Official Bandai (Japan) Thread 2.0

[Rando Yaguchi]

^Yep, the MMS figures are super cheap on Amazon, and they don't sell out nearly as fast as the SHMA or NECA stuff. I think pretty much all the recent releases are available.

[onerichman]

Does anyone know the final results of the poll Bandai was doing? The last I heard Gorosaurus and Super Mechagodzilla were leading?

[LSD Jellyfish]

Does anyone know the final results of the poll Bandai was doing? The last I heard Gorosaurus and Super Mechagodzilla were leading?

Gorosaurus was winning by 100 votes per the last check. SMG had second, but it's safe to assume Goro won. The contest pretty much vanished the instant it ended. I imagine they will announce the winner officially when it's time to unveil the figures.

[Thegarbagemonster]

If they reveal the winner to be Supermechagodzilla, we riot.

After buying it, of course.

[Dyrakro]

If they reveal the winner to be Supermechagodzilla, we riot.

After buying it, of course.

The first sentence didn't go right with me. The second made me giggle tho

[Kinggoji1962]

Does anyone know the final results of the poll Bandai was doing? The last I heard Gorosaurus and Super Mechagodzilla were leading?

Gorosaurus was winning by 100 votes per the last check. SMG had second, but it's safe to assume Goro won. The contest pretty much vanished the instant it ended. I imagine they will announce the winner officially when it's time to unveil the figures.

Part of me hopes that SMG wins instead. Gorosaurus has plenty of vinyl figures that still hold up perfectly fine today. Meanwhile the only vinyl Mechagodzilla 93 lacks the garuda which is what makes the design distinct and cool.

[Thegarbagemonster]

Part of me hopes that SMG wins instead. Gorosaurus has plenty of vinyl figures that still hold up perfectly fine today. Meanwhile the only vinyl Mechagodzilla 93 lacks the garuda which is what makes the design distinct and cool.

I don't really care who wins at this point, but the way I see it, Mechagodzilla II would be made inevitably due to being one of the Big 5, meanwhile Gorosaurus is hard to come by. No options for any Gorosaurus unless you're chasing past releases, which can be insanely priced and hard to find. Supermechagodzilla would be great, but you see what I mean, right? I was really wanting Ebirah to win personally, because the characters like Heisei Ghidorah, Mothra, etc, they will likely come around in due time, but the underdogs like Ebirah and Gorosaurus have less of a chance of making it.

[UltramanGoji]

Gorosaurus has plenty of vinyl figures that still hold up perfectly fine today.

Uh, what? You mean the $120+ vintage, out-of-production Bandai figure, the independently produced only-sometimes-in-production Y-MSF figure and...what else?

Mechagodzilla has more than enough figures, even if none of the 6" vinyls have the two toothpicks sticking out over his shoulders. He's got plenty of figures out there and will get plenty more in the years (if not months) to come. Gorosaurus has gotten the short end of the stick in both figures and media, so if anything he's the one that needs the W here.

[Rody]

Gorosaurus beating SMG - a Showa-era monster beating a Heisei-era monster - could also set an important precedent for future Bandai releases. We absolutely need more representation of the Showa era in toy form, especially for more obscure characters like Goro and Ebirah. The 90s and onward have dominated Bandai's output for a while now.

[JAGzilla]

Will Japanese fans buy Gorosaurus, though? Whether he's getting votes or not, I'm sure that's all Bandai is concerned with. We're icing on the cake, at best.

[UltramanGoji]

Will Japanese fans buy Gorosaurus, though? Whether he's getting votes or not, I'm sure that's all Bandai is concerned with. We're icing on the cake, at best.

It's a fan vote, so this is irrelevant.

[Petezilla]

I don't understand why they wouldn't just produce those rank C characters and release them in limited exclusive boxed sets in the Premium BANDAI webshop for double the usual retail price. They did things like this before. There is money to be made with all those yet unmade Godzilla monsters.

[Thegarbagemonster]

I don't understand why they wouldn't just produce those rank C characters and release them in limited exclusive boxed sets in the Premium BANDAI webshop for double the usual retail price. They did things like this before. There is money to be made with all those yet unmade Godzilla monsters.

That wouldn't be good, that would severely limit who could buy them. I think you underestimate how many people in this community want figures of these monsters but aren't hard collectors who can dish out money for exclusive, limited stuff and import fees on top of that If they're overseas- I know I wouldn't be able to afford that. I have to skip out on the exclusives because even the reasonably prices ones are hard to even order due to their exclusivity. Gorosaurus would sell well, no doubt. If they can make M.O.G.U.E.R.A and sell it, they can make Gorosaurus. There is money to be made, but they should be in the main line, available and easy to get for normal prices...

