Japan Trip 2012, Day 8 - Kaiyoudou Figure Museum

First off, I'm going to apologize: photography is allowed within the museum, however posting the pictures publicly is not. Anyone can go into the gift shop on the first floor, so all the pictures shown here and linked in the album are taken from that floor.

Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/361

The next thing planned that day was to take JR to Nagahama to go see Kaiyoudou's Figure Museum at Kurokabe Square, which is a big merchant square. I was done with the castle at around 15:00, having been late getting there in the morning and having lost more time looking for my JR Pass. The train to Nagahama from Hikone isn't actually that long, and so I figured I could be there before they closed their doors at 17:30.

... Except I totally overshot where Kurokabe Square was by a good two or three blocks. Once again, when making maps in Japan, write down intersection names or it'll be hard to tell how far you need to go. I was still there by a little after 16:00, giving me around two hours to look around. The entire square was pretty deserted, but then I suppose I was visiting on a weekday and I don't think there were any events that would have attracted people there. After asking a local for the exact location of the museum, I was directed to a map and found my way there.

The museum's landmark is a huge dragon, and the entrance is guarded by it, a Devil King, and a life-sized Kenshiro. It's like they're expecting Chuck Norris to roll into town, but eh.

There are a few figures for display on the first floor, but for the most part it's a gift shop. At the back is a staircase flanked by a manned counter - that's the admission counter to the museum floor above. Admission is 800 yen, though they do give you a gift of a small animal figure. I got a penguin.

The single most impressive thing there you see as soon as you get to the staircase. They say this is a figure museum, but I can only describe what you see as you enter as life-sized statues of the three Ah! My Goddess goddesses playing instruments. From there you can wander around, walking around the red dragon that greets you on your ascent. As a figure maker, they make the small little gifts you get in things like snack boxes and have a section for them. Keep moving and you'll get to the character figures. There are some Dragonball (original, not Z or GT) and Lupin figures which have probably been around for a while, an entire display case of Revoltechs, and a lot of character figures. Some of the best stuff here (in my opinion) were here. There was an 8-inch Beyond the Grave action figure I found really detailed... and then there was a 1/3 scale Iroha from Samurai Spirits which was absolutely amazing. She wasn't the only figure that large here, there were bigger - another life-sized Kenshiro was on this floor a few steps away from a life-sized Rei Ayanami. There are also a few dioramas - there was one of EVA-02 fighting a bunch of mass production Evas, and one of Pokemon mountain.

All in all, it was a nice little excursion though I was out in around an hour, even with a good chunk of photo taking. On the way back, I stopped at Maibara Station for something to eat and found a Hokka Hokka Tei (the only thing around there, but heartily recommended). I had their Kara-age bentou and headed back to the hotel.

Pictures: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/361