Everything you want to know about Tarlin and Bandai-Namco's Mini Network Equipment Racks bit...
Tarlin
Tarlin is an East Tokyo company based in Sumida with 4 product families that are of interest for us nerd types, and these are licensed from their respective vendors. Three families are under the "vendor supervised palm sized network equipment" series (ネットワーク機器メーカー監修 手のひらネットワーク機器), and one is under the Nitto Kogyo System Rack FS series (日東工業システムラックFSシリーズ).
Palm sized Network Equipment 1 or PNE1 (Wave 1, June 2023, Wave 1.1, June 2024, Wave 1.2, June 2025)
Featuring:
A10 Thunder ADC7655 Application Load Balancer
Cisco Catalyst 9300-48UXM distribution switch
Cisco Meraki MX85 SDWAN/Firewall
Furukawa Electric (古河電気工業) FITELNet FX2 multi-services router
Palm sized Network Equipment 2 or PNE2 (Wave 1, June 2024, Wave 2.1, June 2025)
Featuring:
Apresia Networks NP3000-24X4Q Core Router/Switch
Dell EMC PowerEdge R760 Server (with 16 2.5" Drives up front)
Extreme Networks 5720-48MXW distribution switch
Fortinet Fortigate 3701F Firewall
Palm sized Network Equipment 3 or PNE3 (Wave 1, June 2025)
Featuring:
F5 Networks Big-IP r12900-DS Application Load Balancer
NEC Univerge IX-R2530 VPN appliance
NetApp AFF A70 Storage Server
Schneider Electric APC SmartUPS 1500RM2U
These came with rack elements, base plates, long and short network cables, power cables, cable management clips and rack shelves.
Nitto Kogyo System Rack FS series or NKFS1 (Wave 1, November 2024, Wave 2, June 2025)
These come with fans, cable management, a long PDU...
What are they like to play around with?
(Insert long and overly detailed review here)
Is there a current thread on STH on this?
Yes.
Where to pick up some?
In Japan:
Tarlin has a blog for their merch - If you filter it by the second and third item on the list, it should show 22 items, and it'll show a list of stores that potentially carry the items. I would say that you'll want to check in mid/late May 2025 for blog updates mentioning the actual release dates of PNES1 Wave 1.2, PNES2 Wave 2.1, PNES3 Wave 1, NKFS1 Wave 2 (the server rack) and which stores might carry them. I for one found NKFS1 Wave 2 at Kenelestand Akihabara in October 2025, but your mileage may vary.
Japan has a fairly healthy upcycling culture where used items are sold onwards,. In that case, you can hit Suruga-Ya, Book-Off (and its hobby/hardware wing Hard-off) and Mandarake for that.
Outside Japan:
Check Taobao or AliExpress for auction listings, but you'll need to use AliPay/UnionPay and Google Translate. Or you can try Amazon US, Amazon Japan (with global shipping), eBay and such. It's also possible to bid on JDirectItems auctions through Buyee (a DENSO forwarding service), Suruga-Ya and Mandarake but customs and shipping can stack up.
As for the network rack collection, for PNE1 you are very likely dealing with inventory from Wave 1.1 (the ones that came out in May 2024), and the same will apply for PNE2, which will be the initial release (also May 2024). Wait until early Q3 2025 for inventory to manifest for Wave 1.2, 2.1, the initial PNE3 release, and NKFS1 Wave 2 (or see if there are inventory clear-outs in late June)...
Bandai-Namco
Bandai-Namco is the 800 pound gorilla of the Japanese toy world - Bandai are the big incumbant manufacturer of toys (and model kits) known for their Gunpla (Gundam plastic model kits) and Tamashi Nations posable figurines. Namco is...well, they are partially responsible for the state of modern gaming, what with Pacman, Space Invader, Tekken and the Ridge Racer/Ace Combat franchises. They are also known for the trademarked term Gashapon (the ball capsule vending machines selling collectible toys all over the Japan-o-sphere). Note that the similar term Gacha is trademarked by their rival Takara-Tomy.
So what's the items of interest from Bandai-Namco? Well, this:
ヤマハ ネットワーク機器ミニチュアコレクション or roughly Yamaha network equipment miniatures.
This one was just announced for release in late November 2025...
Yamaha makes/manufactures networking equipment but they are rarely seen outside of Japan, but you might see more deployed in the future as Yamaha is involved with networked audio/video like NDI and they just took over Steinberg (AV gear maker), so if your shop has some serious AV stuff, you might be asked to configure Yamaha stuff.
Featuring the following:
RTX840 Gigabit Soho router
RT100i ISDN router (their first product)
RTA50i (their first consumer/SoHo product) - with blinking lights...
SWX2310-10G 10GbE 8 port switch
WLX222 Managed Wifi-6E access point
So where can you get your hands on some?
Check the Bandai Namco Gashapon store page for the item as it has a product locator (with realtime inventory) for their stores in Japan. Otherwise check your favorite 3rd party reseller or flea-bay for it.
Scale?
Probably similar to Tarlin's Melco Buffalo Wireless router collection (so 1:6?). Not sure if they are compatible with Tarlin's offerings, but would be interesting to find out.
