My ire for P-Ban is when I see a unique mold, a completely original kit being P-Ban only. I was fine when it was just a colour swap and/or an extra weapon.
Will that design be a seller or simply a kit that will just sit in shelves while the retailer will bitch at them for it?. With P-Bandai they can simply gauge demand and print what's necessary. I love the F90 line but I do understand that it's only those that appreciate the F90 who will purchase that kit.
@@patricktan4096 The same could be said about some standard releases. They'll pump out hundreds of thousands of some trash background suit that will warm shelves but a Gundam gets a limited run?
@@SixerMason ever heard of army building with mass production grunts? They can do a standard release for those as grunt units that have good screen time like daggers or zakus can sell multiple times. Where as a Gundam that only appeared in a manga or novel that has been out of print for at least 10 years or even just appearing on video games that do not sell well as the general public will not know them. Take the RE-GZ custom. Yeah cool design, but outside of SD Gundam G Generation fans, who are gonna buy? If there is consistent demand for that design then sure you can make a case for a general release for it. But the way i see it grunts with significant screen time deserve their general releases.
@@SixerMason You're forgetting that different market segments have different preferences. Military style modelers tend to veer dramatically more towards the utilitarian looks of mass produced line units for their forays into the genre, whereas flashier kits don't work for them. The reason why MC suits(or more typically with P-Bandai, variant suits) get the P-bandai treatment is that they're not exactly popular enough to make immediate sense as a regular release. If said variant does well, some kits do then get a more vanilla variant version as a mainline release. It's another reason why Bandai probably keeps the line around(market testing with limited investment risks), whereas a poor allotment to the mainline could eat up months of production time allotment.
I guess "Limited Edition Bandai" doesn't sound good marketing wise Also, it sucks that the Philippines doesn't have a P-Bandai store, but I've grown to begrudgingly accept that fact considering model kit building is an even more niche hobby here
what double sucks is that some regions in the Philippines dont even have a regular hobby store and instead would have to rely on malls to get the kits several months-years after its release. one thing that surprised me tho is that one of the malls ive checked for kits is that they got some actual p-bandai mixed in there. ive seen a p-bandai Airmaster Burst and a hzenthley among the boxes of standard releases. granted i bet its a rare thing to happen and not the norm.
Aside from not having any good hobby shops, some store *cough toy kingdom *ahem toys r us for some reason overprice some kits. I can understand if the took the srp which is in yen into peso.
My problem with P-Bandai is the trend lately where Bandai has been putting kits on there that should be regular releases (Altron EW, Sandrock custom, Heavy Arms custom).
Or even the Blast Impulse Gundam... I don't get why that kit had to be a P-Bandai release. There was nothing special about the Blast Impulse Gundam and it's the only MG variation of the Impulse that we've been waiting forever to get. It's unfortunate that the Blast Impulse can only be found for $120 in most retail stores, which is basically double the price of a regular MG. :/
@@davidtan4760 "there was nothing special about the Blast Impulse Gundam", that's why they make it P-Bandai, because normal people won't buy kit that don't have any special aspect. It won't sell well in the market if they release it as regular release
uh no, those were p bandai long before this huge p bandai movement ever begain. Secondly, those are just shelf warmers in japans secondary market for a reason.
I agree. They used to release the not so well-know mobile suit as P-Bandai, like the different variant of Zaku, but now... everything can be released as P-Bandai, even a completely new kit.
I never hated P Bandai for the price or quality, I never viewed the word “Premium” in the name to mean much but limited exclusive. What I dislike about it, is when brand new models are released in p Bandai. I always thought having recolors or slightly different weapons was fair, but then they put the Woundwort, Mudrock, go4 go5, the Pale rider, F90, and Gundam MK V and then I started to get annoyed because these are all designs that I feel I would like if I saw them on a shelf, and would buy it if they were a retail release. I’m sure it’s all boils down to profit.
So many others as well, like the HG Daughtress, MG GM II, MG Altron. They recently made the HG Zaku Desert Type PBandai, even though the Robot Spirits one sold like gangbusters.
I get disliking new models being P-Bandai but P-Bandai consists of models that fit the color/parts/make a new model of an old kit/licensing issue categories. Very few P-Bandai kits are outside of that. Also, there seem to be a "rule" were if the design is sold in one form at retail then a gunpla of isn't going to be retail. For example a MS came to retail as a Robot Damashi figure but will get a P-Bandai kit.
Honestly very fair and sound arguments, but when the Premium Bandai USA video promotes "the highest quality" You start to see the disconnect for the average consumer. It really should just be rebranded to another name, at least in english so that this misunderstanding is cleared up (i.e., Limited Bandai or something).
I've never felt the problem was the quality, the issue to me has been the gradual trend of P-Bandai just taking over and dominating the regular releases year after year. The recent shift to making wholly new kits as just P-Bandai is just greed, pure and simple, and indicates where the company wants to take things in the future. The MG F90 was a test and it worked wonders for P-Bandai. Despite getting reprinted a few times and with variations, it sells out every time. Also, at this point, if they're just gonna keep reprinting the F90, just make it a regular release kit.
@@nu3566 i'm from the Future, and you can only buy SHFiguarts Kamen Rider Tycoon Ninja form as P-BANDAI. One of the arguably the most popular rider of Kamen Rider Geats, Gate Kept as P-BANDAI. 😒
*Premium* Bandai where you pay double or triple for the same "Gundam" kit. Basically, sell the same Gundam with barely change to it... EA: *WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!!!!!!*
This tactic goes on in most hobbies. People who collect action figures, or Hot Wheels, etc... Mattel will repaint the same casting & repackage it in a different way. Then charge 2-3 times the regular price for it. Nothing new.
Yeah, but Bandai isn't doing that. 3rd party distributors are. If you are in the States and get kits through p-bandai usa, you're getting kits at basically the normal list price. Getting mad at Bandai is like getting mad at a shoe company for a shoe store charging 3 times the list price
@@Telthar what kind of person blames the country. Canada, australia, europe are all major. If someone can order something from lego, goodsmile without proxies, yet p bandai is still so restricted, something is wrong
I kinda get why mk V tho. Because its such a big and bulky design, demanding a lot of plastic which if it was a regular release, the market wouldn't absorb as much since it was like above 5000yen. So with p bandai, they only produce how much people have order, could cutoff a lot of the cost. The f90 I'm with the same page as you
@kim subaki well bullshit on that they did bulkie big mobile suits and they sold well (like any mg sazabi , mg the o , mg rezel type c , mg fazz ver ka , mg psycho zaku , mg full armor gundam , mg zeong , mg deep striker ) so the bulkiness of a suit isn't an excuse for the exclusivity of mg mkv that's fucking boguss and the feeling of well it's to big so p-ban it is okay is totaly retarded , they p-ban the mkv just because their greedy and have no faith on the fans for bying it and the design for any fucking marketability even though they didn't had a problem with the mg ex s gundam nor the fazz so fuck em
@@kailiciousthumbsup most of the bulky kit you mention are kits that many people know, as for Deep Striker, Bandai just make overpriced statue that use lots of old runner, so it make sense why it's just regular release. Unlike Mk.V, not many people know that mecha and Bandai have to make the kit from scratch
@@yanjirujan193 tbh bandai are stupid for not trying and making the antogonist mobile suit more popular specialy for a very popular gundam like the ex s
To me, I really like the old premium bandai way where they sell only colour variants staying true to the meaning of premium bandai in japan where it's more to limited edition rather than actually being premium. I hate it when bandai makes new mold of the whole kit to sell as premium bandai bcs it makes it hard to collect for hardcore collectors
It would be nice if they set up a proper distribution of anything in Europe so local sellers don't have to sell them at such ridiculous mark ups. The whole P-Bandai business model is still a horrible play on human psychology, Nintendo and Square-Enix like to pull the same bullshit as well.
Lots of smaller companies figure out how to sell limited run stuff to people in other countries. They just need to offer the option of snail mail delivery. let the buyer make the choice on what they are willing to pay for delivery, people just want options. A lot of guys have back logs and could finish and paint one or 2 mobile suits while they wait for a premium delivery.
