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irishninja
Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 344
Location: Seattle-ish
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 7:13 am
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Well darnit. On a personal level, I'm certain they made figures that I would like to buy, although I must admit I scarcely pay attention to that sort of thing. On a less selfish level, my sympathies to their employees and those to whom they owed all that debt.
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PetrifiedJello
Joined: 11 Mar 2009
Posts: 3782
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 7:26 am
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Well, this certainly explains things.
Finding Jun Planning figures in this country was getting harder. If I had to guess, distributors here probably didn't buy because of falling demand.
Most times, I either saw a "Coming Soon" (with a date far gone) or "Not available" in catalogs across the web.
Dang, because there's a Familiar of Zero Louise figure I wanted.
Guess I best do a more extensive search to grab it while I can.
Jun Planning didn't host the greatest of quality, but good enough for the price. Especially since the figures do nothing but sit on a shelf.
Such a shame, but I expect Jun Planning isn't the only one hurting. The figure market in Japan is staggering and competition in this economic market will do more damage than good.
It's going to be a rough ride. Buckle down, folks. It's not over yet.
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Greed1914
Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4635
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:12 am
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I was a little bit curious why some of their Death Note final scene figures had disappeared from Right Stuf. This certainly explains it. It's a shame to see another anime related company have to file bankruptcy.
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darcerin
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 330
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 12:07 pm
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I'll say this on the doll's side of their operations since I know more about it: (bit of a wall of text, sorry)
JP also made dolls called Pullips (some of you may have seen them when Jun planning came to some conventions like Comic-Con.) While very nice (I have a collection of 20 myself *cough*) the quality of the dolls was not stupendous, and there were multitudes of stories of dolls appendages breaking, face plates melting, that sort of thing. The prices of the dolls continued to rise, but the quality did NOT. I think the last straw for a lot of the P. collectors was when a collaboration doll made with the help of a Japanese fashion designer started falling to pieces even before the owners had opened the boxes. Collectors pulled back on spending money on them (and IMO, rightly so) if the quality wasn't going to improve any after that.
The Pullip community had been hearing rumblings about this at least a month ago, maybe a little less than that, and the translations we were getting said "bankruptcy". JP fired back that they were NOT filing for bankruptcy, just that Pullips rights had been transferred back to the original owner, Mango Park. So now we know the original translations were right. I guess they were trying to avoid a panic with their stockholders, but...wow.
Apparently, with a one month delay, production will continue on Pullips. (Let them be better quality now, please!)
On the anime statues side of things: Man I really wanted a Misa figure! I wonder if anyone will take over the rights for the Death Note statues?
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Nebs
Joined: 19 Jul 2003
Posts: 386
Location: University of Illinois
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 1:28 pm
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I own quite a few Jun Planning figures. Good quality stuff, it's a real shame that they've gone under.
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fighterholic
Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 2:21 pm
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That's too bad. Hopefully somebody else will rise from the ashes to take their place at some point in time from now.
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strahl
Joined: 07 Jun 2008
Posts: 69
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 3:11 pm
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let them go down, they are not yamato or bandai anyway, no business there.
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Emerje
Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 7410
Location: Maine
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 3:22 pm
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PetrifiedJello wrote: | Finding Jun Planning figures in this country was getting harder. If I had to guess, distributors here probably didn't buy because of falling demand. |
Their flagship brand in the US was Nightmare Before Christmas which were fairly easy to come across. I imagine a lot of their fans didn't even know they produced anything else. Not really sure what Disney plans to do now.
strahl wrote: | let them go down, they are not yamato or bandai anyway, no business there. |
The industry would be incredibly boring if it was just Bandai and Yamato.
Emerje
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darcerin
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 330
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 3:29 pm
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strahl wrote: | let them go down, they are not yamato or bandai anyway, no business there. |
Dude, you're talking about people's LIVELIHOODs here. How can you be so callous?
And for the record, yes there WAS business there - it wasn't necessarily aimed all at anime though.
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Kit-Tsukasa
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 930
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Posted: Tue May 12, 2009 11:55 pm
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strahl wrote: | let them go down, they are not yamato or bandai anyway, no business there. |
You need to stfu and gtfo. Figures are a large part of a "true" otaku's life. Think of how much money us otakus have invested in these figures and now see a company go.
On another note....SHANA and HnG I wanted more Nagi and Hinagiku stuff ....had enough Death Note and Louise stuff as it is so don't really care to see those go.
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irishninja
Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 344
Location: Seattle-ish
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Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 12:58 pm
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Emerje wrote: | Their flagship brand in the US was Nightmare Before Christmas which were fairly easy to come across. I imagine a lot of their fans didn't even know they produced anything else. Not really sure what Disney plans to do now.
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Disney has plenty of other companies it can turn to, and plenty of others dying to get in good with the Mouse. I doubt this will have a substantive effect on their merchandise churn.
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Sariachan
Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 1507
Location: Italy
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Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 7:57 pm
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Damn, I planned to buy a couple of their DN figures...
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loplop
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 57
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Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 12:21 pm
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irishninja wrote: |
Emerje wrote: | Their flagship brand in the US was Nightmare Before Christmas which were fairly easy to come across. I imagine a lot of their fans didn't even know they produced anything else. Not really sure what Disney plans to do now.
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Disney has plenty of other companies it can turn to, and plenty of others dying to get in good with the Mouse. I doubt this will have a substantive effect on their merchandise churn. |
They were a marginal company even in Anime Figures. It's not like they were a Orchid Seed, Kotobukiya, or a Atelier Sai type company. I hate to see people loose their jobs, but they were not exactly producing figures that were must haves either.
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