Wonder Fair 2006 Winter (part 1?)

(tags Gaming, Figure, Tokyo, Convention)

Went to Tokyo in the early morning, got frozen on the wait to get inside, stood on my feet all day, and I was totally drained of money. What makes this convention any different?

The reason I wanted to go in the first place was for the 13B/Specter's booth with the Ikaruga model. You know, Ikaruga rocks and I had to get a picture or a model kit of the plane. But ultimately they decided not to sell it this time, just display it. At least the announced it on the website just one day before I didn't have to waste any time on it. Why couldn't they announce it 2 weeks before so I could have cancelled the whole thing?

Since my main goal was dashed, I decided on other figures that caught my fancy: Kaleido Star "Sora & Leyla", Kaleido Star "Rosetta", Street Fighter II's Chun Li "second player color", Rozen Maiden anything, and Ichigo Mashimaro anything. I was busy marking the booth locations in line before the freeze took over. Tokyo in the winter is harsh, and even harsher if you don't have an overcoat. After all the experiences of Winter Comic Markets, though, I decided to forgot the extra armor in favor of +3 agility.

So I finally got in at around 10:30, 30 minutes after it started. Waiting in line starting from 7:00 doesn't get you any head start. The 2000 yen pamphlet reminded me that 30000 people were going to mill around furiously. Oh great, another crowd, more lines. I headed to my first choice: the dreaded 完売 (kanbai == sold out) signs were in sight. I skipped over to Bottle Fairy-related Tokumi Yuiko thater, saw the big boxes and skipped it to see the Rozen Maiden. There was a line, and a rather light one at that. Little did I know it would be an omen.