@@hamsterwolf It's not just the limited run stuff, even regular releases cost so much more, often over a 50% mark up. The lack of a proper supply chain just drives the price up and even when importing you then have a customs fee to pay that means you're paying two lots of tax to two different countries on anything you buy (plus whatever ridiculous processing fee the carrier puts on top of that tax , royal mail thinks it cost £8 to fill out one customs form while Fed EX thinks it costs £12). I know they care far more about their domestic market but they sorted it out for the U.S.
@@lordwisehammer finally someone who understands. Gunpla is extremely overpriced compared to stuff like lego, simply due to the fact all of it is sourced from japan and thus have insane shipping. P bandai is insult to injury since they refuse to ship worldwide relying on proxies.
That change in verbiage really helped me because it always bothered me that my P-Bandai purchases have been mostly lackluster when I went in expecting something "premium." "Can't even give me a manual in color??? Where's the 'premium'???" But thinking about it as "Bandai Limited" really makes mores sense. I think they should rebrand in the US, or at very least make that distinction themselves
um there are two different versions. one of them is an expansion pack, the other one has both the suit and the b pack included. the pb version only has the b pack parts, and i think in all their promotion pictures, it says the main mobile suit is not included.
If lego and anime figure companies (goodsmile, max factory) can ship worldwide, but p bandai is still limited to such a few countries, you know their service sucks. Literally just an easy way for resellers and proxies to profit.
@@ZakuAurelius they can still make it limited by discontinueing, so at least people have a chance at reg price which is what every manufacturer does. But most people will have to pay like 4x the jp price which is worse than discontinued figures and lego
My main beef with P bandai is that the JP store has got much much more stocks compared to HK or SG stores. If you notice, the stuff like metal builds and certain kits sell out in HK and SG stores in literally a few seconds, but last in the JP/US store for days or even weeks! They deserve all that hate for feeding the scalpers. They can't be bothered to fix this supply allocation problem for years, so when people buy pirated bootleg gunpla kits I don't hate them at all.
@@yanjirujan193 They produce, but they don't distribute nearly enough to other P bandai stores. Imagine metal build crossbone sold out in 1 second in HK, then you go to P bandai store JP 3 days later and there are literally more than a hundred left. No sympathies to Bandai. Bandai is helping the scalpers when they don't solve this supply issue. They are also part of the problem.
@@theclerksays just because you hate the scalpers, doesn't mean you also have to hate the manufacturer. In Bandai's eyes, both you and scalpers are just people who pay for the product. Besides, do you really think scalpers will act alone? Of course not, they act in group, a large group. If you really want to get that Crossbone, better use third party service
I just wish P-Bandai would stick to color swaps and weapon packs. New kits and new designs should always be available on a larger scale. Kinda sucks when you see an awesome kit..get excited and then its like oh..its P-Bandai...never mind. If P-Bandai were a lot easier to get a hold of..or rather more shops carried them and I had a chance to preorder I probably wouldn't care as much.
I guess it depends on what "easier to get a hold of" entails. Since I am not knowledgeable about the problems of importing Gunpla to countries outside of the "main" P-Bandai market, I can't give a definitive solution. I guess the easiest solution is for distributors in other countries to try to work with Bandai to import P-Bandai items.
Not going to discuss the trends they’ve been making the past 2 or so years? The trend is that you can obviously tell that 60 to even 50 maybe even 65% of HG would be locked to P-Bandai if they always operated the way they are now, just look at the HG Origin kits where they locked almost all its GM releases to it while still giving us more Zakus as retail releases.
Plus the fate of manga fans, most manga kits (entire wing G-unit line, testament, and probably the astray outframe if they decided to make one) are locked behind pbandai. Guess they aren't taking any risks with overstocking any of them.
Maybe because of what they experienced? Iirc some of the hobbyshop were flooded with HGAGE Genoace, which probably not a good sign for a company. So now they decided to go premium, with producing as much as customers ordered so nothing left as a backlog
@@kimsubaki6389 But that as a whole was a problem with the Age era itself, they overextended on a new series wayyyyy too far and got burnt by it since Age itself wasn’t crazy well received and a lot of the model kits (namely Vagan machines) weren’t that good either, of course there are some that were super popular for their ease of customization. The manga machines have established fanbases that can be catered too. I will say the F90 itself while it does get a lot of love by fans it is more niche to modern gundam fans and western fans so I feel instead of MG it should’ve been a HG regular release. But I see that there is atleast a market for the F90 since they continued to make a majority of its option packs. I mean hell in the case of the Testament that had a large audience of appeal if going by Dragon Momoko’s take on it before they were shutdown by Bandai so it’s P-bandai status is especially weird to me.
@@blackhood23 the age thing was an example. Hell maybe a lot of 00 stuff an seed too, were being a burden in some hobby shops just because the hype is over or maybe the design doesn't really appeal to the crowds. Becaming premium solved that, by people preordering it so nothing get left out. That is just my speculation but make sense enough to me, but it is just one of many reasons why they go that way. I believe F90 becaming the MG just because the hype is still there with f91 2.0. Make much more sense if the packs were released in HG but I believe they went for the hype, and there's also a new manga based on f90. Testament was a long waited thing and ever since pbandai was introduced I already assumed that testament will be premium. Heck I don't even care if DM made one, but the design that everyone doesn't know about, it is fair to be a premium.
Having p-bandai available in the US doesn't mean nearly enough to make up for what was missed before they sold to the US, not to mention everything we're still missing because the US store doesn't list everything. Yes we do get pretty much every new kit, but the Robot Spirits line for example has been having some nice premium figures that the US store just completely ignores. In particular though I'm truly aggravated that the new Archangel Catapult Deck isn't available on the US store either, and that already costs a pretty penny... so yeah, fuck that noise!
When a P Bandai kit comes out and it’s a MS that hasn’t been released in any or many forms otherwise, making it relatively the ONLY way to get that specific MS. THATS when I have a problem. I don’t think that’s too frequent but I think it has happened.
There are more P-bandai shf figures in the past 4/5 years than normal releases. Still pissed I cant get a full KR Build crew without selling my kidney.
@@6kang971 both the web exclusive and the normal release in either SHF or Robot spirits Anime ver figures are charging with somewhat premium price tag, but what pissed me off is that their qualities are just above average, some even left with nasty simline and mediocre articulation. So if Bandai isn't a greedy sob, I don't know what to call. Let's not forget most of the SHF Kamen rider figure doesn't come with any accessories too. smh
Noticed gundams(especially some mg) have suddenly gotten way more expensive on sites like EBay in the last year. At least in the US. I noticed kits like the Turn X MG and Turn A are a fortune now!
Covid-19 screeched production to a halt for several months across the globe. Lock downs and stress caused design outputs to drop as well. People being stuck at home meant they took up new hobbies(or restarted old ones) and one of those hobbies was Gunpla. Like the other posters said, its Supply and Demand. It does seem to be getting back to normal again, but that is for only really in production models bought from legit sites. Gundam Planet, HLJ, etc. Ebay and Amazon both seem to still overcharge for everything. Your best bet for prices is a physical store but those are rare in the states(although I am happy to report that near where I am at we got an official legit Gunpla store open now and they are great)
I agree on this. 2:14 MG RX-78-2 Gundam Ver.3.0 = 4,500 yen MG The Gundam Base Limited RX-78-2 Gundam Ver.3.0 [The Gundam Base Color] = 4,500 yen *The price (reseller) of the latter [Gundam Base Color] variant will vary base on supply and demand. :)
That's how I feel. I had to pay $120 for a HyakuShiki Crash, but it was only $60 in Japan. Haven't paid for a P-Bandai kit since. At least I can make my money back if I have to as its now on Ebay for over $200.
Goes hand in hand with the bulk of this video and his defense centered around “well actually”ing about premium means in Japan then oddly ending by telling that he doesn’t think Bandai is god. He really should just stick to reviews..
The P-Bandai sales model is very similar to Hasegawa with their "Limited Editions", reshoot some models with already existing tooling, add a new decal sheet or some photoetch or resin parts. Another approach is having store exclusives, which Good Smile Company and Kotobukiya use.
