The new kit announcements are always what seems to get the most coverage at the festival and elicits the prying eyes of the public, but my personal favorite part of the Shizuoka Hobby Show is the variety of kits on display from the modeler's clubs from across Japan and overseas, showcasing all sorts of talent across a variety of themes and genres of plastic model kits.
You aren't likely to find any "straight builds" here: everyone who throws down at the Shizuoka Hobby Show, the plastic model industry's version of Cannes, means business.
These dioramas from Gundam Thunderbolt were amazing!
Many participants are serious about the craft but table like this one--fashioning parts from gundam kits into popular culinary staples--is what makes the entire craft worthwhile. It's nice to laugh once in a while between all the series dioramas and works of enormous proportion.
These large re-imagined builds of the sinister BygZam from the end of the original Mobile Suit Gundam had amazing details and a perfect shade of green.
Another fun take on Gunpla, pitting the Acguy in a scenario from the game Splatoon.
Very impressed to see a turn out of the entire line of V Gundam kits. The series boasted some of the most quirky mecha designs of the entire Gundam universe and definitely deserve a little appreciation. Not to mention they've been out of print for a while.
My favorite themed series of kits was the nod to the Dra-C, a space-based mobile suit that garnered a sort of cult following: it had huge thrusters in place of legs. All the renditions were spot on.
Second to the Dra-C was the ever popular Acguy and its variants. I'm sure some of these ideas have materialized before...but a Gaw attack carrier Acguy? That has to be a first.
There were tons of kits celebrating Fumina from Build Fighters and these two renditions did a great job of making a full body figure out of the Figure-Rise bust kit.
GM Strikes back!
Not one, not two, or...well, there were A LOT of 1/144 Dendrobiums on display. A whole brigade of them lined up, to be exact, but the crowds around them were rather dense so I just tried to snap a few of my favorites, especially the Dom.
The Black Tri-stars as Psycho Zakus.
A reconfigured Dendrobium.
I really enjoyed the light blue color palette on these.
It wasn't limited to just plastic or resin: this Quin Mantha is paper craft!
While you will see a lot of Gundam kits on display the robots don't stop there: there was no shortage
of kits from video games, other robot anime, science fiction, and everything in between.
An entire lineup of Virtual-On mecha, complete with countless color variants. There was also a group who wowed by not just lighting up their kit, but also breathing live into the arcade cabinet next to it. The screen was real and was running a video of the arcade game.
Maschinen Krieger, or Ma.K, is always a big presence especially in the diorama camp.
Macross has been enjoying a lot of great kit releases from Bandai and Hasegawa lately.
This fellow had a display of just about every suit from the 90's series Martian Successor Nadesico complete with painted resin kits of the heroines.
Star Wars is a staple as well and these dioramas were some of the most impressive at the entire event.
Tons of impressive work came from "overseas" talent as well. These works belonged to a group of artists from the Asia region who had a table or two at the event. Great to see more of those building and painting outside Japan lined up alongside Japanese talent.
These kits were by a group of Korean artists and showcased some imaginative futuristic characters with some impressive paint jobs. They remind me a lot of cyber punk anime and video games from the 90s's, and I'm even more impressed by the fact that these were probably all scratch built.
There were plenty of kits from other anime series, especially from Studio Ghibli films.
Bishojo, or beautiful girl, figures might also feel at home at Wonder Fest instead but Shizuoka turned up these intricately painted masterpieces.
These original slice of life dioramas were beautiful and fun to photograph.
Perhaps the most impressive of the show were those entries that probably didn't have anything to do with plastic models at all but were original works that capitalized on the Hobby part of the Shizuoka Hobby Show.
These dioramas were truly works of art, and I ended up taking more videos of them than photos: it just wouldn't do them justice to only have one side of them!
Next, I headed to the smaller West hall which also housed a variety of kits from modelers clubs in a much smaller venue but with no less talent than those in the bigger hall.
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Chris
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