This years Toy Fair is the 2nd to last one to be held in NYC, and this year it was as awesome as I remember! This Toy Fair had everything a Otaku can dream of from Luffy to Bleach they had it all. This year with more exhibitors the Javits was bustling with excitement and joy. They had all the awesome toys that will be coming out , I saw One Piece live action figures as well as many other One Piece figures which was awesome ! There’re SandLand figures as well as Ultraman figures, they had the usual suspect Godzilla , Totoro , Pikachu and the whole Pokémon library. Also on display were a lot of Studio Ghibli figures and rings. As well as figures in glass containers , Gigi from Kiki’s Delivery Service and Totoro. There were also buildable Pokémon figures. As soon as you walked into the Javits you were greeted by a giant Pikachu.
Lego brought out new sets that will be out for sale right as we hit the holiday season, there were a lot of regular kids toys that had nothing to do with figures or technology and some of them were really fun to try. I tried a couple of puzzles and a few other toys which I truly think
the kids will love to have as presents this Christmas. One thing that grabbed my attention was that they are bringing back the Teanie Babies. They had all of the old ones and the new ones out on display , and they were hyping out the new ones. When I held one it felt like the original ones, they kept the original designs and just added new characters to their roster. With Legos they were showing off all of the new sets like Little Mermaid , Disney 100 Years London Tower, Disney Animation Series camera. Also they have new Ninjago sets coming out. 10 sets in total from that series is coming out and they will be releasing around end of the year this year.
Lego also is releasing Harry Potter sets, around 10+ sets for the series, they will be releasing from now until next year. A lot of companies at the Toy Fair were releasing plushies, I counted over 7 companies releasing plushes including one from my childhood called Spot the dog. From the looks of this Toy Fair it looks like the companies are relying on hands on gaming and entertainment to keep kids occupied instead throwing technology at them and I am all for it. I hope that more companies will follow suit and make games and figures that the children can be more hands on. Every so often everyone needs a break from technology , even myself. This toy fair was decent, I think it could’ve been better organized and with more vendors/companies.
From what I saw at this years Toy Fair is that they still don’t have their post covid plan worked out in terms of variety. But they do make it up in diversity, there were a whole mix of companies from different branches of the industry and it was awesome to see that through out the show. I hope that within the next couple of years this event blossoms and turns into the event that everyone wants to go to. Even if it has only 2 more years in NYC before they move it to New Orleans.