Only 3rd parties, resin are not allowed on bandai contest You can come in & compete, but you are disqualified at sight, they still let you display the product though
The kits that really cost more than the regular variants are the special finishes, "gold" coating and some clear ones (different plastic). shipping and tax does add a decent chunk to the price as well.
That's not always the case. Sometimes we are paying for runners that are useless on remolds and Sometimes we pay extra for big ass sticker sheet. If you remove all of that the kit might be 5 dollars less.
@@Darth_Anomalous But that also happens with regular kits from time to time iirc, but yea, looking at my mg perfectibility, it's got lots and lots of unused parts :/
Part of the issue is also that you don't always experience the results of these investments either. Take the new PG for example. Very impressive and yeah, to develop and produce that must cost a lot. But as someone that isn't interested in PG kits nor has the money for them, I didn't gain anything from it. Same with the 1:1 Gundam. Very impressive but it's all the way over in Japan which we can't visit and see irl cuz of the world situation. So that makes it hard to see how that extra money also turned into larger investments. Not to mention the image of the stereotypical company that asked a lot of money only to sit on it plays a role too.
False way of thinking : BECAUSE people buy P-Bandai "crazy" Aoz kits, Bandai keep it P-bandai. If the P-bandai decision had failed, they would have moved them to regular releases.
I hate p-bandai with a deep passion but speaking realistically, I live in Thailand and the resale market here is surprisingly fair, maybe because it's mainly all on facebook marketplace and all the prices are easily comparable, but it makes me slightly less unfortunate those outside of japan.
Honestly? I do not know anyone personally who knows anything about gundam sentinel. I don't imagine a ton of people do otherwise so I cant be mad about the mk v considering its fairly obscure and likely wouldn't sell well. Now if they peeb a doven wolf or silver bullet? Ill be furious.
@@LeeLee-dingus yeah but how are u gonna make the fazz, zeta plus, exs, and s gundams as regular releases and have the ex-s rival suit be a p bandaj. That shit make no sense
And to add im sure sentinel stuff has gotten popular because exs 1.5 and fazz ver ka are regular releases and are good kits on their own regard. I'm sure most people at least know exs
@@masterkent1 Honestly fair point with the EX-S and S but for the Zeta plus, it's normal HG release is the Unicorn version. I do not know when the 2001 MG was reprinted because I haven't heard about it having an MG until today actually. And for the FAZZ like. it's just a recolored full armor ZZ with a Ver.Ka tag on it. super super easy to interpret it as just a part of ZZ that maybe someone missed because that's what I thought it was until I bothered to look up more about it. So even though it's wrong, for me at least the primary associations with them was not with their original series because one appeared elsewhere and the other is just a fat ZZ with funny colors :/
P-Bandai is pretty much a test platform/kickstarter kinda thing for them... Release stuff that they're unsure if it'll be popular, fringe products, or stuff where there's some demand, but overall not a strong enough one to merit being released in the regular lineup. As or what it represents, is it's a revenue stream, one where as a direct sales program, they take up the responsibility of distribution/delivery, but in turn pocket slightly more profit vs the regular distribution lines. People tend to also forget that distributors usually get a distribution price, one that subsidizes the storage/distribution/sales processes, but that in return, there is usually a minimum order number(which is why your typical store will go through a distributor and give up some profit(distributor gets the larger bulk discount, accounts for their overhead and share of profit(which by necessity needs to be relatively low to compete against competition). Any inefficiencies/shortcomings at the various levels means customers will look to other sources. The way the program works means unless people order so much P-bandai that it makes the regular distribution channels worth it(which I doubt would be their sole consideration, as this has also become a way for Bandai to test the waters with oddball releases). As for voting with your wallet, Bandai's likely first response to sales numbers dropping consistently on said platform would probably be cut fringe releases and play it safe by releasing more popular designs/fan requests(so the bulk of people who're protesting the program will still be SOL). The other method is for a US distributor to put together a strong enough a plan/proposal to Bandai to merit another distro/sales hub for P-bandai in another region. Unfortunately, even if that was the case, you'd either be looking at consolidated shipments, or high overhead for more numerous shipments made to said hub locations. All of that would still have to be balanced against this new sales channel effectively bearing the Bandai name(even if the hub is run by a trusted distributor).
The trend I don't like is discontinuing older models from retail to limited release (through P-Bandai or Gundam Base). I'm sure you've heard people complain about how RE/100's are no longer reprinted for retail but frequently show up for p bandai and Gundam Base sale. It's really not fair for the people who backordered these kits. RE/100's did a lot better than anyone expected so the fact they discontinued and downsized the lines reprints is imo, a very bad choice. Meanwhile we'll get reprints of the many zaku II variants from Origin that will continue to warm the shelves because everyone already has a couple.
Ok, but why are some regular grunts or ace suits being sold only p-bandai. Like mercurius, vayeate, and dautress. Not really mad just confused, if you're going to make "limited items" isn't it counterproductive to make almost all of what you make for a specific series "limited". Then making a grunt suit being double "premium" having both normal and alter versions difficult to obtain. It's probably me, but making main story suits who don't have any modern release "limited" is beyond me.
To not left any leftover Lesson bandai learned from MG zaku 2.0 variants Those thing remained in shelf for 4 year & sold on discount Then they release P bandai zaku variant, no leftover, no discount & decent sales demand The result has been consistent for 12 year, the market have proven the current model worked
@@WingDragonoidZero yes? In the sense of "who actually want these crappy windam, when there is better windam" There is demand for collector/loyalist/kitbasher Collector for completion Loyalist for people who like the anime Kitbasher for parts that looks good If anything, did you notice how much re rise diver gunpla on store shelfs? That's why P bandai happen Edit : i mistaken daughtress to windam, its still a design NOBODY ask & demand
Yet it’s so difficult to even order P Bandai kits, even in places where the P Bandai stores exist. In Japan it’s a print to order system, in the US many kits will sell out in hours or minutes. You know that doesn’t make any sense to anyone trying to make money.
True what you said. Taking HG earthree for example, in my malaysia, the listed price is 57.68 MYR (1540 Yen) but can be found sold at 48 MYR (~1281 Yen). The limited edition/ PB clear version is listed at 61.80 MYR (1650 Yen) but i got mine at 100 MYR (~2669 Yen). *listed price obtained from gundaminfo
People will really pay at least 2x the price for a Premium Bandai kit and complain they cost so much even though it’s just them getting scalped by scalpers
This is actually super helpful - especially the difference between the Western definition of premium (higher quality) vs. Japanese (limited edition, not necessarily higher quality), which we also see in the watch collecting world with Seiko
Working in retail, and havibg shopped online. I'm trained to think anything with "premium" plastered on it is probably a piece of crap no matter what it is or who made it.
I've always viewed "premium" as marketing fluff. If a company says it, it doesn't mean anything. If a regular human describes something as premium then it has some weight. Companies are always going to describe their products positively. They want to sell their products. Positive words are fluff. Specific descriptive words mean things. If it says something like "we use the highest quality aluminum...", "highest quality" does not have a set standard, it can mean anything. All you can gain from a phrase like that is "we use ... aluminum". The food industry does this all the time. Dumb marketing words. "Sushi grade" fish, "natural", even "97% fat free" is worded to get you. Sounds a lot better than "3% fat".
i remember heard someone use to mention that premium = limited product by bandai also sometimes mean that bandai assume that not so much ppl would want to buy those kit so they produce a more limit amount for that product.
When you make 80% of your releases "premium" or "limited" then you are just creating an artificial demand. It's a sleezy business model that everyone has copied from the sneaker companies, now all things meant to be collected are adopting the same model. It's sleezy business. Same thing when other toy companies make things exclusive.
Other toy companies do it better since they more or less give everyone a chance to get it. P bandai is literally a few countries in much more limited amounts
The issue I have is how the profile of the kits has changed over time. Say for the rg lines, the previous p bandai were deactivated or color variants, now kits like the tallgeese 3 or the sword impulse which could have been normal releases are in the p bandai line.
