Makoto “Max” Watanabe is an absolute legend in the modelling hobby. If you’re coming over from the Gunpla side of the modelling hobby, you probably know the MAX technique and his specific way of painting models, as well as his work modelling Gunpla, having gotten his start making garage kits for what would eventually become Wave Corporation, back then known as Model Shop Lark (hilariously, in 2024, he would eventually become Wave’s president). With a body of work across multiple companies and different toylines, this guide would absolutely not be the right place to cover his influence on the modelling scene.
The company which he has graced with his name can be traced back to 1987, originally founded as a garage kit producer carrying on the work he had already been doing. In 1988, they’d release their first vinyl figure of RoboCop and in 1990 their figure of Madoka Ayukawa from Kimagure Orange Road would also be released.For some unfathomable reason, Watanabe would also open an Indian restaurant called Indotei (which, sadly, seems to have closed a few years prior to this guide’s existence) in 2000, opening a branch in Chiba (near their offices, even) and in Tokyo proper.
However, in 2001, it would be their partnership with Aki Takanori’s then-talent agency Good Smile that would change the company’s trajectory as Good Smile would become their distributors and partners-in-crime. Throughout the 2000s, MAX Factory would innovate in the toy world, creating toylines like figma and Nendoroid. Indeed, to this day, most of the announcements and news you can find for MAX Factory are usually distributed through Good Smile.
Fortunately, unlike Good Smile, we have no evidence that Watanabe or his staff were ever involved with Good Smile’s side hustle in 4chan. In the late 10s and early 20s, MAX Factory would help Good Smile hop aboard the girlpla boom in the wake of Kotobukiya’s rise; in addition to adding articulated snap fit kits to their existing PLAMAX lineup, they would also develop PLAMATEA for release in 2024. MAX Factory would also gain a penchant for working with artists to create artist-driven toylines as sub-lines of their PLAMAX toyline, working with Tony Taka to create Guilty Princess and Akira Yasuda for GODZ ORDER.
Produced Lines:
- chitocerium
- PLAMAX (collaboration with Good Smile)
- PLAMATEA (collaboration with Good Smile)
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