Tets goes to T-Spark Zone 2025

 

 I don't like going to the Tokyo holy trinity of tourism; Shinjuku, Shibuya and Akihabara because aside from Akiba, there isn't much going on (for me).  The previous weekend I hit all three with a friend form overseas and it was enjoyable enough, but I rather wasn't all that excited about having to hit Akiba again on another weekend.  

Sundays are always worse than Saturdays, so for this wonderful T-spark Zone trip, I chose Saturday.

But what is T-spark?  Well, it is a celebration event of Takaratomy and they have various collaboration products going on, which makes it kind of exciting.  Their very own promotional materials say:

“T-SPARK” is the unified brand name for hobby products for adults developed by TOMY Company. As a hobby brand that offers an experience of boundless energy, the name T-SPARK means innovative and sophisticated adventure. 

I will now chronicle my adventure.

So, on a chilly winter's day I was enticed into the foreigner filled land of Akihabara with the thought of seeing new and exciting Transformers. The event was being hosted in Akiba Culture Zone on the 4th floor.

Actually a going home picture....

After finally arriving in Akiba, I had to have a little bit of a recharge, The event didn't open until 11 and being cold in the morning makes it hard to get out of bed, so I arrived just after lunch time.  Luckily a quiet Tully's coffee shop was just around the corner from the venue and I didn't have to fight for a seat.

Houji Latte and a cheescake.

A quick walk down the back streets and I was outside the venue.

Very bad picture to show the building.

T-Spark was on the 4th floor, but I didn't know which floor until I got there.  Because it's temporary, these kind of things are rarely on the building maps.

Luckily the place was right in front of the escalator as you went up. You were then greeted with this sight.

Along the first wall you come across are some dioramas set up and these ones look new.  They're pretty good and feature a lot of ZOIDS.

The next section had a few collaborations going on, one of which was BOMBERMAN figures of all things.

Bomberman collab based on B-Daman by the looks of things.

White Robots

 The same White robots at a different angle

Dangaiohohohohohoho 

ZOIDS

Gundams, lol. No they're not, they're Botoms

The B-Daman and an action figure guy

Looks like the the accessory becomes armour.

Ryugendo, looks kinda cool actually

After a little break was the Transformers section!  BEHOLD!

A really dodgy panorama shot, and it doesn't even have everything in it

They had a Masterpiece Rattrap set up there, standing in front of the other amazing Beast Wras Masterpieces.  Truly those BW ones really are masterpieces, they look so good!  And I could've sworn I took a bunch of Rattrap photos, but the buggers aren't anywhere to be seen...  Strange.

Anyway moving on and (sorry) bypassing Rattrap and the BW Mp figures, there was a Nucleon Quest Ginrai figure, which looks great.  Next to that were the Legacy items. THESE ones I have pictures of.

They main eye catching piece was Superion, who, much like Menasor is made up of a skeleton of sorts in which the limb Aerialbots are plugged on to.  Unlike Menasor, who is made up of Motormaster, with a big trailer, the leader of the Aerialbots is a plane, which means the gestalt skeleton is an extra piece that hasn't existed before.  In robot mode it makes a cool little gun turret thing, in plane mode it, er looks somewhat less cool.

Reminds me of the Flying Pancake from Strikers 1945

As you can see, the underside of the plane is still mostly robot.  

They also has Legacy Waspinator (he tiny!) and that lady character who is one of the 13 Primes.  Waspinator looked pretty good and Lady Prime looked ok as well, but she has a huge apron on the front.

The two Aerialbots they had on Display looked nice.    I love the face on the Slingshot.

Behind Slingshot, you can see the Fallen, and he looks pretty cool.  I think the flame effects makes him better than he is.  Underneath the Fallen was some White guy Prime dude.  He looked... er fine, I guess.  Robot mode was nice and vehicle was er, a square thing with wheels.  As you might be able to tell, I'm not all that enthused about the 13 Primes.

White guy did have a cool sword though.

On the next bench were the Studio Series figures.

Although, I personally think the Studio series and Legacy figures often blend into the same line.

The Constructicons looked pretty good.  Better in person than from the pictures online.  Bumblebee and Ironhide there are based on the video games, Sentinel Prime actually looked very nice and is from TFOne and Knight Optimus from one of the Bay movies was a bit of a surprise for me.  Cool robot design, especially in the movie, but must be hell to make into a transforming toy... Where do all the straight panels go?  I think they did a pretty good job on that SS Knight Prime toy though.

Bonecrusher always looks like he's wearing a onesie!  I love it!

I have a friend who is salivating over that Optimus though!

Next to those guys was the most exciting section for me, it was the MISSING LINK area + extras.  They had ML Sunstreaker, Cordon, and Prototype Arcee set up!  DANG they look beautiful!  The Diaclone figures that Sunstreaker & Cordon come with also look pretty nice too.  I'm mostly up for Cordon, so I took more pictures of him than Sunstreaker, sorry!

Sunstreaker and his Diaclone Pilot

Cordon and his Diaclone Pilot

That white car looks sooo nice!

And here they also had a Prototype Arcee in the open air for me to enjoy!

And yet I only took two pictures......

Skipping back somewhat, even before we got to the MP display, they had the new Rodimus and Predaking based on the Studio Ox artwork and stuff.  Incredibly stylised and looking awesome and smelling very, very expensive!  It falls under the line of Adamas Machina.

Predaking looked really awesome, he can split into the 5 Predacons, however Razorclaw is somewhat larger than all his pals, which looks a bit odd.  It was about Transformer Commander sized-ish, and very nicely sculpted.  I will say the waist joint on the grey model there looked like it could be a bit weak as there was a noticeable gap, but overall my impression was good.

