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The 11th episode of The Forefront in Japan's Content Business - Japacon TV, a TV program which introduces Japanese anime, game, and fashion subculture (Japan content) has been broadcast. The popular program currently broadcasts on Fuji Satellite Broadcasting at 12:00 a.m. every Friday. This episode’s theme is “Modeling business! The latent potential of the figure maker.” Japacon TV always introduces “Japan content” from a fascinating angle, but they’ve picked up a lot of new fans from the world of figures and this seems like it has had a great influence. This content will be introduced in six parts.
First of all, the program will introduce Wonder Festival 2013 (Winter), the world’s biggest figure festival held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba. Leading model maker Kaiyodo sponsored the event where they presented and sold their own models. At the event, attendees were able to observe and buy figures from all kinds of companies. As a platform to ask the world about their own manufacturing power, the show is a “sacred place” where a large number of professional and amatuer fans gather from all over the world to interact with each other. This year’s festival saw record high attendance of 50,000 people, a sure sign that the health of the figure market is currently increasing.
However, Kaiyodo’s representative managing director Shuichi Miyawaki feels that the present condition is by no means optimistic. Interviewed in the program, he said, “Selling merchandise in the Japanese figure market is severe.” The event was a success and many new figure fans were born, so why would he say something like that? You’ll have to watch the program to find out!
This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article.