Tokyo Game Show 2009

Retail Area

My journey through the Makuhari Messe hallways began in Hall 7, which featured sales and displays of video game-related merchandise and products rather than actual games. Upon entering the hall, I was greeted by the kind of display I've come to expect from card game maker Bushi Road/Alice Cross:

These posters are for the upcoming card game Vitamin X. Advertised with the tagline "we are super supplement boys," it's pretty clear what kind of market Bushi Road is going for here. Check out this guy:

He's the selfish king. You can tell because he has his tongue out. That makes you selfish in some cultures, not to mention dead sexy. The rest of the Bushi Road/Alice Cross booth featured other upcoming card games with more deliberate ties to anime and video games. From their Weiβ Schwarz line (which has nothing to do with the nineties-era anime with hot guys who run a flowershop and moonlight as assassins), card games based on The Idolm@aster, Persona 4, Sengoku Basara, Lucky Star, Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ and many other titles are either on sale already or on the way. Across the aisle from Bushi Road was COSPATIO, a company specializing in - wait for it - cosplay outfits, some of which you can see here:

The one on the right looks like something I'd expect to see on an airplane, but hey - it's more tasteful than a full body cat suit.

After passing this, a sizeable CAPCOM merchandise booth, and a booth selling DS and PSP accessories, I happened upon the most popular booth in the retail area: Square Enix's booth for figures. Richly detailed and richly priced, the booth had a line set up so that eager buyers could queue up for merchandise. Although I was able to avoid the lines, the lines were rather apparent later in the day (and probably insane on the public days).

Here we have a very nice looking Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, along with an Ed that looks like he's about to fire a kamehameha at someone. The devious look on his face tells me that he doesn't like being kept under glass. Also on display were some nice figures of characters from the forthcoming Final Fantasy XIII:

Oh, and a Sora from Kingdom Hearts with a "santa-from-the-netherworld" look:

All in all, an impressive collection of figures, all priced... extremely high. Hopefully some of these can make their way to Rob Bricken in the near future (I'm sure there's room in the ANN budget for more figures somewhere...). More photos below; after you're done with those, it's off to the main show floor!