Very, very good!

Rodimus was displayed at the TF 40Th event which happened in September 2024, which I went to, but haven't gotten around to posting about yet.  However, what was cool about this one is that they had a Rodimus that you could fondle and experience with your own hands!!

They had the instructions set there as well and two of the toys to play with.  One guy next to me was attempting to transform him into vehicle mode.  He was there for a very long time doing it and thus I started talking to him and encouraging him along.  I was messing about with the robot mode and it's very pose-able and doesn't feel fragile, despite how it looks.  There are quite a few panels everywhere and things like the back spoiler did have a tendency to pop out of place as I was messing around.  I'm not sure I am totally in for this guy, there's no doubt the robot is awesome, but I'm still unsure on the vehicle mode to be honest.  The flames that one usually expects to see on a Rodimus look are not really there so it feels like something is missing to me.  I might be swayed for a Black Rodimus however.

After a little play and posing, I let someone else come along and fiddle and gave the guy transforming the other one a bit of encouragement.  Incidentally, I went back later and he finally finished it.  He said while complex, it wasn't too frustrating.  So there's that at the very least!

The playing tables hey had a model Liger set up on one (cool!) and the white robots from the very start as well.  I didn't get a clear shot, because people were always there having a look at stuff.

Finally jumping back to next to the Missing links, they had a couple of Collaboration products.

Some Star Wars guy and Ecto-tron 1

In case your wondering, this is the first time Ectotron has been released for Japan.  We got BTTF quite a while ago, and currently are able to order Knight Rider and TMNT.  I believe the Top Gun one was here with the Movie and so far that's been it.

And that completes what I will call the "East wall."  As I said before, the north was for buying T-Spark goods like this:

An acrylic sticker apparently

In the middle, they had the "Fiddle Tables" as I like to call them and the South Wall had some action figure crossovers and possibly a new brand.  The first was a model kit with a Zoid flavour to it and the other was an action figure line designed by Kojima Productions, they didn't have much information about those guys though and hey looked a bit generic.

I did find a video from T-Spark's channel:

Moving on:

The west wall was pretty cool.  Here we go, the final stretch.

In the back corner was a sign advertising the Monster Hunter/Transformers crossover.

Next to that was the Macross Transformers crossover with Basara.  This looked really cool, I'm gonna say.  Very impressive in that it's rather hard to see that it transforms into a jet.  The wings are really well hidden.  Also, this may just be because it's a prototype, but the chest windows had kind of lenticular covering on them.  It might just be the printing or something, but I loves me some lenticular stuff and it would be cool if there was something in there.  Sadly that kind of thing can't be shown in a photo... 

I don't know amount Macross Basara but this looked good.  I love the Matrix details on the guitar and the Optimus shin vents in the legs.  The hands were frikking tiny, but they probably jam into the forearms somehow.  They have articulated fingers, so you can make him rock out on that guitar!  This is something I will keep an eye on, and I'm not that big a fan of Macross!

Next to that was the Diaclone section.  I love the look of the new Diaclone Taktom are making, but they are so expensive!  I really do enjoy checking them out in person though, there is so much attention to detail and they look so well made, you can see why they are that price.

This guy is a big ticket number.

The guy next to him, was a very attractive looking robot as well.

Looks cool, but is kinda smoll

These little boys always looks so cute, but at 5k each, I can never bring myself to getting one....

Next up is a particularly amazing piece, Diaclone Jaguar.  Damn this thing looks GREAT!  Very pose-able, design is spot on and I'd like to bring particular attention to the eyes, which seemed to shine their evil redness no matter the lighting situation.  I don't believe they are battery powered either.  Simply AMAZING!

I love that they posed the front claws over the edge of the box!

Frikking fantastic looking toy there!

And in the final section were some ZOID models, which looked cool, but aren't really my thing.

And that is about the end of the T-Spark event.  

I did ask about this exciting fellow:

As he was noticeably absent and the very kind staff informed me that he wasn't quite ready for showing off.   They also said there were no more shows until June or so, but they think they would have a chance to bust him out and show him off then.  

Now, if I remember correctly, in June is the Tokyo Toy Show, which TakaraTomy often have panels and exciting things to show, so, my guess is that Shield D Prime will be ready for revealmentation at the Tokyo Toy Show!

While searching around for stuff, I found this press release PDF in English on Taktoms website, so feel free to have a viewing of it .

And that brings the Adventure of T-Spark Zone to an end.  I had a really good time and there weren't too many people there.   I really hope that Taktom do this kind of thing again as it was great!

Here's the video that it was in:

My adventure didn't end there though, as I went around Akiba a bit more and despite my better judgement went to look for games at Super Potato.

Ha ha ha, foolish boy that I was, check this shit out, it's absurd!

I kinda want Hyper Dual, but I ain't gonna pay that much for it.  That's tourist tax for ya folks. 

It Shocks me how much Sonic 3D goes for here, although it was released late in the JP Saturn's life, so it kinda makes sense I guess.

I did find myself sorely tempted to buy some Sonic Crap, and I did.  I did not get one of the square badges that I wanted though.

However the place isn't all bad, on the 5th floor they have an arcade set up with a few games and rather sad looking Solid Snake dummy.  Oh and a candy shop.  It's very エモい as the kids say nowadays.

The machines have actual CRT screens.  I couldn't resist and had a go of Metal Slug and Warriors of Fate.  Odd since I can play that one at home on my Saturn and the Beat Em Up Collection.  I didn't do too well in either game, but it was worth it for the giggles and nostalgia.

5th on the rankings, LOL

Then I went home.

Hope you had fun, coz I sure did.