The view from the entrance to the event.

The All-Japan Model Hobby Show 2023

September 2023

Back when I first started covering these model hobby trade shows, I never would have expected that I would someday even work at these events. But not only with my 8-month stint working at Aoshima, I've just gotten to know so many people that these have become social events for me. When I finally arrived at Tokyo Big Sight, my two friends had already seen everything. I told them not to wait around for me and that I would see themm later that day. For at least the first hour and a half, I was talking to so many people and making new acquaintances.

Here are the photos of the event. After watching Kino Kousaka's videos of the event, I realized that I had completely missed the Goodsmile booth. I saw her covering their items and I cannot remember ever seeing Goodsmile's booth anywhere. I completely missed them somehow. I figure that they must have been right next to Max Factory since they are the same company, but I just cannot remember seeing a Goodsmile booth. This photo gallery includes pictures of companies I did not cover in my video: Bandai, Doyusha, and Kotobukiya.

Aoshima's booth had a Delorean time machine on display to promote their completely newly-tooled Back to the Future Delorean model kit!

I missed this news from the Shizuoka Hobby Sow in May, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a completely new Delorean kit. No longer are the wires molded onto the car, but are individual pieces which can be painted separately. All of the time machine parts on the back deck are individual too. Not only that, but the gull-wing doors can be positioned open or closed via pins! The pins are plastic and not metal though, so I am not sure how sturdy they are. I talked with Unno-san a bit about the model as he was the one who designed it.

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The kit will include clear parts for the flames. They will be cast in clear, so it will be up to the modeler to paint the flames. Very nice touch.

I spoke with Kaneda-san about his Macross VFG series. I told him how cool it would be to see Misa or Minmay straddling a VF-1 Valkyrie from the original Macross show/movie, but he seems set on focusing on these newer series' subjects. Oh well.

It seems that a few companies are coming out with Gunbuster kits.

Moving on to Hasegawa's booth, the star of the show (in my opinion) is the upcoming Queadeluun Rau from Macross!

At 1:72nd scale, this is going to be a big kit! I recently started building the old 1:144 Imai kit, repopped by Bandai.

I'm certain that it will have decals for Millia's eyes.

It will be released in November. Then in December, a VF-1S Max Valkyrie will be released to complement Millia's mecha.

Other Macross kits on display that are on the release schedule.

Hasegawa will release a 1989 Nissan Fairlady Z32 in November.

These above are Hasegawa's various anime models: Captain Harlock, Crusher Joe, Xabungle and Dirty Pair.

I'm glad that Hasegawa has the Dirty Pair license and are releasing 1:12 scale resin figure kits. I already have Kei, and Yuri will come in November.

Revell has a completely newly-tooled Hawker Hurricaine in 1:32 scale.

A new Godzilla movie will be released November 3rd, and Hasegawa will have something to do with it. No specific merchandise was shown though.

Hasegawa's resin 1:12 scale Eggplane Girls.

These are the newest ones. On the left is a bunny girl Mikumo, coming soon.

Hasegawa had HK Models's 1:48 Avro Lancaster kits on display.

Moving on to the Platz booth, there was an extremely expensive 1:12 Formula One Lotus on display, with plenty of photoetch.

On the right are the 2001 kits on display.

France's Heller is still around. I did not know that. The one that caught my eye was the 1:72 Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker. I love their digital camouflage. With Russia decimating Ukraine's military so badly in order to stop Ukraine's war of genocide against their own citizens, I wonder how many of these beautiful Flankers remain or if they've all been shot down by now. I guess we just need to send them MORE money and their problems will go away, right? SMH. Right: The new Lost In Space Chariot. It's newly-tooled.

Platz's beautiful F-15J Eagles were on display.

My friend Sakakibara-san's Rocket Models has new Fist of War kits on display. This Nazi mecha looks pretty badass.

More Fist of War kits.

OK, now here is Tamiya's booth. The star here was their upcoming 1:48 F-35B Lightning II, due in December.

Just look at the mess of wires in the landing gear wheel wells. It's such amazing detail! When building older kits, their wheel wells are mostly devoid of detail. I look at reference material of the actual planes and try to recreate some of the missing detail with wires myself.

For Lancaster fans, here is a 1:48 Avro Lancaster B, Mk. I/III. Already on sale.

The 1:48 Gumman FM-1 Wildcat/Martlet Mk.V is coming in December.

Here they show how they took the F4F-4 and retooled some parts to convert it to the FM-1 Martlet.

Some of the panels have different textures to add detail. The top and bottom of the wings are new, as marked in the photos. The pilot figure is also new.

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I'm really not into tanks, but here you go: the North African Panzerkampfwagen IV which comes with a motorcycle.

Moving on to the Max Factory booth...

A 1:12 scale Anice Farm from Sonic Soldier Borgman! This is just a proposal under development.

Tiny Vifam models.

They have a lot of these tiny robot models so far. I wouldn't mind trying one or two.

The Cruise Chaser Blassty transforming mecha is coming back. I assume it is a repop of the one they released a year or two ago?

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 OF THIS PHOTO GALLERY

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"One day I was walking and I found this big log. Then I rolled the log over and underneath was a tiny little stick. And I was like, 'That log had a child!'" ~Yoda

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