Tarlin
Tarlin is an East Tokyo company based in Sumida with 4 product families that are of interest for us nerd types, and these are licensed from their respective vendors. Three families are under the "vendor supervised palm sized network equipment" series (ネットワーク機器メーカー監修 手のひらネットワーク機器), and one is under the Nitto Kogyo System Rack FS series (日東工業システムラックFSシリーズ).
Palm sized Network Equipment 1 or PNE1 (Wave 1, June 2023, Wave 1.1, June 2024, Wave 1.2, June 2025)
Featuring:
A10 Thunder ADC7655 Application Load Balancer
Cisco Catalyst 9300-48UXM distribution switch
Cisco Meraki MX85 SDWAN/Firewall
Furukawa Electric (古河電気工業) FITELNet FX2 multi-services router
Palm sized Network Equipment 2 or PNE2 (Wave 1, June 2024, Wave 2.1, June 2025)
Featuring:
Apresia Networks NP3000-24X4Q Core Router/Switch
Dell EMC PowerEdge R760 Server (with 16 2.5" Drives up front)
Extreme Networks 5720-48MXW distribution switch
Fortinet Fortigate 3701F Firewall
Palm sized Network Equipment 3 or PNE3 (Wave 1, June 2025)
Featuring:
F5 Networks Big-IP r12900-DS Application Load Balancer
NEC Univerge IX-R2530 VPN appliance
NetApp AFF A70 Storage Server
Schneider Electric APC SmartUPS 1500RM2U
These came with rack elements, base plates, long and short network cables, power cables, cable management clips and rack shelves.
Nitto Kogyo System Rack FS series or NKFS1 (Wave 1, November 2024, Wave 2, June 2025)
These come with fans, cable management, a long PDU...
What are they like to play around with?
(Insert long and overly detailed review here)
Is there a current thread on STH on this?
Yes.
Where to pick up some?
In Japan:
Tarlin has a blog for their merch - If you filter it by the second and third item on the list, it should show 22 items, and it'll show a list of stores that potentially carry the items. I would say that you'll want to check in mid/late May 2025 for blog updates mentioning the actual release dates of PNES1 Wave 1.2, PNES2 Wave 2.1, PNES3 Wave 1, NKFS1 Wave 2 (the server rack) and which stores might carry them. I for one found NKFS1 Wave 2 at Kenelestand Akihabara in October 2025, but your mileage may vary.
Japan has a fairly healthy upcycling culture where used items are sold onwards,. In that case, you can hit Suruga-Ya, Book-Off (and its hobby/hardware wing Hard-off) and Mandarake for that.
Outside Japan:
Check Taobao or AliExpress for auction listings, but you'll need to use AliPay/UnionPay and Google Translate. Or you can try Amazon US, Amazon Japan (with global shipping), eBay and such. It's also possible to bid on JDirectItems auctions through Buyee (a DENSO forwarding service), Suruga-Ya and Mandarake but customs and shipping can stack up.
As for the network rack collection, for PNE1 you are very likely dealing with inventory from Wave 1.1 (the ones that came out in May 2024), and the same will apply for PNE2, which will be the initial release (also May 2024). Wait until early Q3 2025 for inventory to manifest for Wave 1.2, 2.1, the initial PNE3 release, and NKFS1 Wave 2 (or see if there are inventory clear-outs in late June)...
Bandai-Namco
Bandai-Namco is the 800 pound gorilla of the Japanese toy world - Bandai are the big incumbant manufacturer of toys (and model kits) known for their Gunpla (Gundam plastic model kits) and Tamashi Nations posable figurines. Namco is...well, they are partially responsible for the state of modern gaming, what with Pacman, Space Invader, Tekken and the Ridge Racer/Ace Combat franchises. They are also known for the trademarked term Gashapon (the ball capsule vending machines selling collectible toys all over the Japan-o-sphere). Note that the similar term Gacha is trademarked by their rival Takara-Tomy.
So what's the items of interest from Bandai-Namco? Well, this:
ヤマハ ネットワーク機器ミニチュアコレクション or roughly Yamaha network equipment miniatures.
This one was just announced for release in late November 2025...
Yamaha makes/manufactures networking equipment but they are rarely seen outside of Japan, but you might see more deployed in the future as Yamaha is involved with networked audio/video like NDI and they just took over Steinberg (AV gear maker), so if your shop has some serious AV stuff, you might be asked to configure Yamaha stuff.
Featuring the following:
RTX840 Gigabit Soho router
RT100i ISDN router (their first product)
RTA50i (their first consumer/SoHo product) - with blinking lights...
SWX2310-10G 10GbE 8 port switch
WLX222 Managed Wifi-6E access point
So where can you get your hands on some?
Check the Bandai Namco Gashapon store page for the item as it has a product locator (with realtime inventory) for their stores in Japan. Otherwise check your favorite 3rd party reseller or flea-bay for it.
Scale?
Probably similar to Tarlin's Melco Buffalo Wireless router collection (so 1:6?). Not sure if they are compatible with Tarlin's offerings, but would be interesting to find out.