I've known for a long time that there's no difference in quality between P-Bandai and regular kits. I rarely buy P -Bandai as I cant justify spending that kind of money. Especially in Canada. P-Bandai is really pricey here. It seems to be a bit more reasonable in the US, It's really just the way things are. I agree that Bandai provides an excellent quality product for the money. I've been building scale model kits for years and even their older kits are are tough to beat.
My problem has never been the price or the kits they offer, it's been the customer experience. I've had two orders from them, and they've both been a mess. One is not their fault, the whole "rare Goku" ship crash thing. The other was theirs. I ordered the RG Tallgeese II, and when it arrived, it was the wrong, more expensive MG product. I wanted to exchange it for the Tallgeese, but they didn't make any in case of issues like this. After weeks of waiting for a response of what they wanted me to do, they didn't even offer to let me keep the wrong item. So I had to send it back and I didn't get the Tallgeese. Then a few weeks later they were selling a Titanium finish, more expensive version of the Tallgeese... I have a few more things ordered, like the Launch figure, but I try to avoid them if I can now.
After seeing the sticker sheets for the g04/g05, I just cant justify spending 35 on a hg kit anymore. Its the 2020s. Not 1980s. Not 1990s. Not early 2000s.
I got my hand on some hg p bandai. Some of them are rare and some of them just recolour other regular hg kit. So from now i just looking for that kit are hard to get on like pale rider and ect.
Looking at the PBandai lineup at least since the past 7 years I've been into this hobby, I've always assumed that's the real idea behind the lineup. Especially the whole recouping production cost thing. I've never been enticed by any PB releases tho so it's not like it bothers me. Still, could've at least used a less misleading name.
What I wish is that we didn't have to go through third parties here in Canada. US gets their own P-Baindai site, but us Canadians have to order through importers, which means paying upwards of 3x the standard cost... Yes, I know there are some options but most of them require you to be able to write and read Japanese.. KIts that are on P-Bandai USA for $70 USD are $170-200 CAD. I agree with the statements others have made regarding the wish that some kits would also get standard release, instead of P-Bandai only.
My gripe about "Premium Bandai" is the upcharge I will always have to pay living outside of Japan. The last PB kit i bought was the Mudrock because I was lucky enough to get it for only an extra $25 more instead of the usual extra $30.
are people not buying them directly on the p-bandai site? I could be wrong, but they seem to be normally priced. I've only seen them higher on like bbts or ebay.
My thing with pbandai is that, you'd think its more weapons and parts, accurate colors, waterslides and less stickers. Instead a lot of them are recolors, and the pricing can be so high it makes we want to buy primer and spray cans, or an airbrush.
I get what your saying I've never really think that the kits were a higher quality than what bandi normally make but one thing that bugs me is how many they make at some points it feels like it's all p bandi which is bad if you're on a budget . I'm still mad that they put the talgees 3 in p bandi while we get several version of wing zero custom and like you said people love this in Japan so fans outside have to deal with it even if we all stopped they'd keep doing it there's no way to have our voices heard .
I really think they need to work on their distribution in general, it's really frustrating seeing USA and Japan get everything on time with reasonable prices meanwhile Canada gets screwed in terms of pricing/accessibility. I ordered my PG Unleashed back in October 2020, and the store I bought it from has still not gotten their initial order (of which I was a part of) fulfilled meanwhile I'm seeing US stores and Japan stores restocked with new kits? How does any of that make sense?
My big gripe is that P-Bandai only officially delivers to like 4 countries. Also Bluefin is "the official North American distributor for Bandai" but they only operate in the US. I live in Canada and even the best gunpla stores have to sell P-Bandai kits for like double their price, which is why I don't have any.
Oh. Phew! That's what i thought it meant. "Limited edition" The mark ups sometimes in online shops are ridiculous, but some places are pretty good about it
I just wish they would do US announcement at the same time they do Japanese announcements even if the pre-order isn't for a month or so. These day of sometimes hours before the pre-order goes live on the US P-Bandai site is getting old. There have been several kits I've hunted down and bought from Japanese sellers at a mark up that then a few months later gets announced and dropped on US P-Bandai.
Premium Bandai is basically the price and limited supply of the product in question. I'm thankful for my friend for gifting me the Premium exclusive MG Barbatos Expansion Parts Set as my graduation gift.
If I remember correctly the mkv isn't actually owned by bandai which is why we never saw it other than in sentinel. So they had to give the mk v the same treatment as the aoz kits. I could be wrong though
THANK YOU for the comment on prices. If you live somewhere they’ll ship the product, it’s not really any more expensive, except for shipping. And if you get multiple kits, the shipping is totally reasonable.
My ire for P-Ban is when I see a unique mold, a completely original kit being P-Ban only. I was fine when it was just a colour swap and/or an extra weapon.
Will that design be a seller or simply a kit that will just sit in shelves while the retailer will bitch at them for it?. With P-Bandai they can simply gauge demand and print what's necessary. I love the F90 line but I do understand that it's only those that appreciate the F90 who will purchase that kit.
@@patricktan4096 The same could be said about some standard releases. They'll pump out hundreds of thousands of some trash background suit that will warm shelves but a Gundam gets a limited run?
@@SixerMason Unironically this, grunt suits deserve more love, like how tf is there no Zaku 1 2.0 yet?
@@SixerMason ever heard of army building with mass production grunts? They can do a standard release for those as grunt units that have good screen time like daggers or zakus can sell multiple times. Where as a Gundam that only appeared in a manga or novel that has been out of print for at least 10 years or even just appearing on video games that do not sell well as the general public will not know them. Take the RE-GZ custom. Yeah cool design, but outside of SD Gundam G Generation fans, who are gonna buy? If there is consistent demand for that design then sure you can make a case for a general release for it. But the way i see it grunts with significant screen time deserve their general releases.
@@SixerMason You're forgetting that different market segments have different preferences. Military style modelers tend to veer dramatically more towards the utilitarian looks of mass produced line units for their forays into the genre, whereas flashier kits don't work for them. The reason why MC suits(or more typically with P-Bandai, variant suits) get the P-bandai treatment is that they're not exactly popular enough to make immediate sense as a regular release. If said variant does well, some kits do then get a more vanilla variant version as a mainline release.
It's another reason why Bandai probably keeps the line around(market testing with limited investment risks), whereas a poor allotment to the mainline could eat up months of production time allotment.
I guess "Limited Edition Bandai" doesn't sound good marketing wise
Also, it sucks that the Philippines doesn't have a P-Bandai store, but I've grown to begrudgingly accept that fact considering model kit building is an even more niche hobby here
but " Bandai Limited " could of worked ...
Maybe "Bandai Spirits: Limited Series" should be a better name I guess
what double sucks is that some regions in the Philippines dont even have a regular hobby store and instead would have to rely on malls to get the kits several months-years after its release.
one thing that surprised me tho is that one of the malls ive checked for kits is that they got some actual p-bandai mixed in there.
ive seen a p-bandai Airmaster Burst and a hzenthley among the boxes of standard releases. granted i bet its a rare thing to happen and not the norm.
Aside from not having any good hobby shops, some store *cough toy kingdom *ahem toys r us for some reason overprice some kits. I can understand if the took the srp which is in yen into peso.
andami kasing hoarders dito, kaya pati yung mga special na happy meals ng mcdo nag sskip satin, sad.
My problem with P-Bandai is the trend lately where Bandai has been putting kits on there that should be regular releases (Altron EW, Sandrock custom, Heavy Arms custom).
Or even the Blast Impulse Gundam... I don't get why that kit had to be a P-Bandai release. There was nothing special about the Blast Impulse Gundam and it's the only MG variation of the Impulse that we've been waiting forever to get. It's unfortunate that the Blast Impulse can only be found for $120 in most retail stores, which is basically double the price of a regular MG. :/
@@davidtan4760 "there was nothing special about the Blast Impulse Gundam", that's why they make it P-Bandai, because normal people won't buy kit that don't have any special aspect. It won't sell well in the market if they release it as regular release
uh no, those were p bandai long before this huge p bandai movement ever begain. Secondly, those are just shelf warmers in japans secondary market for a reason.
I agree. They used to release the not so well-know mobile suit as P-Bandai, like the different variant of Zaku, but now... everything can be released as P-Bandai, even a completely new kit.
