Twice a year, Wonder Festival takes over the Makuhari Messe to showcase the future of the figure industry. This year's winter event, held in mid-February, brought the goods (figuratively and real-life figures!) to celebrate the 40th year of plastic model fun. As usual for the event, one hall was full of people putting garage kits together, with the other full of the latest and most significant figures from some of the biggest makers in Japan. Retro Soaring with Space Battle Yamato Before we get to the new, the first booth that caught my eye at the event was a tease for the upcoming Space Battle Yamato exhibition produced by Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno. Aptly for Wonder Fest, some older Yamato figures were on display with ships as the centerpiece. But the best part of this little booth was the art from the series, original anime cells and scripts, and high-quality manga prints showing that the exhibition will dive deep into the franchise's history. Robots and Garage Kits Back in Style Wonder Festival can trace its roots back to the day of garage kits of fan-made mechs. That spirit continues in the halls in the event's 40th year, both in the amateur sections and the big business booths. Throughout the event, you couldn't go a few meters without running into at least one of your favorite robots or machines. This is everything from Gurren Lagann , Evangelion , Transformers to even a huge AAA Wunder from Evangelion 3.33 . The photos don't do it justice; the protruding spike from the end of it was around arm's length. And this doesn't include all the Ultramen just littered around the halls. By far, one of the best figures of the entire event was the Astro Boy creation. It looks like a Katsuhiro Otomo sketch come to life. The Good Smile booth, which had several different companies under one banner this year, started with legit garage kits from figure makers. As seen in the images below, there is a through line between the series and the animation studio TRIGGER. Still, they were interesting to see as the appetizer for the most impressive booth at the event. Figures Have Gotten LARGE The future of figures is going big. Once upon a time, if you wanted a large figure, you'd have to pay a pretty penny (or a thousand!) to get one bigger than a 1/8th scale. That's all about to change with figures now getting bigger, and cheaper, across the board. This is partly because Good Smile has started an "XL" and "L" label under their popular Pop Up Parade line. The "L" stands for "large" in this context. While you'd expect figures of the Eren from Attack on Titan or Diane from Seven Deadly Sins , characters like Yui and Mio from K-ON! and Elsa from Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- are also getting their chance to take up space on your self. That's not to say that the regular figures weren't on display, with Devil Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica a standout from the Good Smile booth and the double team of Kamina from Gurren Lagann and Panther from Persona 5 looking utterly breathtaking from Hobby Max booth. And, of course, you can't spell big without Kaiju. The Future of Figures Companies don't just bring their latest figures to Wonder Fest; they also bring their in-production items. While some cannot be photographed— including an interesting My Dress-Up Darling Season 2 Marin — there was a huge range of in-production pieces on display in various states. The Bang Dream! figures above are at their most basic, sculpted with the eyes and other flourishes glued on. If you look closely enough at the photos, you can see the outlines where the eyes were glued on. Surprisingly, the maker also did this for the color figure in the line-up. One up from the glued-on brows and such are the slightly colored eyes of the above figures, clearly showing the next stage of the production process. The next tier up from the apparent gluing on of eyes and brows are the ones that look like they've been printed onto a more usual statue mold rather than sculpted. All the different stages of the BOCCHI THE ROCK! figures are a clear example of a colored prototype statue among its still lower-in-production peers. Highlights from Wonder Festival 2025 Winter Of course, many figures at Wonder Festival all around the event look fantastic or are interesting to highlight (like Marin from My Dress-Up Darling , who was all over the hall with figures that I could photograph and some I couldn't). Luckily, Marin is sweet enough to share the spotlight with some of her fellow cosplay friends. Two Kyoto Animation series were also at the event with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid , both of which are back in the limelight: Haruhi for the latest light novel, which makes sense as to why her figures were found at Kadokawa's KDColle section. Dragon Maid for the upcoming anime film. It wouldn't be a figure event without Evangelion , with the central aspect of the Radio Eva brand has the whole crew looking fresh in some sweet streetwear. Another girl who received many figures at the event was Kiss-Shot from the Monogatari series, in multiple versions of herself. And some figures that I just adored the look. Speaking of KDColle above, the whole collection at WonFes was great to look at. So here's a select few, or we'll be here all day looking at figures! Yet another girl everywhere was Himiko Toga of My Hero Academia fame. The bold outlines of the manga-based figures stood out against every other figure at the event. Finally, it's a wonder which supernatural being gave the girls of DAN DA DAN their own figures. It has been a few years since I went to Wonder Festival, the last one being during the pandemic, and nothing feels like it has changed too much from pre-pandemic days other than the booths being a little bigger and more well-designed. For fans of figures, Wonder Festival is a great way to see what's coming out soon and have fun taking photos.
