Well well well. What can I say? It's JAF-CON, a mecca for all gunpla fans! Despite knowing full well that hordes of people will attend and getting to the site late could spell disaster, I still nevertheless, goof around in the morning before finally left the hotel. Well, we arrived at Tokyo Big Sight at around 9:00 (the gate opens at 10) and finally got in at 10:45. Not bad ,but many kits were gone by then!

Booth reports

A lot of Gundam kits selling there this year were more or less a rehash of the previous years. Some of them are cool nevertheless. Still there's also a few new kits making debut this year. Here are some that I found interesting (all Gundam, of course).

The major players:

Kotobukiya

Kotobukiya's booth is certainly the largest at JAF-CON. All their current B-Club releases are here along with tons of their accessory products. Unfortunately, there appears to be no event-only kit like some previous years.

Kotobukiya's web site

Yellow Submarine

Despite being normally focus on their Macross and Valken lines, it wouldn't be JAF-CON if they're without a Gundam kit. Their sole Gundam GK this year is the impressive 1/144 Messala Dino-Faust Jupitor version. Which also appeared last year. All 40 boxes of the 26,800 yen kits were sold out in a flash! Suffice to say, I was too late.

Messsala Dino-Faust Jupitor

Yellow Submarine's web site

Volks

Japan's largest GK manufacturer comes all gun blazing at JAF-CON! With their flagship kit; a ceiling-tall (not Tokyo Big Sight ceiling! But in a normal room) Jadg Mirage 1/100 that catches people attention from miles away. On the Gundam front, all the kits from their Gundam 20th anniversary line up made it here. Starting with the 1/72 Gundam Katoki version that is a scale down of the famous 1/35 kit ,plus the whole 1/100 MM (Moving Mechanical) serie of Katoki's Gundam including RX-78, MkII (including Emma figure), Zeta and ZZ.

Club M /Origin

JAF-CON day is perhap the only day in the whole year you can get Club M's Gundam kit. Like Yellow Submarine, Club-M whose specialty is Macross comes to JAF-CON with line up of cool Gudam kits.Most notable, the massive 1/100 Nightingale with a hefty price tag of 58,000 yen, yet it's sold out. Boy, the Nightingale really has some upsurge in popularity this year!

There's also bunch of 1/100 scale kit that includes Powered GM, Dom Tropen, Palace Athenne and Ball. Oh, there's a 1/144 Neo-Denmark Gundam set thrown in for good measure as well.

A 1/100 Nightingale!

Club M's web site

Atelier Sai

Last year's trio of the Blue Destiny MSes retuen along with tthe RX-79 Gundam and GM. The sculpting is really good, and the casting quality is excellent. Even the modeler's carved signature still stay very sharp in the kit. Man, I wish they'd do some 1/144...

Other Shops

Seeing large company's booth is great and all that, but usually you can easily find their kits outside of the con. It's the small group/shop's offerings here that JAF-CON is all about! How and where else can you expect to see kit of an obscure MS-13?

Realize

Their 1/144 Bigro kit reappears for the 3rd time after one year of absence. The price is rather high at 20,000 yen considering how few the pieces are, but it was eventually sold out by noon. With me being one of the people helping the cause <G>.

COM

Upon seeing the kit picture in the guide book the night before, both of us laughed COM's MS-13 Gatsha off, and was so sure that nobody would wants this hilarious looking MS! Well,boy, were we wrong! All 20 boxes were gone before we even see it!

Windaria

Now here's one strange booth. Though in the guide book, they list number of kits to be sold and their price, when in fact they didn't seems to finished those kits in time. So all we see is some half done models displaying at the table, with nothing for sale. Some of those models looks, well, creative still. If not a bit sloppy...

The emphasis is on version MSes from various Gundam games. Such as the 1/300 Neue Ziel II and 1/144 Gann from SD Gundam G-Generation and 1/144 "Pig Zam" (!?). Some other MAs pesented includes 1/220 Nightingale, Neue Ziel and 1/550 Zodiack.

Maniac Mania

Featuring a 1/130 Gun Cannon and Rick Dom beautifully done in Katoki style. And guess what?, both were sold out within half an hour that the gate opens! I wasn't even got in yet!

Atelier Zeno

Showing off their MSV line up which consist of MS-06W, MS-07C-3 and YMS-08A. All were eventually sold out.

Romando

Now this is the booth that excites a 1/144 and Z obsessed like me most! I was overjoyed to see the trio of transformable MS from Z Gundam. These includes Messala, Asshimar and Gaza-C (18,000, 16,000 and 13,000 yen respectively). All transformable! I bet B-Club's gonna release all these in the next few months. Nevertheless, I laid down the cash for Messala without second thought! Sadly, the other two were sold out before I can get my hands on.

Romando's web site

Other notable (Gundam) dealers


Suoraida: 1/100 Assimar.

Here's an ambitious one; the mega-huge 1/60 GP-02A!! From Utopia.

Itemau-Do's 1/100 Gouf Custom

Nerikai also has 3 MSes from Z in 1/100 scale. The-O, Gabthley and Messala.

1/144 FA Gundam mk III, from Kunio Okawara's collection of (bogus) MSZ. Yuck!

Kit Boy's 1/220 Mega Rider

Can't recall the maker, but these 2 1/100 GM Command and GM Kai look really good.

Not for sale. ZI-XA2 by Tokaimura Kenpachi. Featured in the G20 magazine earlier this year.

The Gunpla competition continues on next page.