[iminime] Sculpt wishlist

[axecutioner18]

And I sometimes can't see your “narrow mindness”. You continuously call things niche and left field that are just so far from it. And now Goodfellas, Training Day, True Romance, and Heat aren’t even “peg warmers” but Cowboy Bebop is gonna be some kind of Earth shattering release. They would do ok-decent in the US alone? Come on bro. I’m not denying the fact that there is a huge anime fan base. I know anime will sell well because I’m able to see past my own personal wishlist and know that there are a lot of other people out there with different taste than mine. You gotta stop calling things that you’re not into left field.

I think you really didnt get what I meant, its not about how good the films are which dcides wether its licenses are worthy, its the sale and market demand base. Also Im not much into Bebop, my anime wishlist is limited to Death Note's L and Light Yagami, and maybe Onizula Ekichi... but the movies you mention like say True Romance is more than left field... its almost leftist. :lol

For mass produced customs the highest market is Asia. I can guarantee you that less than 10% of Asian 1/6 collectors will recognise those pictures you posted (and Odell Young quoted in his derisive post) from Goodfellas or Heat let alone True Romance and Training Day. Recognising actors and film characters are two different things... Im not being narrow minded, I commented that at seeing how ignorant rather misinformed people are when they think whats a great movie means great sale market for its figures...

Figures are literally a part of the whole anime base, there are hardcore Elvis fans, but how many bought the Enterbay Elvis? Thats what Im saying. It doesnt matter how good the film is or how popular it is... it working for a figure collector fan base is the point here.

Anime figures are still the highest selling figures... thats why you keep seeing Medicom release so many. You dont see that many Medicom anime releases being talked or discussed in this board, because the representation in this board is more 'western' by numbers.

Go to any asian board, the discussion and release threads are 4 times as this... again get my point.

Great Popular Movies do not equal to great market for its figures... specially when you are against an Asian Demographic... look at Alfred from Iminime, the sculpt was not liked by members here... few members ordered from the boards... a handful. BUT it sold out... simply on the strength of Asian sales...

Asian sales make or break decisions by companies like HT and EB... Thats why HT made that Anniversary edition figure Of 'Friend', and they made 'City Hunter'. How many guys in the US know the characters to even buy it? But what happened to its sales? They were more successful than the Michael Jackson Exclusive taken out at that time. Thats why I said deriding the fact that Iminime is trying to pursue Cowboy Bebop is foolish, as you have no Idea what an Anime license can mean for sales, and for a company trying to make its first mass license, sales should decide the license they pursue, as things dont work the other way around...

And in the end just calmly think... if Iminime produces 3000 figures of any of the characters you mentioned, what realistic chances are there of them even selling close to the numbers that an Anime licensed character has? Not much, thats why you have a shoddy Brothers Productions making a bootleg 'Heat'.. if these were so 'hot' atleast Sideshow being an American Company should have done something right :dunno

Think about it...

 

[alexi.volk]

cant wait. hope they do the the BEBOP line. great show. great movie. awesome characters and design. no complaints here. thanks denny and co.

 

[karamazov80]

In fact, some of the licenses he's told me he is pursuing alongside Bebop would make the western base very happy indeed.

These movies, please:

and of course. . .

 

[axecutioner18]

In westerns... there is only one name that comes to mind...

And Im sure you know what Im thinking...

 

[Joned]

In westerns... there is only one name that comes to mind...

And Im sure you know what Im thinking...

Definitely axe good shout

 

[axecutioner18]

Definitely axe good shout

Maybe but realistically dont think itll happen, I once saw a NECA sculptor showing his GBU sculpts, someguy asked why they didnt make it. The reply from NECA(Randy i guess as hes the main man there) was that GBU's license is not available...

No wonder we have never seen ANY licensed stuff from GBU ever...

 

[Joned]

It's a dam shame ...., you think of westerns you think of Clint

This should be a no brainer period

 

[axecutioner18]

Come to think about it Clint himself doesnt license out anything with his name or likeness... Thats a damn shame

 

[K.bowen]

wuld buy 3 10 to yuma figs for sure

 

[chilipep66]

well, since I have the amazing trio from rainman, My western wishes would be Searchers John Wayne, Outlaw Josey Wales and Harmonica from OUATITW

 

[PopCultKid]

It's a lot easier to get the license to an animated property than go after a celebrity's mug I would wager. And Cowboy Bebop has a lot more than a handful of fans, I can guarantee you. Don't hate.

