Gundam Expo Hong Kong

[Graham]

During my lunch break today, I took the train to visit the 2004 HK Gundam Expo which opened today at Plaza Hollywood located in the Diamond Hill district. As I've only got an hour for lunch, I wasn't able to stay long (only about 20 minutes), but the expo was much smaller than in previous years and to be honest there wasn't much of interest to see unless you are a really hardcore, diehard Gundam fan.

Here's a few comments on what I did/didn't see: -

• Biggest disappointment, the mini-skirted Gundam cosplay girls were not in attendence yet...Boo Hiss .
  
• There was a nice 2m tall statue of the Force Impulse Gundam and also the Blue Astray Second L, complete with big honkin' sword. You could pose with these for taking photos.
  
• Unlike previous years, there was not much new upcoming products on display. For model kits they had some of the upcoming Destiny HGUC kits on show along with a nice completed 1/60 scale Force Impulse which is due for release on 18 Dec (I may get this one). Some completed MG Balls were also on display, bigger than I expected and very detailed as well.
  
• Toys were even more of a let down. I'd been expecting to see the MMM GQ Force Impulse toy on display and also the MSiAs of Gaia, Chaos & Abyss as all these toys are due out in December, but nada. The only unreleased toy they showed was the HCM Pro Rick Dias due in January.....big yawn! This is really bad compared to the Expo 2 years ago when they had loads of upcoming releases on display.
  
• The only show exclusives I noticed was a box set of metallic plated HGUC kits from Zeta, including RX-178 Titans, red Rick Dias, Zeta and Hi-Zack. I didn't get these as I'm not a fan of Zeta mecha.
  
• There was also a 1/1 scale RX-78 hand you could sit on and take photos with. I'd read on Gunota Blog that this was actually supposed to be a full Gundam upper torso and head like in the Bandai museum in Japan, but the RX-78 upper body at this expo turned out to be just a painted 2D backdrop...cheapskates!
  
• TRU had a big booth at the expo selling Gundam models and toys. Nothing new or interesting that you can't easily buy anywhere else in HK though, besides the aforementioned metallic HGUC expo exclusives.
  
• There was also a display of painted Gundam model kits by some of HK's very talented model builders and also some mini-dioramas on display, nothing like last years huge diorama though.
  
• There was also a roped off area with kiddies building Gundam models, but I didn't pay much attention to this.
  

There is probably more stuff that I missed, like gashapons and those kiddies card games, but as I mentioned I only had a very short time there before I had to hop on a train back to work.

I may go back with a camera tomorrow, but IMO the whole thing was one big snoozefest this year.

Graham

[ogami]

Gundam cosplay girls => they will be there on Saturday.

My friend told me that and he is going there on Saturday to take pictures of them.

[GRAND CANNON]

...and thus he will forward to you for posting here!

Was wondering about the exclusive kits...thanks for the info, Graham.

Too bad no MG exclusive or even MSIA exclusives....

[Ivan]

I think Graham said he was going to attend the show. Anything interesting?

Here are some pictures:

http://afigures.com/g/?mode=album&album=20...po&dispsize=800

[Solscud007]

Hey Graham,

Lisa went there and said it sucked too. However there was a toy shop that had the deep striker for 20 HKD cheaper. She also said only one of those vendors had teh Zeta Fix for about the same price but were sort of hiding it. not wanting to sell it or something. So thanks for telling her to get it!!!

[Black Valkyrie]

It`s mostly Seed and Seed Destiny products , I wonder if there`s any Z Gundam movie products DREAMING OF METAL MATERIAL Z GUNDAM, GUNDAM MKII & HYAKUSHIKI