Broken Walls of Different Versions

J-Hobby, a local Japanese hobby store that I go to to buy my anime figures from, has started to carry some products from American distributors such as Diamond & AAA Anime.  However, these actually came straight from a Japanese distributor; not from the American ones.  I know this because the owner is Japanese & I know him very well.  These products came from his new supplier called Ami Ami, a very popular Japanese online company that distributes & sells within Japan only.  It's one of the top five online anime shops in Japan.  His brother, who's in Tokyo, managed to sign a contact with them to allow outside sales which is a very rare & amazing thing.  American distributors need to buy the rights directly from the toy company themselves.  Examining the boxes of the PVC figures carrying the American distributors' name, I discover something interesting.

When I was examining the boxes with the US labels, I looked at the products itself.  The workmanship seems to be good, but I can't say if all versions are like that.  It's possible that inside those boxes are Japanese versions in an "all-world" labelled box.  The ones in actual American stores may have a different figure like how it was done in the past.  The US still gets their products later than Japan.  So, those products will come from the second production schedules for sure.  However, I believe the US toy standards are still applied to the American versions.  But, it's questionable if Japan has been following those standards for their own home versions.  Doing this will definitely save those toy companies' cost & designing time.  Sharp points will now be less sharp on all versions & colours will be the same across the board.  However, price differences are still in effect.

The American versions are very well know to have a much lower price tag than the Japanese versions.  They make them more attractable & affordable to people.  But, there were differences in quality between them that created such a huge gap.  But if it's true that all versions have no difference now, Japanese versions will be overly priced in the market.  Thus, many people will go after the American version.  This may include those diehard people like me that go after Japanese versions over American one.  If there is no difference at all, we would jump boat to save a lot of money to buy more anime stuff.  Logically thinking, this doesn't make sense though.  Sure that the US versions are released months after the Japanese versions are released & begin another production run after the first, but that big price difference shouldn't affect it here.  Even when Japan makes another production run or re-issue the product again, the price doesn't change.  It's still the same as when the product was first released; regardless if the re-issued version comes after a year or more.  I have no answer to this until I investigate this more. However, I did manage to find that some of the re-releases are priced high.  Probably become of the economy.

Overall Conclusion

These boxes carrying both American & Japanese labels have actually shocked me.  I have no definite answer to this if both versions are now the same with no differences on the product anywhere.  Asian versions are actually Japanese versions with some slight packaging changes & added bonuses.  If the walls have actually been broken, I may consider American versions now for the price.  However, I will definitely investigate this matter further & redo this article once I get a solid answer to this.  For the time being, I'm sticking to Japanese versions since I think the product quality difference is still there.

Last updated on February 19, 2008