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NEWS: Viz Names Mattel Master Toy Licensee for Naruto

I'd love me some Naruto action figures. ^^ (I am a consumer whore) Although Mattel makes me think of Barbie. Naruto and Barbie coming from one place- a chilling notion.

Jadress wrote:

I'd love me some Naruto action figures. ^^ (I am a consumer whore) Although Mattel makes me think of Barbie. Naruto and Barbie coming from one place- a chilling notion.

From what I've heard, any non-Barbie toyline from Mattel ends up well... not going anywhere.

You people do realize that Mattel has made alot more than Barbies in the last few decades.

Maybe the Dark Knight and four turtles come to mind?

Mattel made He-Man toys. The last He-Man toyline went nowhere thanks to Mattel's awful distribution.

Steven is right; Mattel's non-Barbie toys tend to go nowhere.

From what I've heard, any non-Barbie toyline from Mattel ends up well... not going anywhere.

Anyway, it's good to know I won't have to import any action figures of Naruto from Japan .

Are mattel known for their quality and detail in their works? I don't want to see a Ken doll in a naruto costume.

They're a successful toy company in general.

I believe that Toynami, they people who do the Inu-Yasha action figures, also are producing some Narauto figs and toy statues.

i doubt they're going to make any of the chibi naruto characters in my viva naruto keychain set

they'll proabbly target different type of toys .. like kids action figures with the gimmick-y shooting abilities

we'll most likely have a naruto figure that shoots shurikens..

I'm surprised McFarlane Toys didn't get the License.

Correct me if I am wrong (and I tend to be a lot these days, SHUT UP), but didn't 4Kids also give the Toy rights for One Piece to Mattel? There are no toys from them in that regard, though that can be blamed on the fact that One Piece totally failed.

If you ask me, Hasbro seems to have their **** together, keeping Transformers a profitable line for the past 21 years. There's their Star Wars toys, too. Wondering why these companies don't go to them....

Hasbro has been impressive with Transformers (TFs only went under for a few years due to ridiculous gimmicks overtaking the toys and a lack of Optimus Prime).

However, they have their faults as well. By packing Alternator (kind of TF) assortments like they do, they keep stores from ordering the ones they need.

Every box of Alternators will have, as an example, 2 Shockwaves, 1 Tracks, and 1 Sideswipe. Now, if Tracks is selling, and Shockwave isn't, then... The store will be loaded with Shockwaves, and will be unable to order more of Tracks without getting MORE OF SHOCKWAVE. Thus, with the shelves full of Shockwave, the store then stops ordering more Alternators alltogether, and distribution gets messed up.

Fortunately, Wal-Mart has helped Hasbro to fix this problem (strange, I know) by encouraging them to have separate cases. Case 1 = 4 Shockwave, Case 2 = 4 Tracks, etc. Then, the store just orders the particular case that they need. The fix will apply early next year, or so.

Something tells me that the above problem and not correcting it is the main reason (or just one of the reasons) Mattel's new MOTU (I usually just call it He-Man like I did as a child) line went under. The stores would, after all, get full of one particular figure, and thus refuse to order more until the current stock sold out (which wasn't happening).

I also suspect that Mattel may have been sending out older cases instead of newer ones, should a store order a case, in order to clean out their stock of older ones. Does any of this make sense? I'm not the best at describing this sort of thing.