Hobby Industry Inside Vol. 26: Hobby Business Division of Bandai tells us the front and back story behind the release of the "Hatsune Miku Plastic Model

Bandai's "Figure-riseBust" series, which sculpts characters from anime into plastic model kits, will mark its 23rd release with "Figure-riseBust Hatsune Miku" to be released this month on August 26.
The first "Figure-riseBust Kira Yamato" was released in June 2016. The "layered injection" technique, in which multiple layers of resin are poured into a single part to reproduce the eyes unique to anime using only molded colors, became a major topic of conversation. The latest "Hatsune Miku" features a face and eyes molded as one piece. We spoke with Nozomi Miyake of the New Hobby Team, who is in charge of planning the "Figureize Bust" series in the Hobby Division of Bandai, for more details.

It All Started with Insert Molding Application Technology

─ ─ Figureize Bust is a larger figure, but why is it only the upper body?　Why did you choose this size?

Miyake: First of all, Shizuoka Hobby Center, where Bandai's plastic models are produced, has a technology called "insert molding," in which different materials are poured into a single mold. This technology is used for the joints of mobile suits in the Real Grade (RG) series of Gunpla. Hobby Center proposed that we could use this insert molding technology to make a character's eyes by pouring multiple colors into a single mold. The Hobby Division decided to make use of this technology in our products, and "layered injection," which reproduces the color-coded eyes in a single part, was born. One of the reasons for this size is that we wanted to integrate this cutting-edge technology into the face.
Another reason is that the series started out as "a figure that could be displayed alongside plastic models of mobile suits," so a full-body figure would not fit the scale. If we made a bust figure, we could display the mobile suit and the display stand together without any sense of discomfort, so we decided to make only the upper half of the figure.


─ ─ Is it possible to mold the layered injection only at this size?

Miyake: Yes, we push the limits with each new item we release. Since February of this year, we have been producing "Love Live! Sunshine! The tips of the eyelashes are thinner than before, and for some characters, even the mole is reproduced in molded color.

─ It has been a little over a year since you started the series, but how is the response from customers?

Miyake: In the early days, I think people enjoyed the series as if they were taking a break from building Gunpla and picking up pickles. The big turning point was when we released Liko from "Activ Raid - Mobile Assault Room Section 8" (last September). This was a great response, even from people who did not know the Liko character, saying, "How is it possible to make a plastic model of a girl with such delicacy? For Hoshino Fumina in "Gundam Build Fighters Try," we added two kinds of clothes, and gradually began to focus on how to reproduce the girl in an attractive way. Love Live! does not involve any mechanisms, so instead, I made it so that when the nine figures are collected and lined up, the display stand can be combined.


──The reproduction of the hair is also very elaborate, isn't it? I was surprised to see that two colors of hair parts were combined for Freya Vion of "Macross Delta".

Miyake: The hair is actually a problem for us. We went through a lot of trial and error when it came to partitioning the parts. For Lax Klein in "Mobile Suit Gundam SEED," I took the plunge and simplified it so that the parts were aligned on the front and back sides. The results of that research were also used in this Hatsune Miku.

─ Miku's hair is thinly molded like a leaf, isn't it?

Miyake: Instead of assembling the parts back and forth, we used only one piece of hair, except for the base, to create the voluminous hair. In order to create a sense of dynamism, the hair was reworked twice.