Snaps and Loots: Visit to 13th Philippine Toycon!

The weekend of June 20th to 22nd marked the annual Philippine Toy Convention -- now on its 13th year!

Hauls and Whatnots!

I've been a toy collector for the better part of my life. It's a never ending journey. At some point, I'd find myself to have stopped for a while from buying collectible goods and hunting down rare plus hard to find items from store to store, but whenever the month of June approaches to a close, TOYCON PH never fails to draw me back into the wondrous hobby.

This year was no exception. I didn't realized that I was then again holding a couple of bags filled with toys when I visited the 13th Philippine Toy Convention yesterday at Megatrade Halls 1-3, SM Megamall. It has been many months til I felt that toy hunter mode again. 

As expected every year, Toycon keeps on growing and growing not only in terms of the attendees, but as well as the participants and groups that makes Toycon what it is -- the one gathering that has it all, and more.

We visited the event on Sunday afternoon, it was the last day already which resulted to the long lines for the ticket booth. I believe that they also ran out of their official toycon designed tickets as we didn't get any of those. It's too bad cause I'm now missing a yearly souvenir.

It should be pointed out that there's a lot of celebrating going on for this year's Toycon.

What caught my eager attention is the details towards the 75th year of Batman. It was a huge event highlight that there's a big booth dedicated to the Dark Knight. Photo ops, toys, shirts, shoes and so on in one huge stall!

Lots of the exhibitors also had tons of Batman related goodies for sale and on display for viewing pleasure.

 

Another highlight of the event was the display area for the live action adaptation of the hit anime series, Rurouni Kenshin or better known as Samurai X.

Parts 2 and 3 of the film will be shown in the cinemas in a few months and what better way to tease the fans than to show us the actual costumes the actors used for the films.

One of the pleasures of going into these conventions is meeting individuals who shares the passion of collecting toys and related hobbies such as comic reading, movies, game and the like. There were a lot of familiar faces as well as new ones and it was fun having small talks along the way. I bumped into an old friend of mine from one of the local toy forums I frequent way back. Tony is the founder and the creative director of Flipgeeks, a site that covers a lot of geeky materials.

It felt good that after about 5 years or so, talking to him felt just like yesterday, reminiscing on how the community differs from today's generations, how the hobby grew further and lots more stuffs.

Flipgeeks brought a lot to Toycon this year as well. Superstar artists from Marvel Comics like Leinil Yu, Carlo Pagulayan, Ed Tadeo, Mico Suayan and lots more were present at their area to promote awareness about comic books. Prints and sketches from the artists were readily available for purchase too!

As I have said, a lot is going on inside the 3 Megahalls and as luck would have it, I didn't have the chance and time to take more photos of the other activities and booths anymore.

I then decided to take quick looks between the seller's area as I would not want to leave the halls empty handed.

The numbers of stores present at the con keeps on growing every year but for me, the most dominant of them all was Big Boys Toy Store. Their inventory is always so vast with price tags that are so hard to refuse.

Most notably on their Funko POP toys that went for as low as p180 each while the newer one were at just p400 to p495! It was high time I grabbed some of them for my desk display additions.

They also had the ever trendy loombands and I got a set for the GF to enjoy!

Surprisingly, there were a lot of the Movie Masters Bane at dirt cheap price so no second thoughts there. Now I just gotta find Catwoman and Two Face to complete my 6" movie figures.

I've always been intrigued at this 8" to 9" Stealth Fusion Batman figure. Stores at GH are selling these for about 1.3k to 1.5k when I checked before. I wasn't planning on getting this but at just a little over 500 bucks...copped!

And I thought I was finished til I saw these little buggers lying around at the further tables of the Big Boys section.

Year after year, the Philippine Toycon brings out the inner child of everyone who enters the premises of the Megatrade halls. It's impossible to not to have fun inside, kids and adults alike. It has become a ritual to most to attend this yearly gathering of pure awesomeness. 

As a regular attendee, I thought I've learned on the ways to maximize the toycon experience but each year comes a surprise that will catch you off guard!

Toys, video games, comic books, movies, live bands, meet and greet, exclusive displays-- where else would you want to be, eh? 

It will be a long wait again til next year's but be sure to look forward to the yearly Christmas Toy Fair. The organizers behind TOYCON PH will once again tickle our fancies with an exciting event come December.

Check out ToyCon PH's official site and Facebook page for further updates!