Category Photo Gallery

Lego is currently holding a “Piece of Peace” exhibit from Feb.22 to March 15 across two locations in Tokyo.
The bulk of these exhibits is made up of replications of world heritage sites. One particular corner, however, just so happens to be dedicated to the works of one Shoji Kawamori. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?
Shoji Kawamori’s design process using Lego blocks has been well documented over the past couple of decades, and several of the pieces on display at this exhibit had previously been shown at previous exhibits.
The difference this time however was that the public was allowed to take photographs. While the lighting and layout wasn’t exactly optimal, we did manage to put together the following gallery.
Enjoy!

After surprising almost everyone when it was originally announced late last year, the “Oshare Macross Gaiden: Macross Boys 2” popup shop opened at Shinjuku Marui Annex yesterday and is due to run through to March 8.

Only the second in Macross’ long-running series of popup shops to focus on the series’ male characters, this popup shop sees the return of fan-favorites Alto and Messer, while adding Hayate, Michael, Hikaru and Max to the mix.

Character art comes from the ever-talented Risa Ebata and mysterious new artist “Yura Kaminami” and is available on everything from wall scrolls to mint tins.

The SpeakerPODcast Crew were on the scene the moment the doors opened and managed to get a few pics.

Wonder Festival 2020 Winter, the bi-annual toy and hobby show, was held again at Makuhari Messe on February 9.

While it was relatively light in terms of Macross content, there were plenty of other amazing toys and kits on display. The following gallery is a mixture of commercial and amateur products, starting with Macross and other mecha properties, before spinning off into… well pretty much anything and everything.

Enjoy!

Starting on November 2, 2019 and lasting all the way to January 7, 2020, Lake Sagami Pleasure Forest was host to one of the more unique Macross-themed events in recent memory, an “Illumination Live!!!!!!” (The 6 exclamation marks being a reference to this year’s upcoming Macross Delta Zettai LIVE!!!!!! movie)

Several of the theme-park’s attractions were converted to a more Macross-theme for the duration of the event which also included AR areas (for use with the Uta Macross app), Macross-themed food, and a merch shop.

Talk shows/performances were also held on November 3 (Freya’s birthday), November 23 (Sheryl’s birthday), December 14 (Messer’s birthday) and  December 21 (Macross 7 25th Anniversary).

The SpeakerPODcast Crew will report on the event in an upcoming podcast in February. In the meantime, here’s a few of the pics we snapped!

Long-time listeners of the SpeakerPODcast may have noticed the soft spot that several of us have for retro games and retro game characters. Well, The Akihabara Container must have been listening, because their most recent popup  shop ticks all the right boxes. While they’ve previously held SNK and Samurai Shodown events, their latest popup shop is dedicated entirely to SNK’s originl nippon ichi gal herself, Mai Shiranui.
And by that, we mean the entire store is dedicated to Mai, in all her various versions and iterations over the years. How many videogame characters are popular enough to get their own store?

The popup shop features a giant Mai standee, prints of various fighting game win screens, original art, classic posters, apparel, various nick-nacks and, most importantly, NEO GEO LAND branded merch! Check out the photo gallery after the jump!