Tetsudou Musume

[Shashinka]

Was wondering, is anyone else in to this? I saw them last year in Japan, and was going to grab a few, but never got around to picking them up. I'm not into collecting miniatures, thoguh I did think these were pretty neat. Tomy now makes these for the Bus Collection as well.

Link's in Japanese. You can translate with Google or Babelfish, thoguh I have Rikaichan installed on Firefox so it works automatically for me.

http://tetsudou-musume.net/

[Shashinka]

http://tetsudomusume.siteinfo.jp/

Following up on the sucess, Tomytec has had with the figures, and the subsequent video game, Tetsudo Musumi: Terminal Memory for the Nintendo DS, they've finally made a TV series on this.

[Mudkip Orange]

Ambitious Japan!

[bikkuri bahn]

The first rail vehicle to use a character from Tomytec's popular "Tetsudo Musume" figure collection began operation yesterday with its new scheme on Hakodate's municipal streetcar system.  The 9600 series low floor tram, nicknamed "Rakkuru", is emblazoned with the visage of character "Karen Matsukaze" on its side.  The illustration will remain on the side of the tram until July 20.

http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/news/photonews/232602.html

profile of this particular character, from Tomytec's website:

http://tetsudou-musume.net/character/10_karen.html

recent newspaper article about the Tetsudo Musume being used for local area promotion (English language):

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20100520TDY03T01.htm

[Kumo]

I bought one of those figures with my very first Tomix (and japanese train) model! ^_^

[bikkuri bahn]

hmm, moved to this thread, though it's prototype news.  Anyway, here is a side view (the application is called a "wrapping", which is a temporary application usually involving a decal that can be easily removed at the end of the campaign period):

http://www.city.hakodate.hokkaido.jp/transport/event/9601/9601m.jpg