yarai from their Dracu-Riot! eroge.
• Amiami reports on their event presence in this blog post; not seeing much new there so far.
• Daiki Kougyou
• ques Q
• Alter
• Amie Gran
• Q-six
• Yamato (2/8/12 link updated)
• Okayama Figure Engineering (feat. Matsumoto Drill Kenkyuujo)
• Left Hand
• Gift’s Snow Miku plush
• Aizu Project
• Moon Toys

Amateur

• Grimrock! | Blog
• Vispo | Blog
• Tandem Twin | Blog
• Reply From… | Blog
• Klondike | Blog
• Diskvision
• Brilliant Cut
• Atomic Bom
• Jamming Off
• Atelier Bamboo
• Acetone
• Ryun-Ryun Tei
• Yoiko Q
• Kitutehu
• Jetstream | Blog
• Studio Saru Bunshitsu Kasetsujo
• Cherry Blossom
• Hyper Space
• Flower Shop
• Yume no Kagutsuchino Koukoku
• Tsuru no Yakata
• Tekkouryu
• Mr. Surprise
• Ringo Renmei
• Neko no Jimusho
• Mugen Giko
• Komakkou (Comac Cow)
• Jojuu Manji Katame
• Check ABC-labo for daily updates on amateur garage kit circle activities (RSS feed). I’ll be looking through this for the highlights and posting them here in the coming days.

Curiosities

• Akiba Blog has a piece up on Paper Moon’s journey to Wonder Festival.
• Cosplay social networking service Cure‘s event page for Wonder Festival 2012 winter is here.
• This… is beyond my ability to easily describe, but will be making an appearance at the event.
• Uneri Kaidan does a fascinatingly abstract figure rendition of Miku.

More updates coming as I come across them! As usual I’ll be focusing primarily on bishoujo figures, and major updates to this post will be announced on Twitter.