PCK, you should honestly check Bebop out.
[/I]

Sorry brother, that 1st post slipped past me. I'm by no means hatin' on it :lol . Handful was just a poor chioce of words and I definitely didn't mean it literally.

I think I'm getting misunderstood though. I have nothing against anime. When I said "watch a real movie", I didn't mean real as in opposed to animated (fake). I meant real as in good or better :lol. But I was just shooting back at Ankit and talkin' s__t. I never saw CB so I can't say what I like better or not. And I'm absoulutley open minded to tons of differnt things. I'm definitely gonna check it out and I have no doubt that I'd see what the hype is about

 

[PopCultKid]

@ Axe:

Ok, I calmly thought about it and I still disagree on multiple levels. I think that you’re misunderstanding me bigtime. You got the reaction that you did from me, not because I don’t appreciate anime, and not because I don’t want to see Iminime move ahead with their plans to pursue a license. But because you keep s__ting on people’s suggestions by calling them left field. Most of the time you do so with a sharp tongue and then turn around and say other people are speaking derisively :slap You’ve already done it to me pretty directly 2-3 times (and then added that True Romance is “leftiest”. DEFINITELY YOUR OPINION) and you’ve also done it to several other people.

I’m not really saying that I wanted to see any of these as licensed offerings anyway, actually I much rather not. As I said several times I like what Iminime is doing with their underground stuff and hope that they can keep it that way for as long as possible. But at the same time I don’t necessarily think that some of these would do as poorly as you assume if they were licensed offerings. There’s a term called cult classics, and many countries have their own. I don’t claim to know what’s hot in Asia because there is a pop culture there that I’m not hip to because I don’t live there or speak the languages. For similar reasons and based on how many times you've called people’s choices left field, I can see that you don’t have a full grasp on certain things that are popular here either. These are HOT movies. I’ll bet my d__k against a penny that the reason that Sideshow, or any another company for that matter hasn’t tackled some of these has a hell of a lot more to do with licensing issues and a whole lot less to do with lack of popularity. And that’s EXACTLY why someone like Brother Productions will do Neil from Heat (amongst some of their other choices). THEY KNOW there is a market for it. And I hope that you realize, by Iminime taking on the Lethal Weapon boys, PART 2 AT THAT , that right there validates Good Fellas and Heat 10 fold, Training Day X5 and True Romance by 3 :rotfl

And please don’t think that Asia is the center of the collecting universe, and everything else revolves around it. That is a MAJOR assumption saying that Asia is the biggest market. Unless you have ALL of the financial books from EVERY collectible company in the world, there is no way to make that statement like that accurately. And if you do have all of the books, please share them.

I am well aware that anime has global recognition and a vast following, and I have no doubt that CB will sell out in Asia alone. But if you think they are the biggest market, tell me this:

Why have 95% of HT’s (an Asian co. & the leader of the 1/6 mass produced world, right?) releases been icons from American movies? (And your info is very flip-flopped. MJ Bad is fetching big $$$ and Thriller decent $$$ on eBay. The Friend hasn’t even sold out off of
Sideshow yet and I may die of old age before it does. They can’t give it away)

Enterbay, #2 big boy on the block. Cut their 500 Bruce Lee’s down to one and 50% of their offerings are American based.

Blitzway (thank GOD for these fkin' guys), who’s 4 first offerings were Asian TV celebs, decided to break into the global market with what?...Tony and Carlitooooo :yess:

Why is Medicom the only co. offering “high end” 1/6 anime figs in North America (and I’ll assume most places outside of Asia)?

Look past your own wish list and personal interests. There are plenty of things out there that aren’t as left field as you think. THINK ABOUT IT….


Again I have nothing against anime so I hope no one is misunderstanding me. My rant is being fueled by something else entirely

 

[karamazov80]

wuld buy 3 10 to yuma figs for sure

Heck yeah. One of Glenn Ford's best performances.

It's a dam shame ...., you think of westerns you think of Clint

This should be a no brainer period

If I were to name one actor I best associate with westerns, it would be John Wayne. But I'm a much bigger fan of Clint in the genre.

