Back in the 90s, it was rubbish being an anime fan. Pre-web2.0, if you liked something you had to hope there was a magazine dedicated to it or else that was you left in the dark- bar the odd tv special about the “adult cartoons from Japan'. Which was only slightly worse than having to scour all your local newsagents for Manga Mania, so you can be drip fed video release dates once a month, and maybe get the address of people who import anime merchandise. And let me tell you, most of said merchandise was pretty bad (don’t act so high and mighty, those old Dragon Ball Z figures were big, yeah but barely moved). Despite it seeming like the apocalypse has just started, this is the golden age of anime fandom in the west. Shows are translated to English within a year, highstreet bookshops sell multiple volumes of manga, and the merch is so much better. Some of which are even sold at retail as well as multiple websites. The days of staying up all night to watch Legend of the 4 Kings and paying over the odds for a brittle model kit or a gashapon are long gone. And how apt that one of the best anime series of the 90s, The Vision of Escaflowne, is the basis for this new model kit from Good Smile Company- better known for producing the nendaroid and figma series of figures- who are now expanding into the world of plastic models with their new "moderoid" line of kits. So how does it fare in a market dominated by Bandai? Now, where did I put my side cutters...
