01 February 2009

Surabaya Toys Expo 2009

A magic doll, you can make anything depending on your creativity.

How many days was the longest running anime / figure event you've ever been? Talk about duration, this event, Surabaya Toys Expo 2009, is the longest running figure event there ever was in Surabaya. STE '09 started at 22th January and ends today 1st February. By the time i was writing this, the event was still running. This event ran for a total of 11 days, it's damn long! And also it's still pretty much close with the previous figure events, Toy Magz Fair 2008.

Heck, eventhough this event ran for 11 days, there were only 4 days STE '09 is filled with some interesting events:
24 Jan : just a movie trailer, people playing X360 together, and some stuffs.
25 Jan : A Chinese lion dance (Barongsai in Indonesia) for welcoming Chinese New Year.
31 Jan : Soul Calibur 4, Photo on the spot, and yoyo competitions.
1 Feb : Killzone PSP and cosplay competitions.

I'm not a crazy person that came every days. I only came at the first day with my friend hunting for Musha Gundam, the 2nd day with my bro (he got a loot that day), the 3rd day also with my bro checking out some event, the 6th day with my girl (i bought 2 loots that day), and the 10th day for SC4 and photo competition. Unfortunately, i didn't go to STE '09 at the last day for cosplay because i kinda bored of local cosplayer.


Multi Toys as usual participant.

STE '09 itself wasn't really as crowded as the previous figure events in Surabaya. The store participants were the same as the previous figure events, except Saber and Hobby Station. One of the same participant was this Multi Toys. There were also some miscellaneous participants like snack seller, education software seller, and kids toys seller. As always, Multi Toys sold things like kids toys, bootleg figures, and expensive Gunpla kits.

Note that not all participants were in this photos. I didn't photograph the misc participant and Sat-Sun participants. FYI, Sat-Sun participants are stores that only pay for half the price of participation and only have 4 days to open their store in this event (24-25 Jan and 31 Jan - 1 Feb).


Random store selling PVCs, i think some of the are bootlegs.

Unlike Toy Magz Fair 2008, STE '09 was filled with some nice events, but it wasn't filled with nice PVC figures. No Saber, Hobby Station, and Toys n Toys participating is a major loss for number of PVC figures in the events. Here's a photo of random store selling some PVCs. Probably some of them are old items or old bootleg items.


This store came from Malang, it's pretty much far (2-3 hour drive from Surabaya).

At the 2nd day i met this store owner and he said that he'll bring more PVC figures tomorrow (3rd day). I came with my bro at the 3rd day because i want to check his figures. Yeah he brought some, no he didn't bring any treasure for me. Maybe some of you could be interested with his items : Saber Alter (dark), Mikoto swimsuit, nendo Haruhi, nendo Tsuruya, nendo Melissa Seraphy, Elwing, and Alter's Emma Ai.


I feel like all people in the photos were looking at me.

Meh... Just a random store selling a pack of American figures like Spawn, Star Wars, and stuffs. I never bother checking them out, it's definitely not my interest.


Saint Seiya and Final Fantasy collection.

Hmm... i think for some people, this is their treasure seller. A pack of Saint Seiya figures, i think those are called Saint Myth Cloth figures or.... whatever they're called, correct me if I'm wrong. They also sold some Final Fantasy figures. Yeah, different people different interest. I too never bothered looking at these stuffs.


Gashapon selling store.

I feel like almost every store in this event sold 1 kind of items. This store only sold gashapon. Naruto sets, One Piece sets, Death Note sets, Gundam sets, etc. Even some of them are bootlegs. There were also stuffs like keychains. I think the keychains are more popular for "normal" people not for collectors like me.


Toys n Toys' rack.

Talk about Toys n Toys, i noticed that they wasn't participating this event, but they sold the items with the help of R/C toys store owner. They got some nice collections, except the items were pretty much old stuffs. I've seen nice figure like Yamato's Ringo hentai kamen version here.


Capsule Corporation, the main sponsor of STE '09.

This stack of Gundam kits was actually a store, Capsule Corporation. One of the largest figure and Gundam store in Surabaya. CC is the main sponsor of STE '09. They also have some exclusive space for displaying exclusive items owned by Capsule Corporation. Usually they have some PVC figures in their store, but it seems they didn't display it at all in this place.


Wajuwa, the best PVC figures seller in this event.

And this is Wajuwa, my favorite store. It's my fav because everytime an event was running, Wajuwa always sold nice PVC figures and i always bought at least one figures from this store. This time i also bought 2 items from them. In the last Toy Magz Fair 2008, i bought 3 from them.


Too many same items.

Too bad the items were pretty much the same as Wajuwa's collection in TMF 2008. Only small number of items were new, like Chidori Kaname, Vita (normal version), Nendo Raito, Nendo Kagamine Ren, figma Kagamine twins, and figma Tsuruya.


Another stack of Wajuwa's PVC figure collections.

There were also nice collection of Shining Wind figures like Blanc Neige, Clalaclan Noir, Clalaclan normal, and Elwing. That reminds me of Shuraki, i notice that there's no Shuraki figure at all here. Anyway, in this stack I've seen 2 nice items: Alter's Emma Ai and Alter's new Rei Ayanami. Rei Ayanami it's pretty expensive here (IDR 750k).


Nice figures display from Wajuwa.

They also put up some nice display of PVC figures. I'll mention it from left: Asuka, Rei, Mikoto, Emma Ai, Another Blood, dunno, Wendy, Ryoumou Shimei, Tamaki, and High School of the Dead (dunno her name). I don't know if these figures were for sale or not. I never bothered asking because they were not interesting for me.


Capsule Corporation as the main sponsor, had an exclusive space for displaying their massive collections of Power Ranger robots and rangers. Here some photos of their Power Ranger collections:










I can't really say anything about these Rangers' robots because i myself never know anything about those Rangers.

Well... that's it for the first part. For tomorrow, I'm gonna post the competitions and loots part. So just look forward to it!

3 comments:

  1. Oh, Power Ranger robots! I actually remember some of those. Very nostalgic.

    It sucks how some of the figures there could be bootlegs.

    Nice con report =).

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  2. why everytime I go back there's no such event in surabaya D:

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  3. @M12
    Yeah, me n my brother were talking about them when we saw them. Well that's Indonesian market, all they want is money and don't really care about collectors' spirit.

    Fortunately they sell bootlegs with bootlegs price, surprisingly cheap, less than half real figure price.

    @ron~
    Next event will be Surabaya Toy Festival 2009, 6-7 June 2009. Come and i'll accompany you. XD

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