Not to mention the clothing they quickly take down
I think a big part of the misunderstanding is that Bluefin/P-Bandai US has been advertising P-Bandai as "premium quality items" lol
The "premium" is actually a surprise! (that is, a 'premium' on your wallet)
I never hated P Bandai for the price or quality, I never viewed the word “Premium” in the name to mean much but limited exclusive. What I dislike about it, is when brand new models are released in p Bandai. I always thought having recolors or slightly different weapons was fair, but then they put the Woundwort, Mudrock, go4 go5, the Pale rider, F90, and Gundam MK V and then I started to get annoyed because these are all designs that I feel I would like if I saw them on a shelf, and would buy it if they were a retail release. I’m sure it’s all boils down to profit.
Don't forget the GM line from the Origin series.
I left out a lot because there have been so many I can’t remember
So many others as well, like the HG Daughtress, MG GM II, MG Altron. They recently made the HG Zaku Desert Type PBandai, even though the Robot Spirits one sold like gangbusters.
I get disliking new models being P-Bandai but P-Bandai consists of models that fit the color/parts/make a new model of an old kit/licensing issue categories. Very few P-Bandai kits are outside of that. Also, there seem to be a "rule" were if the design is sold in one form at retail then a gunpla of isn't going to be retail. For example a MS came to retail as a Robot Damashi figure but will get a P-Bandai kit.
Woundwort is a bad example here. They CAN'T make it a regular release. They don't own the design. It's limited to small release runs by contract.
Honestly very fair and sound arguments, but when the Premium Bandai USA video promotes "the highest quality" You start to see the disconnect for the average consumer. It really should just be rebranded to another name, at least in english so that this misunderstanding is cleared up (i.e., Limited Bandai or something).
I've never felt the problem was the quality, the issue to me has been the gradual trend of P-Bandai just taking over and dominating the regular releases year after year. The recent shift to making wholly new kits as just P-Bandai is just greed, pure and simple, and indicates where the company wants to take things in the future. The MG F90 was a test and it worked wonders for P-Bandai. Despite getting reprinted a few times and with variations, it sells out every time. Also, at this point, if they're just gonna keep reprinting the F90, just make it a regular release kit.
I’m from the future and the problem has gotten way worse
I'm from the future and pbandit trend also infects kamen rider stuff (thanks revice)
@@nu3566 i'm from the Future, and you can only buy SHFiguarts Kamen Rider Tycoon Ninja form as P-BANDAI. One of the arguably the most popular rider of Kamen Rider Geats, Gate Kept as P-BANDAI. 😒
*Premium* Bandai where you pay double or triple for the same "Gundam" kit. Basically, sell the same Gundam with barely change to it...
EA: *WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!!!!!!*
This tactic goes on in most hobbies. People who collect action figures, or Hot Wheels, etc... Mattel will repaint the same casting & repackage it in a different way. Then charge 2-3 times the regular price for it. Nothing new.
the mg zaky warrior slash is 100-120 euro to get in france meanwhile i can get the judge from zero gravity for the same price
so i took the judge.
Yeah, but Bandai isn't doing that. 3rd party distributors are. If you are in the States and get kits through p-bandai usa, you're getting kits at basically the normal list price. Getting mad at Bandai is like getting mad at a shoe company for a shoe store charging 3 times the list price
@@Telthar what kind of person blames the country. Canada, australia, europe are all major. If someone can order something from lego, goodsmile without proxies, yet p bandai is still so restricted, something is wrong
@@clarksmith8830 I don't follow. How did I blame the country?
P-Bandai is at it's most annoying when they release a kit that was clearly meant to be retail
*eyes MG F90 amd Mk V*
I kinda get why mk V tho. Because its such a big and bulky design, demanding a lot of plastic which if it was a regular release, the market wouldn't absorb as much since it was like above 5000yen. So with p bandai, they only produce how much people have order, could cutoff a lot of the cost. The f90 I'm with the same page as you
@kim subaki well bullshit on that they did bulkie big mobile suits and they sold well (like any mg sazabi , mg the o , mg rezel type c , mg fazz ver ka , mg psycho zaku , mg full armor gundam , mg zeong , mg deep striker ) so the bulkiness of a suit isn't an excuse for the exclusivity of mg mkv that's fucking boguss and the feeling of well it's to big so p-ban it is okay is totaly retarded , they p-ban the mkv just because their greedy and have no faith on the fans for bying it and the design for any fucking marketability even though they didn't had a problem with the mg ex s gundam nor the fazz so fuck em
@@kailiciousthumbsup most of the bulky kit you mention are kits that many people know, as for Deep Striker, Bandai just make overpriced statue that use lots of old runner, so it make sense why it's just regular release. Unlike Mk.V, not many people know that mecha and Bandai have to make the kit from scratch
@@yanjirujan193 tbh bandai are stupid for not trying and making the antogonist mobile suit more popular specialy for a very popular gundam like the ex s
@@kailiciousthumbsup that depend on the creator/anime studio themselves, not Bandai, they just make the toys
My guy they literally have an advertisement that says “at Premium Bandai we deliver only the highest quality items”
They always deliver the same "highest quality items".
I don't even understand that line. Premium Bandai is made at the same place as the other Bandai kits... using the same methods.
To me, I really like the old premium bandai way where they sell only colour variants staying true to the meaning of premium bandai in japan where it's more to limited edition rather than actually being premium. I hate it when bandai makes new mold of the whole kit to sell as premium bandai bcs it makes it hard to collect for hardcore collectors
It would be nice if they set up a proper distribution of anything in Europe so local sellers don't have to sell them at such ridiculous mark ups. The whole P-Bandai business model is still a horrible play on human psychology, Nintendo and Square-Enix like to pull the same bullshit as well.
Lots of smaller companies figure out how to sell limited run stuff to people in other countries. They just need to offer the option of snail mail delivery. let the buyer make the choice on what they are willing to pay for delivery, people just want options. A lot of guys have back logs and could finish and paint one or 2 mobile suits while they wait for a premium delivery.
@@hamsterwolf It's not just the limited run stuff, even regular releases cost so much more, often over a 50% mark up. The lack of a proper supply chain just drives the price up and even when importing you then have a customs fee to pay that means you're paying two lots of tax to two different countries on anything you buy (plus whatever ridiculous processing fee the carrier puts on top of that tax , royal mail thinks it cost £8 to fill out one customs form while Fed EX thinks it costs £12). I know they care far more about their domestic market but they sorted it out for the U.S.
@@lordwisehammer finally someone who understands. Gunpla is extremely overpriced compared to stuff like lego, simply due to the fact all of it is sourced from japan and thus have insane shipping. P bandai is insult to injury since they refuse to ship worldwide relying on proxies.
That change in verbiage really helped me because it always bothered me that my P-Bandai purchases have been mostly lackluster when I went in expecting something "premium." "Can't even give me a manual in color??? Where's the 'premium'???"
But thinking about it as "Bandai Limited" really makes mores sense. I think they should rebrand in the US, or at very least make that distinction themselves
pbandai narrative gundam b-pack noped me the f out when i found out the 'gundam' is not actually included
um there are two different versions. one of them is an expansion pack, the other one has both the suit and the b pack included. the pb version only has the b pack parts, and i think in all their promotion pictures, it says the main mobile suit is not included.
If lego and anime figure companies (goodsmile, max factory) can ship worldwide, but p bandai is still limited to such a few countries, you know their service sucks. Literally just an easy way for resellers and proxies to profit.
The point is that it’s limited. If they shipped everywhere it wouldn’t be limited
@@ZakuAurelius they can still make it limited by discontinueing, so at least people have a chance at reg price which is what every manufacturer does. But most people will have to pay like 4x the jp price which is worse than discontinued figures and lego
My main beef with P bandai is that the JP store has got much much more stocks compared to HK or SG stores. If you notice, the stuff like metal builds and certain kits sell out in HK and SG stores in literally a few seconds, but last in the JP/US store for days or even weeks! They deserve all that hate for feeding the scalpers. They can't be bothered to fix this supply allocation problem for years, so when people buy pirated bootleg gunpla kits I don't hate them at all.
