This is Tokyo Big Sight, the location for the event.

Upon entering, I noticed that Bandai's booth was in plain sight, and that it was very crowded. Bandai attracts a large crowd because of their Gundam kits especially, and they target a younger audience. So, I hooked around to the left and went first to Hasegawa's booth, where their new Valkyrie Gerwalk kit prototype was on display.

This marks the first non-Valkyrie Macross kit by Hasegawa. Up until now, they have only made Valks. But now, they are going to release a kit of the SDF-1 Macross itself! On top of that, this will be the Do You Remember Love movie version. ARII and IMAI had released the TV series version as models before, but this will be the first DYRL SDF-1 as a plastic model kit.

More at Hasegawa's booth.

Right: This ship is from Bodacious Space Pirates. I own a variation of this kit, which I bought on a whim earlier this year. I've only seen the first couple of episodes of the show, so I don't have much of an opinion on the anime, but the starship looks cool.

I am currently building this Kawasaki T-4 Blue Impulse jet for my father-in-law. He really enjoys attending air shows, so I want to finish this model this month because his birthday is at the end of the month.

Hasegawa's popular Tamago Hikouki ("Eggplanes") are always a crowd pleaser. The Blue Impulse looks like a tempting purchase.

Left: The SR-71 Blackbird is another Eggplane I'd be tempted to get. Right: The Seven Aces of World War II is a new series by Hasegawa.

Right: Pictured here are James Edgar "Johnny" Johnson of Britain and his Spitfire Mk.IX, Erich Alfred "Bubi" Hartmann of Germany and his Messerschmitt Bf109G-6, Finland's Eino Ilmari Juutilainen and his Messerschmitt BF109G-2, and Russia's Ivan Nykytovych Kozhedub and his Lavochkin La7.

Left: Continuing with the Seven Aces display, we have the American Richard Bong and his P-38J Lightning, Japan's Tetsuzo Iwamoto and his Mitsubishi A6M2b, and finally Franco Lucchini of Italy and his Macchi C.202.

More WWII fighters on display.

Left: WWII fighters at the Fine Molds booth. Right: Tanks at the Tamiya booth.

The Jagdpanzer IV was the main display at Tamiya's booth.

I've always been fond of the Corsair's bent wing design.

Here we have Wave's display! Armored Trooper Votoms kits were on display.

More Votoms.

This was the most exciting kit at Wave's booth, in my opinion: the Metal Slug from the famous SNK run-'n-gun arcade game! There was a Chinese-made unofficial kit called the "Metal Bug" that I bought from Hobbyfan years ago while I was still living in the States. According to many YouTube reviewers, the kit was fairly brittle and super glue was required to fix the parts that broke while assembling. I have yet to build mine, but I am curious to buy this new one by Wave. Nuts, but I already have the Chinese one! I would like to support the official license, though.

Here's an upcoming model of the Sega arcade game, Hang-On! This is just a rough sculpt of the outline of the model, but this will certainly please Sega fans. Wave has also made arcade cabinets of other arcade games, such as IDOLM@STER, Street Fighter IV, Persona 4, and Taiko no Tatsujin. Other game-related models they have produced are Namco's Xevious and Galaga starfighters.

Aside from Bandai and Hasegawa, Wave also holds the license to make Macross models. Their Valkyrie line is in a 1:100 scale. Their new Super Valkyrie was on display.

Right: Check out this neat-looking space colony! It isn't officially a "Gundam" space colony, but it is certainly made in that style.

Left: This legendary Nazi flying saucer marks the end of my pictures at the Wave booth. Right: Here is Megahouse's display. They don't make plastic models for assembly, but instead they make pre-assembled models and figures. Here is a Captain Okita figure. I'll be cosplaying as Captain Okita for Halloween this year, if all goes as planned.

Megahouse's figure of Yuki Mori in her pilot outfit, as part of their Yamato 2199 Girls Collection. I own the Yuria figure from this series and did an unboxing video of it.

Yamato and Gundam ships by Megahouse.

Okay, so here we have Bandai's massive display booth. The first thing you will notice is the Gundam Build Fighters display.

I no longer have the enthusiasm for Gunpla kits. This Zeta II kit was the only one that really interested me.

Right: Youkai Watch is the new rage here in Japan. It seems to be matching Pokemon's initial popularity from the '90s. I work with kids here in Japan as a teacher, and I must say that Youkai Watch is immensely popular. My daughter just wants to watch these shows over and over again! Bandai has really started cranking out these model kits. I am currently building two of them for my daughter.

Left: This is Togenyan. Right: This is Gabunyan. I love that he is a vampire.

Left: This is Robonyan. He is my favorite. He is a robot ghost cat. Just contemplate that concept for a moment. Robot. Ghost. Cat. That is pure badass. Right: Here is Jibanyan, the main ghost character from the game/show and the sidekick Whisper. I'm currently building the regular Jibanyan and Robonyan models, but this is a large, 22cm tall model that is soon to be released.

Big Jibanyan model is big.

OK, here is the main reason why I really wanted to see at the All Japan Model Hobby Show: Bandai's Star Wars display! First off is their upcoming AT-ST. The old MPC model was designed so that the robot's head was split in half, requiring a lot of work to fill the seam and smooth it. I spoke with the Bandai rep standing next to this display for quite a while. He says that this new Bandai AT-ST will avoid that problem by having a separate plate for the front and the top.

Looks pretty nice, doesn't it? Of all the Star Wars models on display that day, this was the one that interested me most.

