Our super kawai photographer Julie just sent a couple of photos live from the Wonderfestival. She spotted these beautiful wood otaku sculptures. I think this is the start of a new trend among Japanese vinyl artists...

Last summer Yujin announced the release  of the gatchapoin series Shooting Game Historica Figure Collection Gashapon that was supposed to be released last december. Finally Play Asia has just posted these gatchapon that cost ca 2,5 Euro each. These 6 figures are going to be pretty popular among Japanese gatcha junkies so in few days they will get the "collectors item" status (of course  I'm going to buy a 12 box set along with the Vic Viper Scale 1/60 that I already ordered)...

Main Features:

• Six Figures: Gradius V (Vic Viper),  Image Fight (Daedalus), R-Type Final (Arrowhead), Darius (Silver Hawk Red Type), Darius (Silver Hawk Blue Type) and Gradius 2 (Metarion)
• Material: PVC & ABS
• Size: ca 7 cm

Kotobukiya has released the LeiFang PVC figure from the DOAX2 Venus on the beach! series.

GoodSmile Company has just posted its figure lineup for next Wonderfestival. As always the quatities are limited so I will head straight to GoodSmile booth to get the new special edition Gradius / SkyGirls Vic Viper.
Besides starring in Gradius games, the Vic Viper appears in Sky Girls anime series (in Episode 7, 14 and 21) produced by Konami. 
I'm a Gradius maniac so I already bought the 1/60 scale model!!

Kaiyodo has just release a series of gashapon magnet toys of micro-organisms from Tales of Agriculture (Moyashimon) a manga/anime about a college student at an agricultural university who got the ability to communicate with bacteria and other micro-organisms.
I think these toys (and the manga Moyashimon) would be featured in the Whole Earth Review magazine if it would be still published or maybe I'm just an etnobotanic otaku, tripping on plastic toys, who spent countless childhood days programming botanic simulation softwares on his Commodore 64...

Amano Ai (photo gallery here,  here and here), after working at Tokyo Motor Show, is now partecipating at Osaka Motor show as  Race Queen for Exedy (a Japanese company considered the world leader of performance sports and racing clutches that was a technical sponsor of the Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift movie)
I just found this new video with Ai chan from the Japanese TV show Hyper Race Queen on Sky Perfect TV.  Actually there are 4 videos: video 1, video 2 and video 3 (the quality is not perfect but still watchable). Ai chan is kawaii and super sexy!!
I love Amano Ai!!

This is the first Nendoroid (from GoodSmile company) dedicated to out beloved Miku chan! (from Hobby Japan January 2008  issue)

(Update 25/11) Akibablog got a great post about Miku Nendoroid.

T Dai Blog has just posted new figure erotic parodies.  You don't need to be able to read japanese to enjoy this blog (our favourite are the Cosplay/anime parody Porno DVDs reviews like the brand new Lucky Star from TMA).  T Day passion for Condensed Milk  bukkake has been already spotted by Danny back in October and now he is working on a figure of the super kawaii blog mascotte Anko Milk Chan: the Condesed Milk heroine!

Ai chan has posted many super kawaii photos of her working at Tokyo Motor Show as companion for the legendary japanese brand Excedy.  The show will close next sunday so if you are in Tokyo this could be a good chance to meet her! If you can't you can watch her in this new video we spotted on You tube.

This is our friend Amano Ai new otaku column published by the legendary japanese gravure idol magazine Beppin School!  The column is dedicated to figures, dolls and garage kits. Ai chan will run this column for the next months and first part appeared in the october issue.

MaK Po is a new collaborative project inspired by legendary mecha designer / sculptor Kow Yokoyama (who created Maschinen Krieger ZbV 3000 sci-fi universe in the 80s for the japanese cult magazine Hobby Japan). Actually this year marks the 25th aniversary of Maschinen Krieger. I always felt like garage kits and events like Kaiyodo's Wonfes gave birth to the vinyl toys movement and these Mak Po vinyl toys finally close the loop and connect again the Garage Kit world and the urban toys universe (proving again that the otaku culture is the most influential street culture in the last 15 years).