You should hate the scalpers then, not Bandai, they just produce and sell the products
@@yanjirujan193 They produce, but they don't distribute nearly enough to other P bandai stores. Imagine metal build crossbone sold out in 1 second in HK, then you go to P bandai store JP 3 days later and there are literally more than a hundred left. No sympathies to Bandai. Bandai is helping the scalpers when they don't solve this supply issue. They are also part of the problem.
@@theclerksays just because you hate the scalpers, doesn't mean you also have to hate the manufacturer. In Bandai's eyes, both you and scalpers are just people who pay for the product. Besides, do you really think scalpers will act alone? Of course not, they act in group, a large group. If you really want to get that Crossbone, better use third party service
@@yanjirujan193 They clearly refuse to sell enough.
"pulled straight out the anime" they say, only for a sticker sheet that smells of 10 pounds of Heresy to appear at the bottom of the box
Why even bother with a sticker sheet? Just dont include them, this would save us some money and use it on paints instead.
@@Darth_Anomalous Sticker sheet can be useful sometimes, it's a good way to mask the part with the stickers.
@@fantastiCkiLler92 ya know what's better than sticker sheet? Waterslide decal, but nah, Bandai hasn't embrace such miracle yet.
I just wish P-Bandai would stick to color swaps and weapon packs. New kits and new designs should always be available on a larger scale. Kinda sucks when you see an awesome kit..get excited and then its like oh..its P-Bandai...never mind. If P-Bandai were a lot easier to get a hold of..or rather more shops carried them and I had a chance to preorder I probably wouldn't care as much.
I guess it depends on what "easier to get a hold of" entails. Since I am not knowledgeable about the problems of importing Gunpla to countries outside of the "main" P-Bandai market, I can't give a definitive solution. I guess the easiest solution is for distributors in other countries to try to work with Bandai to import P-Bandai items.
I would say that 95% of P-Bandai gunpla are in the parts/color/making a new version of an old kit category. The other 5% are usually licensing issues.
Not going to discuss the trends they’ve been making the past 2 or so years? The trend is that you can obviously tell that 60 to even 50 maybe even 65% of HG would be locked to P-Bandai if they always operated the way they are now, just look at the HG Origin kits where they locked almost all its GM releases to it while still giving us more Zakus as retail releases.
Thank you, you're spitting out facts.
Plus the fate of manga fans, most manga kits (entire wing G-unit line, testament, and probably the astray outframe if they decided to make one) are locked behind pbandai. Guess they aren't taking any risks with overstocking any of them.
Maybe because of what they experienced? Iirc some of the hobbyshop were flooded with HGAGE Genoace, which probably not a good sign for a company. So now they decided to go premium, with producing as much as customers ordered so nothing left as a backlog
@@kimsubaki6389 But that as a whole was a problem with the Age era itself, they overextended on a new series wayyyyy too far and got burnt by it since Age itself wasn’t crazy well received and a lot of the model kits (namely Vagan machines) weren’t that good either, of course there are some that were super popular for their ease of customization. The manga machines have established fanbases that can be catered too.
I will say the F90 itself while it does get a lot of love by fans it is more niche to modern gundam fans and western fans so I feel instead of MG it should’ve been a HG regular release. But I see that there is atleast a market for the F90 since they continued to make a majority of its option packs. I mean hell in the case of the Testament that had a large audience of appeal if going by Dragon Momoko’s take on it before they were shutdown by Bandai so it’s P-bandai status is especially weird to me.
@@blackhood23 the age thing was an example. Hell maybe a lot of 00 stuff an seed too, were being a burden in some hobby shops just because the hype is over or maybe the design doesn't really appeal to the crowds. Becaming premium solved that, by people preordering it so nothing get left out. That is just my speculation but make sense enough to me, but it is just one of many reasons why they go that way.
I believe F90 becaming the MG just because the hype is still there with f91 2.0. Make much more sense if the packs were released in HG but I believe they went for the hype, and there's also a new manga based on f90. Testament was a long waited thing and ever since pbandai was introduced I already assumed that testament will be premium. Heck I don't even care if DM made one, but the design that everyone doesn't know about, it is fair to be a premium.
the flash on the recent aoz kits - fmd... and lets not get into the soft plastic stress marks... anyway, REGULT !!!
Having p-bandai available in the US doesn't mean nearly enough to make up for what was missed before they sold to the US, not to mention everything we're still missing because the US store doesn't list everything. Yes we do get pretty much every new kit, but the Robot Spirits line for example has been having some nice premium figures that the US store just completely ignores. In particular though I'm truly aggravated that the new Archangel Catapult Deck isn't available on the US store either, and that already costs a pretty penny... so yeah, fuck that noise!
This
If bandai releases HG Tequila Gundam P-bandai, I'm down.
When a P Bandai kit comes out and it’s a MS that hasn’t been released in any or many forms otherwise, making it relatively the ONLY way to get that specific MS. THATS when I have a problem. I don’t think that’s too frequent but I think it has happened.
So, the reason that Bandai sells so many P-Bandai Astray MG’s is to recoup the cost to develop the MG Astray Amatsu that they never released?
3:52 if you collecting robot spirits line, mainly SHF, you wouldn't dare to say that.
There are more P-bandai shf figures in the past 4/5 years than normal releases. Still pissed I cant get a full KR Build crew without selling my kidney.
@@6kang971 both the web exclusive and the normal release in either SHF or Robot spirits Anime ver figures are charging with somewhat premium price tag, but what pissed me off is that their qualities are just above average, some even left with nasty simline and mediocre articulation. So if Bandai isn't a greedy sob, I don't know what to call. Let's not forget most of the SHF Kamen rider figure doesn't come with any accessories too. smh
Noticed gundams(especially some mg) have suddenly gotten way more expensive on sites like EBay in the last year. At least in the US. I noticed kits like the Turn X MG and Turn A are a fortune now!
supply and demand bud. Havent seen a reprint in a long time.
Covid-19 screeched production to a halt for several months across the globe. Lock downs and stress caused design outputs to drop as well. People being stuck at home meant they took up new hobbies(or restarted old ones) and one of those hobbies was Gunpla. Like the other posters said, its Supply and Demand. It does seem to be getting back to normal again, but that is for only really in production models bought from legit sites. Gundam Planet, HLJ, etc. Ebay and Amazon both seem to still overcharge for everything.
Your best bet for prices is a physical store but those are rare in the states(although I am happy to report that near where I am at we got an official legit Gunpla store open now and they are great)
What can I use to attach the funnels on the Kashatriya for effect and what size booster effect fits the binder boosters?
Premium Bandai...more like ...region locked
* stares at P-Bandai kits displayed sitting on my room's shelf *
* sweats profusely *
It seems like Bluefin has limited items now in terms of model kits. Every time I visit the site it barely shows anything
Premium is just a elaboration of the word that i guess bandai misunderstood the actual meaning
Or as is said, they have a different definition.
I agree on this. 2:14
MG RX-78-2 Gundam Ver.3.0 = 4,500 yen
MG The Gundam Base Limited RX-78-2 Gundam Ver.3.0 [The Gundam Base Color] = 4,500 yen
*The price (reseller) of the latter [Gundam Base Color] variant will vary base on supply and demand. :)
Whats that model kit on the top shelf right behind u on the right its like a red mecha tank thing and im interested in it evertime i watch ur videos
Bandai should change it to "Bandai Limited" instead of premium bandai to avoid confusions
Totally OK with Bandai doing PBandai, just not OK when they refuse to ship to my country (Canada). They're effectively telling me to shove it.
That's how I feel. I had to pay $120 for a HyakuShiki Crash, but it was only $60 in Japan. Haven't paid for a P-Bandai kit since.
At least I can make my money back if I have to as its now on Ebay for over $200.
A P-Bandai store should be available for all countries with an official distributor.
What grind my gears is Bandai is so slow restoking older kits like RE 1/100 GP04, Hama-hama, Dijeh, and some mg kits like Guntank and Guncannon.
Blame the demand, no demand, no restock
In Chinese, Bandai Premium is just called 网限，which literally means Limited kits online
yep, its just the name
Side eyeing that thumbnail a little bit my dude
Goes hand in hand with the bulk of this video and his defense centered around “well actually”ing about premium means in Japan then oddly ending by telling that he doesn’t think Bandai is god. He really should just stick to reviews..