[JAGzilla]

That wouldn't be good, that would severely limit who could buy them. I think you underestimate how many people in this community want figures of these monsters but aren't hard collectors who can dish out money for exclusive, limited stuff and import fees on top of that If they're overseas- I know I wouldn't be able to afford that. I have to skip out on the exclusives because even the reasonably prices ones are hard to even order due to their exclusivity. Gorosaurus would sell well, no doubt. If they can make M.O.G.U.E.R.A and sell it, they can make Gorosaurus. There is money to be made, but they should be in the main line, available and easy to get for normal prices...

Agreed with all of this. Not everyone has $100+ to drop on individual vinyl dinosaurs of modest quality, so those exclusives and 'premium' figures are really obnoxious.

Also, I would expect MOGUERA to sell better than Gorosaurus. It's Heisei and a mecha, from a film fairly popular in the fandom. Goro is a goofy-looking retrosaur from a Showa film that half the fandom probably hasn't seen. Clearly he's getting votes, though, so we'll see. I'll certainly buy one, provided it's normal price.

[DirektorSplennic]

MMS Neronga and Gabora finally came in yesterday. Really great figures, some of Bandai's best in terms of modern MMS vinyls. I'm in love with the designs too! Neronga's tail and back are nuts.

[Petezilla]

That wouldn't be good, that would severely limit who could buy them. I think you underestimate how many people in this community want figures of these monsters but aren't hard collectors who can dish out money for exclusive, limited stuff and import fees on top of that If they're overseas- I know I wouldn't be able to afford that. I have to skip out on the exclusives because even the reasonably prices ones are hard to even order due to their exclusivity. Gorosaurus would sell well, no doubt. If they can make M.O.G.U.E.R.A and sell it, they can make Gorosaurus. There is money to be made, but they should be in the main line, available and easy to get for normal prices...

Agreed with all of this. Not everyone has $100+ to drop on individual vinyl dinosaurs of modest quality, so those exclusives and 'premium' figures are really obnoxious.

Also, I would expect MOGUERA to sell better than Gorosaurus. It's Heisei and a mecha, from a film fairly popular in the fandom. Goro is a goofy-looking retrosaur from a Showa film that half the fandom probably hasn't seen. Clearly he's getting votes, though, so we'll see. I'll certainly buy one, provided it's normal price.

Well, why has everything always to be dragged into the extreme? I wasn't talking about individual vinyls for 100+ Dollars. I'm talking about 6" BANDAI Movie Monster Series vinyls. None of those, even the most limited ones, did cost even close to that. They sold the Shin Godzilla 3 Forms set for around 40 Dollars new at Premium BANDAI. The newer exclusives tend to be quite expensive, that's true. I understand that going the exclusives route for obscure characters would be the last choice for many fans and collectors, but some characters simply wouldn't justify a wide general store mass release in the 10s of thousands due to less demand. If BANDAI did this, they'd risk to make less to no profit when those mass produced figures end up getting cleared out for 50% less. It's smarter to make some characters exclusives produced on demand and for like $25 per figure instead of $15. Otherwise we'd get nothing in regards of obscure characters at all.

[JAGzilla]

I was talking about the figures like Showa Ghidorah and Jet Jaguar that came out recently. Weren't those upwards of $100? I admittedly shouldn't have said 'individual' figures, though; you got two cheaply made Jet Jaguar vinyls for that pricetag.

[Petezilla]

I was talking about the figures like Showa Ghidorah and Jet Jaguar that came out recently. Weren't those upwards of $100? I admittedly shouldn't have said 'individual' figures, though; you got two cheaply made Jet Jaguar vinyls for that pricetag.

To me it wasn't obvious at all that you talked about those 'Kaiju Bangaichi' figures, because I talked about the regular Movie Monster Series, which are a totally different thing. The Kaiju Bangaichi releases are actually bigger, very detailed & quality sculpts, made of sturdy vinyl and very good paintjobs, although still pricey for their size. I own them and there's a big quality gap between these and the MMS.

However, I'm completely on board with you in regards of the Jet Jaguar 2-pack. The normal version is a work of art, even better than the previous releases. It could have sold for 6.000 JPY maximum standalone. However it came boxed with a similar size flying mode variant (which is a neat idea, don't get me wrong), which features the worst mold I've come across in a looong time. It doesn't even look like coming from the same company, let alone belonging in the same set. It's really looking like a cheap candy toy, just upscaled to 7,5". This set is no way worth the 19.900 JPY (~190$) it sold for.

That also wasn't the type of exclusives I talked about in the first place.

[LSD Jellyfish]

I was talking about the figures like Showa Ghidorah and Jet Jaguar that came out recently. Weren't those upwards of $100? I admittedly shouldn't have said 'individual' figures, though; you got two cheaply made Jet Jaguar vinyls for that pricetag.

Yeah, and that completely dissuaded me from buying them despite initial hype. If I’m going to drop $100+ on something I’m probably just going to purchase an x-plus or a heavily stylized marmit figure or something at that point.

[Thegarbagemonster]

At least Playmates has shown they're willing to do things like Jet Jaguar- and pretty well, too. Perhaps we can see more Showa and other past monsters from Playmates. Titanosaurus would be great.