Forum - View topicAstro Toy - DX Soul of Chogokin Mazinger Z Part II
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14891 |
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Whatever happened to manufacturer's limited warranty or vendor's 30-day return policy?
(And some credit cards help out with the warranty too.) |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I thought Bandai had a bit more pride and empathy than that, and you'd think they would ensure their flagship figure underwent the strictest quality assurance . . . but I guess not.
That hanger does look extremely awesome, too bad it isn't fully functional. I mean, it is the reason the box is so big and yet it doesn't have all the features you would expect. Nice that the cranes work though. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11612 |
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I'm not really a giant robot fan, but I loved the articles about this. And the fiasco with the arms aside, I was ridiculously delighted that you get a functional toy truck with this. And the hangar box is very cool, deficiencies notwithstanding. I really hope you get a satisfactory resolution to this, so you can love it without regret.
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belvadeer
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Why do I have this feeling that that's how they're going to always see us from this point on? |
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Kikaioh
 Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
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I'm not a big fan of Mazinger's design, but I recently saw the 2001 Mazinkaiser OVA, and I thought it was awesome. When I saw this figure I wasn't too keen on it, but seeing what happens when you press the buttons, man, that's just frikkin' cool.
It's too bad about the arms, and that's pretty bad customer service on Bandai's part. Hopefully this all resolves well for David. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2314 Location: Online Terminal |
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If it is, that "us" is likely all-inclusive. Our money is just as good as a Japanese buyer. Otherwise, they wouldn't have released it through Bluefin. It smacks of a company thinking that their responsibility ends once the units are shipped, which is total malarkey. |
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GVman
 Posts: 731 |
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What Bandai did is really shitty and reflects poorly on them as a company. Shame on them; I'm a bit deterred from buying any of their merchandise now. Anyway, I hope you get all the issues straightened out.
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Ravendruid
Posts: 13 |
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I have seen this attitude from a number of Japanese toy and hobby companies. Their core market is Japan, and within that country they may have incredible customer service, but anything outside of that is just seen as kind of a bonus to them, and not really worth putting any effort into. If they make a few international sales, great, that's obviously a little more money, but they really don't seem to care one way or the other.
Obviously not all companies are like this, but I've seen it from enough of them to notice a pattern. |
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Aynslesa
Posts: 199 |
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Man, that is a *terrible* way to treat a customer - especially one who, as you say, is a toy reviewer for a major anime site. Yeah... nothing like waving off someone who provides excellent, detailed coverage of an array of figures that cost a pretty penny. I see a customer service review like that, and it just might end up being a deciding factor for me on which figure to go with if I'm torn between two. ::shakes head::
On the other hand, that is *great* what Bluefin is doing to try and help, and I think that deserves a massive kudos. It technically isn't the distributor's problem to deal with, and a lot of distributors stop as far as what the developer says and don't go further. And *that* kind of thing can potentially make the difference between choosing between two places to *purchase* a figure (again, occasionally a major issue). Here's hoping the arms replacement will work and that the issue isn't a defect in the body, and if they do work, I hope you'll include a picture of the completed model regardless of what the actual review is for that time.  Ganbatte!
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Pleinair92
Posts: 50 |
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This makes the Twentieth Anniversary Optimus Prime toy I had (roughly $100) look like a cheap piece of plastic. Huge shame about the shoddy customer service, but then again, it's Bandai.
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Eternityofblood
Posts: 1 |
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I'm not surprised you got tossed aside by Bandai Japan.
Their Gundam FIXX line had a lot of issues with crappy quality plastic. Bandai just doesn't care about its customers outside of Japan. |
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Dardre
 Posts: 166 |
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This. Bandai's primary market is Japan. It's secondary is Asia. It's tertiary market is everywhere else. As far as they are concerned, we just don't matter; and if you look at sales you can kind of see their point, we just aren't enough of a market to matter. Even if no one in the West bought this figure, I seriously doubt they'd even notice. At best, it'd be a curiosity mentioned in passing during a routine sales meeting. Does that explain their poor costumer service though? No. What does explain it is that we don't live in Japan. They won't see us going into various stores and complaining face-to-face. They won't see local news papers reporting on their crappy costumer service. They probably won't read any complaints from Western costumers because a) language barriers and b) we aren't their target market. To put it simply, we're at best a curiosity and a bonus and not something worth pursuing. As to the figure: HOLY CRAP THAT'S PRETTY! It's not $400 worth of pretty, but it is damn impressive. Even though the Hangar doesn't hold everything, I do think it's a pretty cool idea and a great way to display it. It's a display case meant to show certain select parts, but not everything at once. I'd bet that the ideal balance is with at least some of Mazinger Z's armor removed and hung on the walls. That arm flaw is such a shocking disappointment. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11612 |
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Coincidentally, I was watching Gintama today and it looks like this is not an unusual problem with giant robots.
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Vulpis
Posts: 5 |
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Very, very nice set. Granted, you'd never catch me spending that much on a figure, toy or otherwise--I'd be afraid to do anything with it but set it on a shelf and use the remote, not to mention I'd rather put that sort of money into my computer or appliances.
As far as Bandai goes...yeah, it sounds a bit like the country is heading back toward isolationism with their actions towards other countries. In some ways, it's a reversal of the Stereotypical American Attitude (Those annoying Americans, requiring translations into English! Why can't they just learn Japanese, like normal people?) 
And I hate to say it, but I don't think pointing you're reviewing for a web site is going to get you very far with them--after all, you're not a Japanese review site, so 'obviously' your opinion isn't going to matter anyway. Sad state of affairs, really. |
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davecabrera
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 132 |
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I've noticed a lot to the effect of "We're foreigners, we don't count to them, what can you do". I've heard this from a lot of observers, and I want to say something about it.
If the customer isn't entitled to service, then why does Bandai have international operations at all? Why have they had this huge foreign roll-out in the last couple of years? What's with this website? You can't just have it both ways, decide "yes, I want international sales... but screw 'em if there's a problem!" I used to put up with this kind of defect back in the day when I was importing toys from HLJ. It was just a 1-in-100 coin flip that you'd get one that was like this, and the collectors dealt with the odds because 99% of the time the Chogokin was the best toy of the robot that would ever be made. By a mile. But now, these people actually have operations and a marketing push in the US. But customers there aren't important enough to service... beyond, of course, taking huge wads of their money. So I'm not cool with that, and you shouldn't be either. This isn't even like the messed-up Zeta Gundam box set (yup, I bought it) that Bandai refused to do recalls on because they thought it was just fine even though they then released a fixed version, it's an item that is actually broken. One expects service for that. By the way, no updates on the arm situation, waiting on Bluefin. |
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