Saturday, February 18, 2017

Jakarta Toys and Comics Fair 2017

In the midst of Lego Batman craze, let’s just say the Power Rangers stole the Jakarta Toys and Comics Fair weekend. Or at least that’s what we thought. The event at Balai Kartini Jakarta has been a regular date destination. We’d make time for a few hours, checking out toys, and if we’re lucky we’d go home with a few new friends for Dudu’s action figure collection.



The 13th Annual Jakarta Toys and Comics Fair (2017)
When:
11-12 February 2017
Where: Kartika Expo, Balai Kartini, Jakarta
Admission: Rp.50,000 (Presale Rp.45,000)

This year, the event arrived a little early, just few days shy of The Lego Batman Movie premiere on local movie theatre in mid-February. But when I propose the schedule to Dudu, he read on and decided for day two. “I want to see Power Rangers,” he reasoned. A valid one because, well, he’s been into Power Rangers for a while. Plus, the movie is coming out and he’s been watching the trailer dilligently on Youtube. So, when a Power Ranger cosplay/live action is scheduled for day two at 1 PM, there we are.


We skipped the early bird pass, because we figured, coming in on day two means we don’t have to fight with that many hobby enthusiasts. Plus, the Power Rangers aren’t there until after lunchtime, so we spent the first hour having brunch and coffee at the restaurant in Balai Kartini. The one thing, I (as the paying party) love about this toys event is the affordable price. Compared with the amount of shows and booth available inside, and the number of toys we can see displayed, the price is worth it.

The fair itself didn’t change much. Lego still dominates a rather large portion of the area as well as its visitors. The you have the action figure display dominating another square on the center. The rest are smaller sellers. What makes this year’s different is the Gramedia comic booth and the few apparel stands, spread on both sides of the stage. Community booths are almost non-existent and I didn’t really see one dominating main sponsor branding the fair over. The few drinks stands were almost the same as the previous toys fair we went on. 









We didn’t really find what we’re looking for this year. No luck on action figure, even though we did find Assassin’s Creed and BBC’s Sherlock comics on discount at Gramedia’s area. Not sure what else to do, we hung around the stage and Dudu participated in making a bat-sign from Lego. We had watched the Lego Batma Movie the previous day so Dudu got the hype. He wast struggling with Lego pieces (he had never been this Lego-boy although he’s into Minecraft), but he finished his part. There’s another show before we finally get to the Power Rangers live-action drama.

Continuing its previous adventure from previous toys fair, the Power Rangers return to face whatever monster ressurected by Zedd and Rita Repulsa. Zedd as in Lord Zedd, not that DJ whom Selena Gomez was dating. This rather-slow monster has 4 faces now and that means he has four lives. On top of that monster (and Zedd), there’s a new enemy joining the bad-guy party, making the fight a little more equal. It’s the green ranger! Played by Opera Pan Japan, we can expect the performance to have more silly drama than fast action. But the cosplay is awesome, and I can swear the cosplayers look like they just stepped out of the TV. 





I miss the Power Rangers and Dudu is just starting to be excited about them. We hope we’ll see more toys, more performances and more fun next year. We don’t mind to find more discounted comics though. And Andrew wants to search for a purple power ranger.

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