SH Figuarts Mecha Frieza
 

Dragon Ball Z - S.H. Figuarts Mecha Frieza

https://www.toyark.com/wp-content/up...Frieza-001.jpg

Nice...
"Deathblow" photo ;^)

Another P-Bandai. Why not make the whole line P-Bandai at this point? I love this line but I'm just about ready to call it quits. im tired of having to pay well over $100 a figure cause my country has no p Bandai store and I'm forced to pay mark ups and import fees.

Yep, I quit, when 8/10 figures of your line are exclusives you’re basically saying “don’t buy me.”

When is Raditz & other SDCC’s going to P-Bandai or anywhere? Some said it was confirmed it was, it apparently was for wider online release in China/Korea.

They started this during 2020. A lot of companies have gone this way, having exclusives for themselves & barely releasing to retailers (esp shelves) if at all, or even making those online etc. Seems they took advantage of 2020 issues to say, “we can get people to pay retail prize or higher straight to us despite not needing the price as high as retail, & not give a crap about other sales.” It really os exclusive. A lot of companies seem to have used 2020 as an excuse to capitalize, & even tho they didn’t need to raise prices in some cases they did anyway.
And nothing goes down much in price anymore. Used to be u have patience for the less sought after items they’d go down in price. Most now stay so close to retail, maybe go down to what it was b4 inflation, or goes up regardless of the item & supply.

I miss bluefin

I thought bluefin was still distributing their stuff. Is that done now?

Bluefin was bought and absorbed into Bandai proper, but the teams that were Bluefin still run the US wing for PR and conventions, possibly other duties as well.

I am ok with them doing the P-Bandai situation. MOST of these are deeper cut figures that would not necessarily fly off the shelves at retail if they were produced in large quantities. There was a stretch there were everything was going to mass retail and it was sitting.

Right now it seems only the big hitters in core looks go to mass retail, let the average fan snag one and get hooked, then if they want deep cut stuff, pay a bit more at P-Bandai. Bandai can justify making the deep cut items because it's lower run, higher price, and I assume they make more profit per unit selling themselves. If they develop something and it's a dud, they don't get orders AND retailers stop ordering as much over long term.

If this situation keeps the line going, I'm ok with it.

That being said, I think a few of the recent exclusives could have been mass retail. Beast Gohan, Orange Piccolo, HIT, Namek Gohan/Krillin, MAYBE new Tien and Yamcha. These are core looks first version in line, so I would have gone retail with it if it were my call without understanding their actual numbers. The rest, I think good to stay low run exclusives.