Tanrim said: This might be a simplistic view of things but Bandai doesn't really have anyone to blame but Bandai, do they?
Their releases weren't exactly competitive in the current market so if they had bad sales that would be a major reason why.
An example would be Gundam 00. While other companies were doing 2 part releases they made the first season 3 parts and the second season 4. Went for it myself at first, since I bought the first season, but after that I didn't want to buy another 4 parts. Imagine a lot of other people didn't, either. There are probably more extreme examples, as well, but I don't have one off the top of my head.
The time they took to actually release stuff was probably another factor. You take a really long time with these little part releases then by the time you get to a season version a lot of the more casual fans would have probably already lost interest.
Well, I'm sad to see to see this happen to Bandai but it was kind of expected. In any business you have to adapt or die. Bandai was a dinosaur of a company, in more ways then one, and we all know what happened to the dinosaurs.
The real sad thing is, like with Geneon, a lot of good shows are probably just going to end up getting lost in the shuffle. That bothers me more than anything, to be honest.
That is precisely what might cause their downfall. This is in relation to this thread's topic... Just like what happened to some of their toyline, there was a case wherein, there was this very anticipated adaptation of a popular tokusatsu from Japan known as Kamen Rider Ryuki in the form of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight and guess what happened? They released those toys 5-6 months later and just the first half of the overall 13 Kamen Riders were manufactured. None of the latter half of the 13 were manufactured. If they could've manufactured them earlier, say 2 weeks from the initial airing in 4kids, all of them and probably, the Big Bad General Xaviax and the Advent Master Eubulon could've been made into action. I know this because I saw this going downhill as I was visiting their toysite just 4 days ago and found that Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is no longer around their corner. Furthermore, I saw some threads from tokusatsu fansites like Henshin Justice Unlimited and Rangerboard.
Another thing here in relation to that, is the advertising. I found out that they advertise less if I am not mistaken, and so, they lose the folks that should've gotten it. Let us look at Bandai Japan, they are so aggressive when it comes down to advertisements and deck-to-deck promotions. The moment a goodie is around, they run the show on rampage (uhr... I mean on high edge) and so, CA$H! When it hits, it hits hard on the customers and so, BOJ (Bandai of Japan) has great success.
Now, if only BoA could've done things in a large scale and compete well with Sentai and Funimation like loading up their licensing and promotions with a deck-to-deck performance, then they could've been at a better state now. |