Tamashii Features is Bandai’s own personal toy show, showcasing the new projects and properties that they will be releasing in the following year. Our man in Japan, Robert Baldwin, took some time to check out all that Bandai had to offer. All I can say is my wallet was definitely not ready for the Power Ranger surge!
Before we jump into the fantastic pictures Robert took, I’d like to thank him again for his coverage. I’ve personally become a big Japanese figure fan over the last couple years, and there’s no way we at IAT would be able to share any of these toy conventions without Roberts hard work.
Here’s a few words from Robert on this year’s Tamashii Features. If you have any questions or comments for him, please feel free to ask in this article or in the thread over on our forum.
Unfortunately, Bandai had neglected to send me an invitation for this one. Therefore, I wasn’t able to give any advanced notice or start a thread in order to see if anybody had any questions. But as it turned out, I didn’t have enough time to be asking any questions.
Featured at this event, in general, was the Super Sentai. More specifically, featured at this event was the Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger. When I had first heard of Akibaranger, I thought this was just a poor attempt at some kind of lame tie-in with the Akihabara (Akiba) shopping district, but after sitting in at the screening during Tamashii Feature’s, my opinion had quickly changed – this is an entertaining parody of Toei’s Super Sentai Series, made by Toei, poking fun at the otaku and otaku culture of Akihabara.
Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger, although a Sentai and a series created by Toei, with tie-ins to the official Sentais, is not the 37th Super Sentai – in order to be an official Sentai, they must be acknowledged as a hero group that protects the Earth and must have a television program that is aired on Sunday mornings as the Super Sentai of the past couple of decades have. This show will start airing in April (in Japan) as a late night program, aimed at an adult audience.
As for the rest of the event, basically the same as usual, except the toys were generally newer. Unfortunately, with limited time and some restrictions on photography, I wasn’t able to get pictures of everything, but I think I still managed to photograph a good selection.
-Robert
Gallery A – Super Sentai/Power Rangers
Gallery B – Kamen Rider
Gallery C – Godzilla and Ultraman
Gallery D – One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, Tiger and Bunny, Misc.
I’m excited about that King Ghidorah, but not quite as excited about the 10,290 yen price.
The Kamen Rider displays killed me, there’s not a single Figuarts I don’t want. SRC Aquarion Evol, new stuff for Chogokin Franky, Robot Damashii Ka Signature and Rinne no Lagrange… lord, there was almost too much to like this time.
I’ve got to say, it’s nice to see my favorite toy lines featured here, too. It’s not like I expect IAT to review everything under the sun, but I do like seeing these on an English-language site. Thanks, guys.
Oh yeah, and I don’t know if there are any Neon Genesis Evangelion fans here, but there was also an SH Monsterarts of the 10th Angel Zeruel from the Rebuild of Evangelion on display. I hope no one minds me linking this picture:
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1q5t1353c1qd4ci0.jpg
There was actually a 4th Angel as well as the 10th Angel.
Photography wasn’t permitted for either one (although the “no photography” sign was posted closer to the 4th Angel) and I wasn’t about to risk being shut out of future events over a couple of pictures.
I’m really of two minds here, and the problem is I can’t ignore the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff that goes on.
I mean, Gridman? REALLY Bandai? Last I heard NOBODY in Japan cared a whit about Gridman except for hard core Toka otaku. That’s more an American thing, a slightly larger market yet YOU HAVE NO REAL AMERICAN PRESENCE ANYMORE, not in any consistent way. Grargh. Pity you killed your Tamashii Web site in the U.S. (which never had an online store active), huh?
King Ghidora is da bomb, with of course a price to match. I can’t help wonder what the Revoltech version would have looked like. And there’s likely to be a 8000 Yen accessory set as well, huh?
I am tickled to see Dunbine and L-Gaim toys. I’m positive that’s as far as both lines go, what’s shown.
thank you for the effort, Robert and Vault! Even tho I may sound like a ‘debby downer’ I’m glad there’s stuff here that excites people. 🙂
Wait… *JETMAN* S.H.Figurearts?!
DAMMIT!
They do the whole team including the sexy commander and I’m in. Bandai gets me again. arrgggh.
(it would be nice if they did the key badguys of the various Sentai shows as well, but that would be an insane amount of one-time tooling)
Hi! Since the Ultra-Act and SH MonsterArts displays are rather small this time around, can it be commented on that there are more figures there that are not being allowed for photographs at this time? Normally Tamashii shows the upcoming stuff, so the smaller Destoroyah, Little Godzilla and that Sun God (from the Orochi film) did not appear. Are there more MonsterArts that are in the works besides the Evangelion stuff?
Tamashii Features is basically the smaller brother to the Tamashii Nations event. It is approximately 1/3 the size with appropriately less displays.
Having said that, there were a certain number of displays which we weren’t allowed to photograph:
Tiger and Bunny
-Campaign items
Persona
-all D-Arts items
-all Figuarts ZERO items
AGP(Armor Girls Project)
-all AGP items
-all COMPSITE Ver. Ka items
Monster Arts
-4th Angel
-10th Angel
Chibi-arts
-Karen Kouzuki
DMP(DeforMeister Petit)
-Uta no Prince-sama
Metal Build
-Gundam Exia
How tall those Godzilla figures are??They look pretty good.
Godzilla’s just a bit over six inches. Mecha and Space G are a bit bigger than him. Ghidorah is quite a bit bigger, but I’m not sure how much.
I think I’m in love. If they made a Birugenia figure for the S.H. Figuarts collection, I’d marry Bandai.
XD That One Piece ship is awesome!!!
Also, how much would I have to pay you to stop showing Vault pictures of Godzilla, Power Rangers, and girl robots? His wallet’s already on life support as is.
And, Waruzugiru-sama! Finally!!!
No Mazinger? No Mazinkaiser SKL? No Getter Robos? That makes me sad.
Still digging quite a few of the sentai figures, especially the Dekaranger/SPD sets. I also like the Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger figures, but the gold accents on the girl’s foreheads make them look like they have cookie monster eyes from certain angles (especially the one of the trio standing outside the shop, Gallery A pic 50).