For a while now we’ve wanted to provide better coverage of the designer toy scene in Japan. While larger shows such as WonderFest and Super Festival receive fairly strong coverage – what about all the smaller shows featuring artists just out of the spotlight?
Thanks to Luke Rook (Lulubell Toy Bodega) who’s relocated to Tokyo to soak in all there is to learn about Japanese toy culture (truly hard core!), we’ll be bringing you timely coverage of the toy scene over there.
Luke recently made it over to the DesignFesta galleries in Harajuku to catch Hariken’s one-man show titled “It’s My room” which just ended on 10.16. Hariken (Kenichi Hariu) is the creator of the Mad Panda character and vinyl toy which is produced by TTToy. The show featured a Mad Panda retrospective through a series of drawings spanning 2004 to the present. Hiarken also showed off the entire line of Mad Panda figures to date.
In terms of new release, there were apparently two Mad Panda show exclusives (3990 yen). Finally, Hariken’s version of Nezrange’s figure (2660 yen) from Monstock which resembles a pumpkin with the orange/green color scheme also dropped at the show. The other editions of this figure are considerably darker.
After the jump, more pics than you can handle!
