My Tokyo Trip

I'm back from Tokyo! =D ... It was a tiring week, walking over 130km exploring Tokyo. I have never walked so much in so little time ... Hahahaa ... Photos of my adventures in Tokyo can be found here.

Just arrived at the International Tokyo Toy Show

Here's a video of Kawada's booth at the toy show. For more photos, click here.

Next Stop Tokyo!

Getting ready for my Tokyo trip =D ... Who else is in Tokyo for the International Tokyo Toy Show? =) ... It sure is going to be an interesting week ahead ^^

Exploring nanoblock in Tokyo With Chris

In the video below, I will bring you to all the popular places selling nanoblock around Tokyo, like Bic Camera, Yodobashi, etc. You can see for yourself, the range of nanoblock sets available at these stores =)

Chris Is Back From Tokyo

Hi everyone! I'm baccckkkkkk =) ... Hehehee ... I have lots of videos and photos of places selling nanoblock in Japan, will take some time to edit them and post it up soon. In the mean time, here's me at the official nanoblock store at the Tokyo Skytree ^^ ... and I saw something familiar on the screen in the shop.

Chris is Going to Tokyo

Good news! I will be going to Tokyo in mid October for a week ... and I will try to shoot a show (like a travel programme), taking you to all the places that sells nanoblock in Japan ^^ ... Hehe ... 

nanoblock Spacia Tobu Limited Express Review

Photos & Review By: Wendy Lim
Text By: Wendy Lim & Christopher Tan

Difficulty: Level 3

Time to Complete: 45 minutes

No of Blocks: 320+

Front of the box

Back of the box

The Tobu 100 series, branded Spacia, is a limited express electric multiple unit (EMU) train type operated by the Tobu Railway in Japan since 1990. The trains are used on Kegon and Kinu services to Nikkō and Kinugawa-Onsen. More info is available on Wikipedia and on Tobu's website.

This is the fifth limited edition nanoblock set released by the Nanoblock Store at the Tokyo Skytree. It comes with 320+ bricks and an instruction sheet.

In terms of special bricks, there is nothing really extra ordinary but it does have some clear bricks.

Even though this is a Level 3 set, building it was quite straight forward. Here are some photos of the build process.

Extra bricks included with this set

I like this set very much as it is my first nanoblock train set and I love the colour purple. You can see the fully completed Spacia train below.

This nanoblock set is available on Amazon.

nanoblock Disneyland Castle Review

Photo & Review By: Mike Wong
Text By: Christopher Tan

Time to Complete: 30 minutes
Item Code : Not Available

Front of the box

Back of the box 

The nanoblock Disneyland Castle is a Tokyo Disney Resort exclusive and generally available to the rest of the world only through third party resellers who gets them at retail from Tokyo Disney Resort, so the price tends to be somewhat higher than other regular nanoblock sets of similar size.

In the box, you will find an instruction sheet and estimated around 400+ pieces of bricks as shown below. There are a lot of the smaller bricks like 1x1, 1x2 and 2x2 bricks in this set. 

Building this set was fairly easy and it only took me around 30 minutes to complete it. What I love about this set is the colour combinations. Here are some photos of the build process.

The extra bricks included with this set

The completed Disneyland Castle is about 3 inches tall. Here are some photos of the finished built.

Note: You can find this in Amazon over here.

nanoblock Tokyo Tower - Crystal Pink Review

Reviewed By: Satchan Boonsiri

Difficulty: Level 2
Time to Complete: 40 minutes
Item Code : NBH-019 Limited

Front of the box

Back of the box

This Tokyo Tower - Crystal Pink nanoblock set is a limited edition release of the standard Tokyo Tower set (NBH-001). As you can see in the photos above, the front and the back of the box are almost the same as the standard set. The main difference in this limited edition is the colour of the tower, which is transparent pink, instead of red.

This nanoblock comes with an instruction sheet (which shows the same build process as the standard set) and 220+ bricks.

This is a level 2 nanoblock set, so it did not take long to complete. In my case, I took about 40 minutes. Some of you may take less time than me.

Here is the completed Tokyo Tower in Crystal Pink. I think it looks so cute in pink, but it doesn't look so good with the nanoblock LED plate though. 

This is how it looks like on the LED plate

The extra bricks included in this set

In the photo below, you can compare the limited edition crystal pink Tokyo Tower with the standard version. They are identical except for the colour.

Overall, I think both of them looks good, but I prefer the standard Tokyo Tower because it looks more unique and cost a lot less, but that's just me. Your taste might be different.

I got this Tokyo Tower - Crystal Pink set from Amazon Japan and asked my sister in Japan to bring it over to me. When I ordered it some time ago, it was about 2,000+ yen, but now it has reached around 4000 yen.

Note: This set can be found in Plamoya over here or on Amazon over here.

nanoblock Tokyo Skytree Review

Difficulty: Level 5
Time to Complete: 120 mins
No of Blocks: 490+
Item Code: NBH-022
Price: Not Available

The Tokyo Sky Tree is a broadcasting, restaurant and observation tower under construction in Sumida, Tokyo, Japan. It has been the tallest artificial structure in Japan since 2010. The nanoblock Tokyo Skytree set comes in a medium sized box packaging, with over 550+ pieces of building blocks, and a large sheet of instruction paper to show you how to build it.

The blocks and instruction paper. That's over 490+ blocks.

This is a "Level 5" nanoblock set, making it the hardest nanoblock set I have build so far. It took me around two hours to put it all together. There are several challenging factors in building this set. The first one would be the fact that the main part of the structure is really quite flimsy, so adding more pieces on top of it is a delicate operation. If you use too much strength, you will bring the whole structure crashing down. The second factor is the fact that you need to angle the bricks at certain angles as you are building the Skytree upwards, and there are no indicators on how much you need to angle them, so it all comes down to rough estimations. If you keep making slightly wrong estimations as you add each level, you end up with a tower that does not look right. Here are some pics of the build process.

And here is the fully assembled Tokyo Skytree. It stands at about 27cm tall, making it one of the tallest nanoblock set currently available.

If you have the nanoblock LED base plate (separate purchase), you can light up the Tokyo Skytree.

This nanoblock Tokyo Skytree set is only officially available in Japan, though some parallel importers in some countries may import it. I bought mine online from Plamoya (Links: Tokyo Skytree, LED Base Plate).  You can also find it in my Amazon.com store.

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