RIP B-Club. I miss those resin kits of gundam the origin and also the galbaldy and rick dias redesigns. So rare
But the thing is if you watch the US advert for Premium Bandai they do advertise it as "premium" in the western sense
How do I write phone numbers roman numeral can't order figure
The P-Bandai sales model is very similar to Hasegawa with their "Limited Editions", reshoot some models with already existing tooling, add a new decal sheet or some photoetch or resin parts. Another approach is having store exclusives, which Good Smile Company and Kotobukiya use.
To check, pbandai items cannot be used in contests, right?
Also, what is the recommended way to tighten joints without compromising the kit later on?
I’ve never heard of any contest where p-Bandai kits weren’t allowed
Super glue, (some) nail varnishes, top coat, and joint tape all work
Only 3rd parties, resin are not allowed on bandai contest
You can come in & compete, but you are disqualified at sight, they still let you display the product though
The kits that really cost more than the regular variants are the special finishes, "gold" coating and some clear ones (different plastic).
shipping and tax does add a decent chunk to the price as well.
That's not always the case. Sometimes we are paying for runners that are useless on remolds and Sometimes we pay extra for big ass sticker sheet. If you remove all of that the kit might be 5 dollars less.
@@Darth_Anomalous
But that also happens with regular kits from time to time iirc, but yea, looking at my mg perfectibility, it's got lots and lots of unused parts :/
Where did u get the shirt?
Part of the issue is also that you don't always experience the results of these investments either.
Take the new PG for example. Very impressive and yeah, to develop and produce that must cost a lot. But as someone that isn't interested in PG kits nor has the money for them, I didn't gain anything from it.
Same with the 1:1 Gundam. Very impressive but it's all the way over in Japan which we can't visit and see irl cuz of the world situation. So that makes it hard to see how that extra money also turned into larger investments. Not to mention the image of the stereotypical company that asked a lot of money only to sit on it plays a role too.
That clear things up. Thanks Zack!
finally cleared this issue, nice vid man! can y'all tell me if the varguil will get a reprint?
Without limited P-bandai, crazy AoZ design kit will not be a reality..
Agree, the only P-Bandai i bought is mostly consist of AoZ kit.
Yup all my pbandai is aoz. Just to make it possible to collect
False way of thinking : BECAUSE people buy P-Bandai "crazy" Aoz kits, Bandai keep it P-bandai. If the P-bandai decision had failed, they would have moved them to regular releases.
I just wish they have at least 1 regular release Woundwart
@@terreausore2435 they wouldn't be released at all if PBandai failed.
Man, Canada still does not have P-bandai service or able to order from P-bandai US at the very least.
I hate p-bandai with a deep passion but speaking realistically, I live in Thailand and the resale market here is surprisingly fair, maybe because it's mainly all on facebook marketplace and all the prices are easily comparable, but it makes me slightly less unfortunate those outside of japan.
I wouldnt be so mad at some pbandai stuff if they didnt make kits like mk v p bandai
Honestly? I do not know anyone personally who knows anything about gundam sentinel. I don't imagine a ton of people do otherwise so I cant be mad about the mk v considering its fairly obscure and likely wouldn't sell well. Now if they peeb a doven wolf or silver bullet? Ill be furious.
@@LeeLee-dingus what's that? You're mad if bandai release doven wolf & silver bullet MG as p bandai?
Bandai : we know what to do
@@LeeLee-dingus yeah but how are u gonna make the fazz, zeta plus, exs, and s gundams as regular releases and have the ex-s rival suit be a p bandaj. That shit make no sense
And to add im sure sentinel stuff has gotten popular because exs 1.5 and fazz ver ka are regular releases and are good kits on their own regard. I'm sure most people at least know exs
@@masterkent1 Honestly fair point with the EX-S and S but for the Zeta plus, it's normal HG release is the Unicorn version. I do not know when the 2001 MG was reprinted because I haven't heard about it having an MG until today actually.
And for the FAZZ like. it's just a recolored full armor ZZ with a Ver.Ka tag on it. super super easy to interpret it as just a part of ZZ that maybe someone missed because that's what I thought it was until I bothered to look up more about it.
So even though it's wrong, for me at least the primary associations with them was not with their original series because one appeared elsewhere and the other is just a fat ZZ with funny colors :/
P-Bandai is pretty much a test platform/kickstarter kinda thing for them... Release stuff that they're unsure if it'll be popular, fringe products, or stuff where there's some demand, but overall not a strong enough one to merit being released in the regular lineup.
As or what it represents, is it's a revenue stream, one where as a direct sales program, they take up the responsibility of distribution/delivery, but in turn pocket slightly more profit vs the regular distribution lines. People tend to also forget that distributors usually get a distribution price, one that subsidizes the storage/distribution/sales processes, but that in return, there is usually a minimum order number(which is why your typical store will go through a distributor and give up some profit(distributor gets the larger bulk discount, accounts for their overhead and share of profit(which by necessity needs to be relatively low to compete against competition). Any inefficiencies/shortcomings at the various levels means customers will look to other sources.
The way the program works means unless people order so much P-bandai that it makes the regular distribution channels worth it(which I doubt would be their sole consideration, as this has also become a way for Bandai to test the waters with oddball releases).
As for voting with your wallet, Bandai's likely first response to sales numbers dropping consistently on said platform would probably be cut fringe releases and play it safe by releasing more popular designs/fan requests(so the bulk of people who're protesting the program will still be SOL). The other method is for a US distributor to put together a strong enough a plan/proposal to Bandai to merit another distro/sales hub for P-bandai in another region. Unfortunately, even if that was the case, you'd either be looking at consolidated shipments, or high overhead for more numerous shipments made to said hub locations. All of that would still have to be balanced against this new sales channel effectively bearing the Bandai name(even if the hub is run by a trusted distributor).
The only premium about premium bandai is the advertising
**cough cough** premium prices **cough cough**
The trend I don't like is discontinuing older models from retail to limited release (through P-Bandai or Gundam Base). I'm sure you've heard people complain about how RE/100's are no longer reprinted for retail but frequently show up for p bandai and Gundam Base sale. It's really not fair for the people who backordered these kits. RE/100's did a lot better than anyone expected so the fact they discontinued and downsized the lines reprints is imo, a very bad choice. Meanwhile we'll get reprints of the many zaku II variants from Origin that will continue to warm the shelves because everyone already has a couple.
RE aren’t technically discontinued unless you mean that in a temporary sense. They’ll reprint them again eventually
why is it p-bandai box covers has 1 color type? sometimes I'm reluctant to buy one as I don't know what exactly the color of the kit
Ok, but why are some regular grunts or ace suits being sold only p-bandai. Like mercurius, vayeate, and dautress. Not really mad just confused, if you're going to make "limited items" isn't it counterproductive to make almost all of what you make for a specific series "limited". Then making a grunt suit being double "premium" having both normal and alter versions difficult to obtain. It's probably me, but making main story suits who don't have any modern release "limited" is beyond me.
To not left any leftover
Lesson bandai learned from MG zaku 2.0 variants
Those thing remained in shelf for 4 year & sold on discount
Then they release P bandai zaku variant, no leftover, no discount & decent sales demand
The result has been consistent for 12 year, the market have proven the current model worked
@@somechinesedude5466 so having both daugtress and eldora daugtress p-bandai is okay?
@@WingDragonoidZero yes? In the sense of "who actually want these crappy windam, when there is better windam"
There is demand for collector/loyalist/kitbasher
Collector for completion
Loyalist for people who like the anime
Kitbasher for parts that looks good
If anything, did you notice how much re rise diver gunpla on store shelfs? That's why P bandai happen
Edit : i mistaken daughtress to windam, its still a design NOBODY ask & demand
Yet it’s so difficult to even order P Bandai kits, even in places where the P Bandai stores exist. In Japan it’s a print to order system, in the US many kits will sell out in hours or minutes. You know that doesn’t make any sense to anyone trying to make money.
Many do not know this but the P in P-Bandai actually stands for Pain.