Maybe but realistically dont think itll happen, I once saw a NECA sculptor showing his GBU sculpts, someguy asked why they didnt make it. The reply from NECA(Randy i guess as hes the main man there) was that GBU's license is not available...

No wonder we have never seen ANY licensed stuff from GBU ever...

Not true!

https://www.minimatedatabase.com/pack.php?i=462&n=The+Good+the+Bad+and+the+Ugly+Box+Set

 

[MarfMaster]

Sorry brother, that 1st post slipped past me. I'm by no means hatin' on it :lol . Handful was just a poor chioce of words and I definitely didn't mean it literally.

I think I'm getting misunderstood though. I have nothing against anime. When I said "watch a real movie", I didn't mean real as in opposed to animated (fake). I meant real as in good or better :lol. But I was just shooting back at Ankit and talkin' s__t. I never saw CB so I can't say what I like better or not. And I'm absoulutley open minded to tons of differnt things. I'm definitely gonna check it out and I have no doubt that I'd see what the hype is about

It's all good, bro! Hit me up after you've have some time to check out the series. The movie is fantastic, but it's essentially just a long episode that fits in between episodes 22 and 23 in the series (26 total). So I would check it out from the start. :rock

 

[axecutioner18]

Again I have nothing against anime so I hope no one is misunderstanding me. My rant is being fueled by something else entirely

Wait a sec, I think we are entirely at cross purposes here... I was talking about licensed properties... True Romance, even Brokeback Mountain too can have a shot when its done in low numbers (underground as you say)

EB's 50% is actualy not American Licenses... 30% is probably right. You probably havent seen of the films they did or the characters. There has been more asian themed releases from EB than just Bruce Lee (Donnie Yen Line, Jet Li, Storm Warriors (both film and manga))

And you gave an example of American license (Batman, Terminator, Rambo, Iron Man etc etc) These are American characters but have a GLOBAL impact/following. Try to see the sales distribution of these guys... there have been more sales of these guys in Asia let alone the US.
Dont compare a global icon like Batman to say Training Day/Goodfellas/Casino etc etc
So Im not saying American Licenses wont work - American Licenses with a global appeal will. Not strictly appealing only to American demographic. Only way that will work is by lower edition number.

My point is Iminime is doing a good step forward by trying the anime market for their first 'mass produced' release. Seems safer and more sales oriented.

And in the end of the day what I said about Asian sales making the biggest impact, pure math should tell you what Im saying is valid.
NA's population is not close to the major toy collecting population of China/HK/Taiwan/Japan. So the bigger market is in this side of the world.

Again, this is about licensed mass productions Im talking about. NOT small runs of custom figures

I hope I have explained myself better without trying to sound like Im shooting down someones want at a character :wave

Oh as for why Medicom is the only company offering high end 1/6 anime figures... well they are a major Japanese Giant and have a lock on most big licenses (just like HT has) - Bandai/Square Enix/Kaiyodo focus on different scales. Medicom is still considered the king of Anime mass produced collectibles as they have a lock on licenses - not necessarily means they are the best. There are smaller players but they arent that visible to anyone other than the anime fan keeping an eye for them...

 

[karamazov80]

Evil Dead series = more global appeal than anime.

It's just science.

 

[PopCultKid]

Evil Dead series = more global appeal than anime.

It's just science.

Wait a minute...so you are an AOD fan??? So you were calling me lame, not the movie :rotfl :hi5:

 

[axecutioner18]

Evil Dead series = more global appeal than anime.

It's just black magic.

Fixed :lecture

Evil Dead 2 > AOD

 

[karamazov80]

:monkey3 eace

I really do love those movies. Have since I was a kid, before the internets and everything. But yes, Evil Dead 2 is the best of the 3 films.

 

[PopCultKid]

:slap Ohhhhh I thought you were in agreement about AOD. I was about to say WERD :rotfl jj :1-1:

I go way back with pt 1 and have seen it tons of times over the years so that's definitely my fave. I didn't see the 2nd one till a few years ago but as screwy as it is, it's definitely groovey. I only watched AOD for the first time recently and it's just really hard for me to swallow. And dude, I like s__t that most people are like "WTF are you watching?" :lol

I think what I like about pt 1 the most is that even though it was low budget, they attempted for a serious delivery. When they realized that it wasn't widely perceived that way, they rode the wave the other direction.

I think I'm gonna pop in pt. 2 riiiiight now....