Heya, it’s been a while since I posted, but I’ve been super busy with all sorts of random things. Not the least of which was finishing off summative assignments for two different PDENG courses. Ugh… the horror that is PDENG. Anyway today I’m going to talk about a Gundam Expo that was held in Port Messe, Nagoya. It’s one of the few times that Nagoya actually gets a special event before Tokyo :P. It’s a massive event celebrating the 30th anniversary of Gundam (has it really been that long?). Hit the jump for more info.
Just a small portion of the MASSIVE line that was 3 hours long even if you had advance tickets....
The event itself was at Port Messe which is accessible by taking the Aonami line to its terminal station.
Aonami Terminal
They weren’t quite prepared for the popularity of Gundam. They even forgot about putting out bigger garbage cans.
The inside of the expo was incredibly incredibly dark. I learned a few camera tricks from experimenting with ISO, shutter speed, and aperture size while I was in there. The pictures all came out better than I thought.
HUGE Zaku head with moving mono-eye (not visible in pic)
Jumping Gym to nab the kids while they’re young I guess?
Jumping gym... I remember these when I was a kid.
They had a bit of a museum corner to go with it too.
Original Gundam Cels
Displays about the history of Gundam. They were actually quite interesting to read.
Of course their museum also had a bunch of obligatory plastic models.
Though a complete set of SD gundams is actually kind of rare.
They even had a live stage where they invited most of the old voice actors and singers to come and reprise their roles live for a massive audience.
Whoa, exposure tricks!
Center piece of the event was a massive model of a mobile suit battlefield. It was actually really nifty. I’d like to try and make one of these one day too.
They also had mockups of certain scenes from well known Gundam series.
RX-78 launch scene in the first Gundam.
Call me a n00b, but I think this is Zeta Gundam.
There was also a massive line up for Gundam ID cards. I’d line up if they were NERV cards though.
To satisfy kids and their parents somewhat, they even had mockups of Gundam cockpits for pictures 🙂
And finally, the bazaar for the limited edition event goods. I only bought myself a brochure for 2,500 yen. The contents are rather interesting. I’ll upload some of it, if this post proves popular enough.
The marketplace is fairly empty after all the limited edition goodies have been cleared out.
I just realized this post is 90% pictures and 10% words. Maybe it’s better that way. In any case, sorry for overloading you all with pictures. The post turned out far longer than I expected. I also have a few more unposted pics, but any longer than this would be ridiculous :P.
Well then, until next time! Thanks for reading.
A Foreigner's Tale in Japan 
おれはｸﾞﾝﾀﾞﾑ~!
Glad to see went to Gundam Fest…did you go to Won Fes as well or were they conflicting with one another? Oh well, as long as you had a lot of fun I really don’t care.
Pictures speak at least 1million words…so the lack of text is totally cool.
I thought this convention would at least entice you to get a Gundam model since they should be cheap…unless if they jacked up the price just because it’s in a Gundam festival…then that’d be mean T_T
Hope to hear from you soon ^_^ with more entries and pictures ^_^
hehe you made a mistake.
あれガンダム。 Gandamu not gundamu.
I can’t really afford to make so many seperate trips to Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures, so I had to skip wonfes. This was rather closeby so I could go without breaking my wallet.
The convention had a lot of event limited Gundam models… but they were all sold out by the time I got to the limited goods hall.
Glad you’re saving up ^_^ Hopefully by the time Comiket comes, you’ll have enough to go wild and purchase figures and other goodies. Man you’re rarely online T_T Wanted to talk about whole sorts of things and the like but you’re on when I’m off and when we’re both on, you’re away T_T Hopefully we’ll see more of your wonderful posts about Nagoya soon.
yes, it IS better with more pictures if you’re talking about an event like this. just telling us wouldn’t give us a good idea of what it was like
that battlefield sure is impressive. and that zaku jumper looks so cute!
The zaku jumper looks cute, but the line sure wasn’t :P. Estimated wait time was at least an hour.
HOLY! Look at the bright colourful trash! I spot Pocari Sweat. Haha.
In Japan, drink packaging is always really colorful :P. I guess it’s the only way to attract people to try your drinks in a market that’s saturated with far too many different kinds of drinks.
Those pics are awesome…I wish I could have gone to that, I’m a HUGE Gundam Fan, 0079 is my most favorite series…Great Pics!!!XD
Somehow the set up reminds me of the Korean War.
As for pictures vs words, use as much of both as you’d like. Everyone does things differently so ultimately it’s up to you. This post is fine the way it is.
Yea, I guess you’re right about the words and pictures thing. Hmm… now that you mention it, I am sort of reminded about the Korean war by the set piece.
Looks like a really cool convention/festival! Hopefully PDENG isn’t killing you too much.
It’s all over now, so grateful…. Now to see if I have to attend those lametastic workshops.
So awesome the dioramas! I want those in my house ^_^
Sorry, what are dioramas? But I’m glad you enjoyed the post!
Dioramas are 3-D scaled down models of cityscape, nature scenes or historical references.
or any scene in general. i assume ghost was referring to the battlefield model
The garbage is nothing in comparison with those in Toronto. By the way, the garbage workers are on strike in Toronto.
Yea I heard that Toronto was on strike haha. Unions are totally going to be the end of Canada.
I would say its high taxes would be the end of Canada. 😛
Canada’s taxes are pretty low compared to the taxes of some European countries like Norway. Yet, they’re doing extremely well
Norway has the highest costs of living in the world and they’re a mess of a welfare state. They’re also a bit of a joke of a country that would have collapsed had they not been fortunate to have oil reserves to prop themselves up with.
Though most Canadians seem to be quite content with paying their taxes.
With income tax starting at 20%, and sales tax at 13% (Ontario) I don’t think our taxes can be considered “low” in any means. I don’t mind paying the taxes, but I do mind the government spending it inefficiently. I think they’re trying to do too much to try and please everyone instead of just focusing on the real issues.
Very nice coverage of the event. I especially love the mock Gundam battle scene and would also love to do something like that…hopefully sooner rather than later. ^^
personally i like picture heavy posts, but as gndynames, it’s your call. i would say that for an event like this more pics might be better since it gives people a better sense of what it was like and spares your from describing every last thing ^^;
what is it with japan and lines? maybe it’s just that here in the us everyone seems more impatient and wouldn’t put up with such long wait times ^^;