Wonder Festival 2024 [Winter], an anime figure expo, is now open and features the newest figures available. However, are there any retro-themed characters at the festival? That all relies on the specifics of your search.
The best new figures from anime, manga, and video games are always on display during the twice-yearly Wonder Festival. What about figures for those who enjoy the vintage series? Everything relies on your definition of retro and your specific goals. Are you trying to find authentic retro series figures, re-created retro series figures, or one-of-a-kind, authentic retro series figurines from a separate seller? If none of those fit, it can be a vintage figurine from a reseller from a retro series. What really is a retro series, anyway? Fortunately, Wonder Festival 2024 [Winter] took care of everything. Whether it is worthwhile to spend the time and energy searching for that one figure at the event is the true question.
In order to answer the question of precisely what constitutes a retro series, we are focusing on video games and anime from the 2000s that are more than 15 to 20 years old. At the very least, this would classify the series that predate 2009 as retro. To be perfectly honest, though, given that you’re looking at shows like Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance, Summer Wars, K-ON!, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, among many others, this feels a little too current. Thus, we will examine anime shows that aired prior to 2000. Is it somewhat capricious? Regretfully, the answer is indeed. That’s the breaks, though.
Given our understanding of what defines a retro series for this article, is it possible to locate figures from retro anime series at Wonder Festivals, namely Wonder Festival 2024 [Winter]? Yes, is the straightforward response. However, it all depends on what you’re specifically searching for.
If you choose new official figurines from retro and rebuilt retro series, your journey will be simpler. Thousands of official figures are consistently on display during Wonder Festival. There are constantly new figures from classic and reimagined series among them. As a matter of fact, these figures have been scattered around several booths at past Wonder Festivals, including Good Smile Company.
The Wonder Festival 2024 [Winter] was the same as usual. Figures from Gunbuster, Fist of the North Star, Kinnikuman, Mazinger Z, and earlier series like Astro Boy, as well as some obscure anime like Jarinko Chie and robot anime from the early to mid-1990s, had a decent showing at the event, but you’ll have to walk about the floor a little. Not to mention Shonen Ric’s enormous collection of vintage tokusatsu figures. Granted, it was a little simpler to locate figures from that series this time around because Wonder Festival 2024 [Winter] commemorated the 40th anniversary of Fist of the North Star. However, official retro anime figures are generally not too hard to come by. All it takes is a little detective work.
Finding figures from reimagined classic anime series isn’t too hard. This is mostly because of the Rebuild film series and Neon Genesis Evangelion’s enormous popularity. However, the majority of Evangelion figures have been on display at previous Wonder Festivals. Thus, not much will be new there. Conversely, Wonder Festival 2024 [Winter] featured a brief display of characters from popular series such as Rurouni Kenshin and Urusei Yatsura. Similar to retro anime figures, fresh content based on revived retro series is available. Even if Wonder Festival is a bit of a time-waster, it’s still worthwhile to visit because you never know what kind of old and remade properties you’ll find there.
However, independent dealers are a far different ball of worrisome. At any Wonder Festival, you may find well over 1,500 individual sellers in addition to the about 70 official booths. It makes sense that independent retailers would provide a wider selection of vintage anime figures. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case; instead, merchants typically divide their inventory into original figurines that aren’t connected to any anime properties and those that are. Furthermore, only a small number of independent vendors who display anime-inspired figures base their creations on classic anime episodes. To put it very bluntly, at Wonder Festival 2024 [Winter], I only came across four independent vendors of vintage anime figures. This indicates that, at most,.3% of independent dealers offer data that are based on vintage series. To be honest, these aren’t the finest odds, but it’s a true treat to locate a seller of authentic old figures. But you might want to stay home given the time and effort it takes to locate those sellers.
The few resellers that set up business at Wonder Festival each year are left. These groupings are usually easy to locate because they are located in one corner of the independent seller halls. However, a significant portion of plastic model kit distributors are the cause for concern here. Indeed, there are people scattered among the model kits, but the kits are the main attraction. You really have to search far and wide to locate a vintage kit, even within those kits. Thus, there’s no assurance that at Wonder Festival, a reseller will have what you’re looking for. In summary, it’s simpler to locate a reseller of vintage anime figures on the internet.
Wonder Festival has figures that are based on vintage anime. However, as previously mentioned, the simplicity of finding something varies depending on what you’re looking for. Official vendors nearly always have something, even if it’s not precisely what you’re looking for. This justifies the long walk to the event. You’ll find things, especially if we define retro as anything that is 15 years or older. You won’t find anything to your liking, though, if you’re looking for an independent seller’s figure based on vintage anime. Although this writer doesn’t think the time sink is worth it, it might surprise you. If you’re interested in buying antique anime figures, you might as well buy them online rather than at Wonder Festival, even if they cost more. Wonder Festival, however, will provide you with the opportunity to locate or see figures from vintage anime shows for the first time. Just keep in mind that you might find yourself looking for those statistics for longer than you would want.
