Shifting my unsolicited thoughts on this year’s Shizuoka Hobby Show, here are some personally notable reveals from Kotobukiya and Good Smile Company / Good Mecha Smile. Actually, I didn’t find anything interesting from Kotobukiya’s upcoming items (complete list here), though I did for Good Smile Company (also complete list here).
MODEROID: Genesis Climber Mospeada
In yet another case of Good Smile Company saving me from unnecessary hunting and spending, they are releasing MODEROID VR-052F & VR-052T MOSPEADA kits as used by Stick Bernard and Ray respectively.
To those unfamiliar, these machines come from Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, which is also known in the west as the last part of the original Robotech animated series. Ride armors like these two can transform to-and-from “armored cycle” and “ride armor” forms.
As I alluded earlier, these kits are a great alternative if you don’t want to track the much more expensive RIOBOT versions from Sen-Ti-Nel. I don’t know how these kits will implement the transformation mechanism, but I’m pretty sure the process would feel much better than handling the more delicate RIOBOT versions.
Neither scale, nor release information is known as of this post. Though I do hope these scale with the MODEROID MADOX-01 they released previously. They would look great together.
MODEROID: Buddy Complex
Another pair of kits they announced a couple of Mecha Smile Impacts or so ago are MODEROID Luxon and Bradyon from Buddy Complex. I won’t blame anyone unfamiliar with the series, but it does have a nifty concept. Take the Neural Handshake concept from Pacific Rim and apply them to two separate machines.
The coupling process follows a rather tongue-in-cheek proposal triggered by the pilots. Once successful, each Valiancer (i.e., the mecha in this series) undergoes a transformation that includes wings being deployed and armor on the head unit shifting. The previous reveal did mention that the transformation will likely be done with replacement parts.
This pair of Valiancers also give the same vibes as the Freedom and Justice from Gundam SEED, especially given their colors as seen from the CG render shown during Mecha Smile Impact 2024 Winter.
Just like the MOSPEADA kits, no other information was provided for the Luxon and Bradyon.
PLAMATEA: Nitro Plus’ Dolls Nest
Some might not be aware, but Good Smile Company has another brand for character model kits, the PLAMATEA line. For this year’s Shizuoka Hobby Show, I wasn’t particularly looking at their upcoming PLAMATEA releases, though this one caught my attention.
This is from Nitro Plus’ recently-released game Dolls Nest, and folks are basically describing it as Armored Core with mecha musume, with focus on customizing your unit. The kit they have on display is the generically-named PLAMATEA “Armored Soldier of Unknown Affiliation” and is supposedly a boss for one of the deep areas. Note that most of this information is Google Translated so I’ll wait for the solicitations for their actual names.
Note that while I do have several mecha musume kits in the backlog, I haven’t actually sat down to build any. Will I add another kit to the backlog with this kit? Let’s see as we don’t have release information for this one as well.
I would’ve ended my ‘coverage’ of Shizuoka Hobby Show 2025 with this post. But we do have a big elephant in the room with Takara Tomy’s T-Spark, and they have quite the display on the show floor.
