MEDICOM TOY EXHIBITION '19, an exhibition of new products from Medicom Toy, which has fans around the world for its BE@RBRICK, action figures, soft vinyl figures, and more, was held from July 20th to 25th at Space O in Omotesando Hills.

This is the fourth time the event has been held at Omotesando Hills since the opening of its direct store, MEDICOM TOY PLUS, in 2016, and it has firmly established itself as a summer holiday opening event. Fans line up every day hoping to get their hands on limited edition merchandise, and its popularity is heating up every year. This year, admission was limited on the first and second days as well.

MEDICOM TOY EXHIBITION '19 Venue
This exhibition brings together all of Medicom Toy's products to be released from 2019 to 2020, including models currently in progress. This time, there was a special exhibition of the Star Wars archives that the company has worked on to date.



Star Wars series archives
© & ™ Lucasfilm Ltd.

In addition, the archives feature Anne-Valérie Dupont, a textile sculptor known for her collaborations with COMME des GARÇONS, UNDERCOVER, Y's, and others. Collaborations with brands familiar to fashionistas such as 1000% Bearbrick wearing a blouson created in collaboration with tattoo artist Dr. Woo, a work in progress with Valérie Dupond, and Lewis Leathers and 10 corso como, which were unveiled by Sacai for its Spring/Summer 2019 men's collection, were also unveiled.

Center: BE@RBRICK×Lewis Leathers 100% & 400%
First from the right: sacai × BE@RBRICK 100% & 400%
© Lewis Leathers

Left: BE@RBRICK PHIL FROST 1000%
©/™ 2019 Frost Projects, LLC and used under license. All Rights Reserved.
Second from the right: BE@RBRICK Barry McGee 100% & 400%
Third from the right: BE@RBRICK Ryan McGinness 100% & 400%
© Ryan McGinness / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In addition, Phil Frost, Barry McGee, Ryan McGinness The product lineup, which includes not only character figurines but also works by street-born contemporary artists such as Emily McGinness, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jackson Pollock Studio's BE@RBRICK, perfectly embodies the keywords of this exhibition: no genre, no borders, global, worldwide, toys, figures, art, excitement, anticipation, resonance, and upliftment.


© MMXV Full Colour Black Ltd.
© TAKU OBATA
© MUTANT VINYL HARDCORE


At the venue, commemorative merchandise will include A BATHING APE®, NASA in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, and Daft Punk. Statues inspired by graffiti by brands like Karimoku x Fragment Design, and even Banksy were on sale in advance. Also on sale at the venue were limited edition "BE@RTEE" T-shirts, a collaboration with brands that are part of the history of Ura-Harajuku street culture, such as UNDERCOVER, fragment design, A BATHING APE®, HYSTERIC GLAMOUR, and NEIGHBORHOOD, as well as ANTI SOCIAL SOCIAL CLUB.

© HAJIME SORAYAMA
© KAORI HINATA
© FUJIYA


"BE@RTEE" T-shirt, a limited edition at the venue, in collaboration with ANTI SOCIAL SOCIAL CLUB

Medicom Toy CEO Tatsuhiko Akashi's Creative Roots and Fashion

Medicom Toy is accelerating its collaborations with fashion brands and art. President and CEO Tatsuhiko Akashi says, "Fashion has had a major influence on our toy product development. My own roots lie in the '80s New Wave, and that cool, spunky style is the foundation of my creativity. The shared love of objects and culture shared with the artists and creators influenced by that era is what supports Medicom Toy today."

Medicom Toy President and CEO, Tatsuhiko Akashi


A collector of Japanese rock singles, Akashi has a collection of nearly 30,000 records, mainly from the 1980s, and he also has a nearly complete collection of Kenji Sawada's records, including overseas releases. In an age where information is scarce online, it's easy to imagine how difficult it must be to collect such a large collection. Akashi's motivation to always be searching for and collecting things may be what keeps people excited about Medicom Toy's products.

"Nowadays, people are bombarded with information, so in some cases our products intentionally limit the amount of information they provide. It's like love; if you know everything about the other person, it's no fun, and you lose interest, right? (laughs)."



Around 2007, Akashi was a designer for the fashion brand ADAMITE, and he had the surprise experience of seeing Karl Lagerfeld appear at the Chanel runway finale wearing a jacket from his first collection. He recalls being thrilled when he heard the news from a fashionista friend in Paris, and laughs, "Fashion is highly addictive." From 2007 to 2013, the company co-produced the apparel brand "OriginalFake®" with KAWS. Apparel products such as "AMPLIFIER" and "Sync." are still being presented at exhibitions, but when I confronted Medicom Toy about their lack of a fashion-forward public image, they responded, "Maybe it's because being a toy manufacturer is the most freeing thing. Toys are the culmination of how cheap, fun, and how to use a variety of materials to create things. We create things by factoring in what we can sell at a certain retail price if we use this material in this quantity, and we won't stray from that position." Their attitude is clear.






Interview & Text by Tatsuya Noda
Photo by Hideyuki Seta