True what you said. Taking HG earthree for example, in my malaysia, the listed price is 57.68 MYR (1540 Yen) but can be found sold at 48 MYR (~1281 Yen). The limited edition/ PB clear version is listed at 61.80 MYR (1650 Yen) but i got mine at 100 MYR (~2669 Yen). *listed price obtained from gundaminfo
Yeah I understand totally and thank you for the video clearing things up !!
Tbh why make the movie Wing suits limited when they're soooooo damn popular
People will really pay at least 2x the price for a Premium Bandai kit and complain they cost so much even though it’s just them getting scalped by scalpers
This is actually super helpful - especially the difference between the Western definition of premium (higher quality) vs. Japanese (limited edition, not necessarily higher quality), which we also see in the watch collecting world with Seiko
Working in retail, and havibg shopped online. I'm trained to think anything with "premium" plastered on it is probably a piece of crap no matter what it is or who made it.
I've always viewed "premium" as marketing fluff. If a company says it, it doesn't mean anything. If a regular human describes something as premium then it has some weight.
Companies are always going to describe their products positively. They want to sell their products. Positive words are fluff. Specific descriptive words mean things. If it says something like "we use the highest quality aluminum...", "highest quality" does not have a set standard, it can mean anything. All you can gain from a phrase like that is "we use ... aluminum".
The food industry does this all the time. Dumb marketing words. "Sushi grade" fish, "natural", even "97% fat free" is worded to get you. Sounds a lot better than "3% fat".
i remember heard someone use to mention that premium = limited product by bandai also sometimes mean that bandai assume that not so much ppl would want to buy those kit so they produce a more limit amount for that product.
When you make 80% of your releases "premium" or "limited" then you are just creating an artificial demand. It's a sleezy business model that everyone has copied from the sneaker companies, now all things meant to be collected are adopting the same model. It's sleezy business. Same thing when other toy companies make things exclusive.
Other toy companies do it better since they more or less give everyone a chance to get it. P bandai is literally a few countries in much more limited amounts
Me watching this in 2024.
P-Bandai for me means THAT kit is limited and that's all.
Bandai didn't even know the meaning of PREMIUM.
The issue I have is how the profile of the kits has changed over time. Say for the rg lines, the previous p bandai were deactivated or color variants, now kits like the tallgeese 3 or the sword impulse which could have been normal releases are in the p bandai line.
The reborn 100 line died out as a pbandai line, which is ironic considering its purpose
I've known for a long time that there's no difference in quality between P-Bandai and regular kits. I rarely buy P -Bandai as I cant justify spending that kind of money. Especially in Canada. P-Bandai is really pricey here. It seems to be a bit more reasonable in the US, It's really just the way things are. I agree that Bandai provides an excellent quality product for the money. I've been building scale model kits for years and even their older kits are are tough to beat.
My problem has never been the price or the kits they offer, it's been the customer experience. I've had two orders from them, and they've both been a mess. One is not their fault, the whole "rare Goku" ship crash thing. The other was theirs. I ordered the RG Tallgeese II, and when it arrived, it was the wrong, more expensive MG product.
I wanted to exchange it for the Tallgeese, but they didn't make any in case of issues like this. After weeks of waiting for a response of what they wanted me to do, they didn't even offer to let me keep the wrong item. So I had to send it back and I didn't get the Tallgeese. Then a few weeks later they were selling a Titanium finish, more expensive version of the Tallgeese...
I have a few more things ordered, like the Launch figure, but I try to avoid them if I can now.
After seeing the sticker sheets for the g04/g05, I just cant justify spending 35 on a hg kit anymore. Its the 2020s. Not 1980s. Not 1990s. Not early 2000s.
I love the snarky 'educational' videos, A+ Zach!
Very informative! Thanks Zach!
I got my hand on some hg p bandai. Some of them are rare and some of them just recolour other regular hg kit. So from now i just looking for that kit are hard to get on like pale rider and ect.
Bandai DLC
You can get those RX-78 knees for only 9,99$ with our monthly subscription (that doesn't give nothing besides spam and taking yourt data)
I wish people in the West (no clue if it's a thing in Japan) could submit suggestions for P-Bandai releases, I desperately need a Tequila Gundam kit
Looking at the PBandai lineup at least since the past 7 years I've been into this hobby, I've always assumed that's the real idea behind the lineup. Especially the whole recouping production cost thing.
I've never been enticed by any PB releases tho so it's not like it bothers me. Still, could've at least used a less misleading name.
I just remember that Simpsons episode where the Japanese guy sends Homer a "Premium" to answer his questions 100 percent.
What I wish is that we didn't have to go through third parties here in Canada. US gets their own P-Baindai site, but us Canadians have to order through importers, which means paying upwards of 3x the standard cost... Yes, I know there are some options but most of them require you to be able to write and read Japanese..
KIts that are on P-Bandai USA for $70 USD are $170-200 CAD.
I agree with the statements others have made regarding the wish that some kits would also get standard release, instead of P-Bandai only.
My gripe about "Premium Bandai" is the upcharge I will always have to pay living outside of Japan. The last PB kit i bought was the Mudrock because I was lucky enough to get it for only an extra $25 more instead of the usual extra $30.
are people not buying them directly on the p-bandai site? I could be wrong, but they seem to be normally priced. I've only seen them higher on like bbts or ebay.
Right, it’s just that access to buying directly from the site is limited to which country you live in
thanks for this video, it contains lots of information that lots of people could stand to hear
The only premium about P-Bandai is the price tags.
Reseller pric tags
Thanks for the info... i didnt know that.
My thing with pbandai is that, you'd think its more weapons and parts, accurate colors, waterslides and less stickers. Instead a lot of them are recolors, and the pricing can be so high it makes we want to buy primer and spray cans, or an airbrush.
I get what your saying I've never really think that the kits were a higher quality than what bandi normally make but one thing that bugs me is how many they make at some points it feels like it's all p bandi which is bad if you're on a budget . I'm still mad that they put the talgees 3 in p bandi while we get several version of wing zero custom and like you said people love this in Japan so fans outside have to deal with it even if we all stopped they'd keep doing it there's no way to have our voices heard .
I really think they need to work on their distribution in general, it's really frustrating seeing USA and Japan get everything on time with reasonable prices meanwhile Canada gets screwed in terms of pricing/accessibility.
I ordered my PG Unleashed back in October 2020, and the store I bought it from has still not gotten their initial order (of which I was a part of) fulfilled meanwhile I'm seeing US stores and Japan stores restocked with new kits? How does any of that make sense?
My big gripe is that P-Bandai only officially delivers to like 4 countries. Also Bluefin is "the official North American distributor for Bandai" but they only operate in the US. I live in Canada and even the best gunpla stores have to sell P-Bandai kits for like double their price, which is why I don't have any.
Oh. Phew! That's what i thought it meant. "Limited edition"
The mark ups sometimes in online shops are ridiculous, but some places are pretty good about it
I just wish they would do US announcement at the same time they do Japanese announcements even if the pre-order isn't for a month or so. These day of sometimes hours before the pre-order goes live on the US P-Bandai site is getting old. There have been several kits I've hunted down and bought from Japanese sellers at a mark up that then a few months later gets announced and dropped on US P-Bandai.
well there is p bandai online shop in Korea except the certain famous kits r soldout in few minute darn it
As an AoZ builder, I would LOVE for those to be regular release, but alas, contracts and licenses.
Premium Bandai is basically the price and limited supply of the product in question.
I'm thankful for my friend for gifting me the Premium exclusive MG Barbatos Expansion Parts Set as my graduation gift.
If I remember correctly the mkv isn't actually owned by bandai which is why we never saw it other than in sentinel. So they had to give the mk v the same treatment as the aoz kits. I could be wrong though
THANK YOU for the comment on prices. If you live somewhere they’ll ship the product, it’s not really any more expensive, except for shipping. And if you get multiple kits, the shipping is totally reasonable.
Funny how at my somewhat local anime store in Washington has p bandai kits with reasonable price of course tax but no shipping cost.
I lived in Thailand which also did not had p-bandai, I need to pay for it around twice from the original cost T^T