Left: Here is C-3PO. He will be a regular snap fit plastic model. His head proportion looks a bit off, though. Elsewhere at the show, Kotobukiya's C-3PO statue figure looks perfectly spot on. You'll see a pic of that one later on. Right: Although there was not a model for display, this placard shows the upcoming Sand Trooper.

Oops, did I say that the AT-ST interested me most? I meant to say that these two astromech droid models interested me most! MPC's R2-D2 was a bit lacking, full of fit issues, and did not look quite right. It couldn't stand on its own properly. However, with Bandai's modern craftsmanship, I am sure that this will look fantastic!

So this Stormtrooper is a regular plastic model and not some resin or vinyl figure. We can expect the great posability of a Gundam kit to be present in this Stormtrooper.

Here are the sprues for the Darth Vader kit.

And finally, here is the kit that gets the most attention: the X-Wing starfighter. My main concern was that like the Gundam HG kits, these Star Wars kits would contain only lousy stickers and not waterslide decals. I confirmed with the Bandai rep that these kits will indeed contain waterslide decals. Brian from HLJ told me that he was told by Bandai that these kits would include both stickers and waterslide decals, much like the 1:48 X-Wing kit by Fine Molds.

The one thing I was afraid of was realized to be true for this model. Bandai always makes their sprues molded in different colors in order for those who dislike painting their models to assemble the kit without having to paint it. You will notice that the red stripes on the side of the X-Wing's fuselage come as separate red parts. In my opinion, this is just over-engineering the crap out of this model, and this red plastic seems redundant considering that the model will come with both stickers and decals. Bandai's kits are pretty tight, however I have seen straight out-of-the-box, unpainted builds of their Yamato 2199 Cosmo Zero fighters on YouTube and have seen light showing through the cracks on the wings where the yellow stripes were molded in yellow plastic. Somebody on the Starship Modeler forum told me that it is best to assemble the Cosmo Zero first, and then paint it. Painting the parts separately can cause gaps in the plastic. So for the sake of over-engineering this X-Wing kit, there is a risk of gaps in the plastic that must be filled, etc. I was afraid that they would do this, and in my opinion it is just not necessary.

At the show, I spoke with Mr. Suzuki, the president of Fine Molds. When I last saw him, it was at the Shizuoka Hobby Show, and he was tight-lipped about Fine Molds's Star Wars plans because of the impending news. Now that the "cat is out of the bag," so to speak, he could speak freely and he asked me of my impression of Bandai's new X-Wing. I told him that while the customization was nice, it was a bit over-engineered. I said I love how the Fine Molds models are more solid. While he was not negative towards Bandai, he said that this shows the difference in philosophy between his company and Bandai. Fine Molds sets about to make a scale model, while Bandai typically makes a kit to snap together and be done with it. They do not demand the same amount of craftsmanship that a regular scale model will.

So this exploded view of the model serves to display the various parts that can be swapped to modify the X-Wing to make it customizable. I learned a lot about the various X-Wing models. For example, the nose cone on Luke's Red 5 is elongated in comparison to the other X-Wings, and the armor plate on the back side of the ship is actually inverted compared to the others. These Bandai models will come with swappable parts to customize the fighters! I believe the Bandai rep said that Biggs's Red 3 had longer thrusters, but I cannot verify that this kit comes with differently sized thrusters by what I saw and took pictures of that day.

Something else I should point out is that this kit will have the canopy come as a clear part and as an open frame. The studio models used in the movie in fact only had an open frame to prevent studio lights reflecting on the clear parts during filming.

Here is Red 2. Notice Wedge's sand-colored nose cone.

Red 3, Biggs. I really hope that this kit comes with different decal options for the different ships in Red Squadron. I severely doubt that the decals will come pre-weathered like the ones Fine Molds made.

Red 5, Luke. You will note the longer nose cone.

Here is Darth Vader's TIE X-1. The X-1 was Fine Molds's final Star Wars kit, released last year. People have already noted that this new Bandai one has better detail that the Fine Molds one lacked. I told the Bandai rep that they really need to make a TIE Bomber since a plastic model of that has never yet been created. He then quickly jotted a note down on his notebook. Hopefully they'll take my suggestion under consideration!

Left: Here you can see the sprue for Darth Vader's TIE. Two colored sprues are fused into one, so that those who dislike painting can build this kit. Right: More X-Wing pics. I think the exhaust port plate looks nice, but the sticks holding the proton torpedoes into place look a bit dumb.

These pilots look nicely-sculpted.

Right: Here is the huge Star Destroyer on display. There has been some rumor that this is actually the Anigrand Star Destroyer, but Brian at HLJ confirmed with Bandai that this is their very own tooling. They are still considering whether or not it will be made. If so, it would come as a light-up kit (like the Bandai Star Trek kits) and cost double what the largest Yamato kit costs. Yikes! I'll be happy with just a smaller kit (light-up optional). I still have my poorly-detailed AMT Star Destroyer still in the box.

The detail on the command tower and the entire model is fantastic. It would be rather difficult for a modeler in Japan to find the space for such a huge model in a typical Japanese home.

A Snowspeeder model will also be made, in 1:48 scale.

Here is the 1:48 scale X-Wing Fighter. This is lit, motorized, and comes with sounds. Buttons on its base can be pressed.

Right: A close-up picture of the Snowspeeder.

Here's where Bandai's Star Wars stuff turns to other merchandising. Left: These busts are nice, as are the figures in the background. Right: Here is a Millenium Falcon case for your Suica or other rechargeable smart card. Instead of just passing your card over the sensor to enter the train or subway station, swoop this Millenium Falcon containing your card instead! When you are at the convenience store, make sure to make a whoosh sound when you swoop it over the sensor and see if the store clerk rolls his or her eyes!