Treasure Festival 2009

Mark your calendars people!

As you may know, Wonder Festival 2009 Winter is canceled. But man who cares now that Treasure Festival is coming to town?! Most of the GK big shots will be there, according to the dealer list, so don't even let the word "small" cross your mind.

The very first Treasure Festa will take place February 22, 2009 10:00-17:00 (JST) at the International Convention Complex Hole 9. The Complex is located in Mihama-ku, Chiba-shi.

And it looks like it's going to become a regular event too. They've already got two more planned for April:

• Treasure Festa in Airake 1: April 5, 2009 10:00-17:00 (JST) @ Tokyo Big Site West 1 Hole
  
• Treasure Festa in Kobe 1: April 29, 2009 11:00-16:00 (JST) @ Kobe International Exhibition Center Hall No. 2
  

Gee, I wonder if it'll replace Wonder Festival or Hobby Complex. Well as long as they don't cancel events for stupid reasons like broken escalators.

1/4 Volks Tokiha Mai by Chorosuke - How I became a Cultist Part 2

I know this kit is old hat to you guys, but she's really special to me. You see, she sparked my downward spiral into the world of garage kits. Allow me to explain.



You might remember from my previous post which attributed DannyChoo as the reason for my love of GKs. I'm not going to say he didn't help, but it's only half the story.

So after reading DannyChoo's post on Wonder Festival 2006, I started looking around for Volk's 1/4 Yamamoto Isoroku and Max Factory's 1/7 Ignis (PVC). HobbyFan and e2046, the two online recast shops came up fairly quickly. At the time, the two were directly competing and I ended up going with HobbyFan after reading some negative comments on HobbyFanatics about E's customer service and kit quality (Or lack thereof).



I placed both Isoroku and Ignis (PVC-turned-GK; I still frown upon it) in my wishlist, but I was wary of spending that much money on model kits even though recast prices are only 1/3 of the original (I was in for another rude awakening after YJA came into the picture). So I continued browsing HobbyFan for kits that caught my fancy and adding them to my wishlist; but it wasn't until HobbyFan put Mai up for pre-order that I totally lost all my self restraint.

I jumped at the chance and pre-ordered her (and preordered another 90 afterwards). Mai never came in and neither did Ignis, thankfully. They were both forever stuck in pre-order status limbo. And yes, I will admit it - of those 90 pre-orders, I ended up buying 20 of them and I'm not proud of it. It took me some time to learn the truths behind the hobby; the more I read, the more my distaste grew.

Recasts may have gotten me into the hobby, but it's totally a backdoor entry. I would've much preferred doing it straight up had someone taught me the ropes, which is kinda why I'm doing this blog.



Eventually I learned about YJA and I never looked back. I was able to secure myself an original Mai (Only 100 produced!) after months of searching:


Awesome!

I even managed to get rid of 9 of my recasts on HobbyFanatics and e2046's forums, so that helped ease my frustration a bit. And to make up for past indiscretions, I've been actively hunting down originals for those 20 recasts. Even though most of them are really rare kits, I've actually managed to procure a few.

It takes effort, people; but it's totally worth it down the road.

Sources:
- http://www.volks.co.jp/jp/ff/items/ev02mai/index.html

When and when not to Snipe on YJA

Well, just a quick post today.

When you see "自動延長: あり" on the auction page (Top area), it means that the auction will extend.  So if anyone places a bid within the last 5 mins, the auction clock will automatically add another 5 mins.

But when you see "自動延長: なし", it means that the auction will not extend and you can snipe.  But you won't be seeing this a lot, as most sellers like bidding wars.

Sources:
- http://rubenerdshow.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/anime.sniper.jpg