Then it would sell even worse! As hard as it is for some people to believe, not every parent believes in or even understands online ordering and don't even fight with it. They stay with brick-and-mortar, and one basic truth is, stores themselves still accept cash and online doesn't! Cash is still easier for some people!

Merge non-MMPR with other PR and make it work that way! Some fans still want more than Tommy, Goldar, Alpha, Zordon, and Zedd! Saban doesn't push it, and outside of Netflix or DVDs, kids don't know about the others! The culture for anything BUT MMPR is far too toxic!

Given the success of BOOM!, I'd say "Let's revive the animation theory again!"

Bandai is partly to blame and the retailers are partly to blame. Bandai has zero sense in their waves. MMPR way overly represented. They say those are the only ones that sell, yet those and NS seem to be the only ones I can find. People are not going to buy the same toy over and over again. No matter what little changes they make, consumers overall are going to be a one or two figure per team buyer. MMPR are the only ones that sell because they're the only ones on the shelves.

And the retailers put it all under the same sku and don't bother to inventory by teams or color, so they don't know what to order. They just put the sku in and x quantity, and then they are shipped whatever the warehouse can give, which a lot of times are all the same figures, never the new waves or any other color ranger. They are blind to what they are ordering. Which might be partly due to Bandai as well, I'm not completely sure.

Only if the studio behind Dreamworks' Voltron does it.

If you were a 7 year old boy with limited funds for toys, would a “girl figure” be #1 on your list? Remember that their target audience for non-legacy toys are younger boys who play with their toys and not collectors. But I think it’s ok to reduce the supply as long as they don’t eliminate the female rangers outright.

If you ask me they should also reconsider overpriced play sets like Lion Fortress Zord and design them to be more affordable.

No it wouldn't because they wouldn't produce as many, That's the problem now they're producing more figures then they are selling. By making the line online only they can produce figures based on presales like Max Factory does with their Figma line or release the figures in one batch as opposed to waves. And they wouldn't be pressured by retailers to sell stock.

(BTW I'm referring to the Legacy line here.)

What it would do is possibly make things harder to find and increase after market prices once they sell out depending on length of the production run.

That's what they've been doing much to the fandom's endless bitching. Why do you think they constantly whored out Tommy in Megaforce? Or all the references to MMPR in Samurai and Dino Charge were for? They're doing all they can in hopes to recapture the magic of MMPR. And the fans may say they want non MMPR but that's not what sales are indicating to Bandai which is part of their frustration with the Legacy line.

Bandai responded (to ComicBook.com, not to us):

“Bandai America is and has been fully committed to bringing ALL RANGERS to fans with our action figure lines. From the very first episode of Mighty Morphin, female Rangers have been equal and important members of Power Ranger teams and our product line will continue to reflect that. As with most brands, we continue to evaluate what characters and figures resonate with audiences and adjust the line based on fan demand and overall business objectives. Fans can rest assured that all Female Rangers will continue to be produced and included in Bandai America’s Action Figure and Legacy Figure lines.”

I should note -

Never in our article did we state that Bandai was NOT releasing female figures going forward, only that they were decreasing them. We pointed out two examples - the Fall 2017 Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel assortment, and the Wave 4 assortment being offered to online retailers. Neither of those assortments offer a female figure which would fall in line with what was said by Bandai at NYCC to many fans in attendance.

It's due to sexual dimorphism. Hoping I will not get banned for my honest, scientific based opinion.

From birth, boys are different than girls. 1 day old babies show immediate differences when looking at people and objects. I am a bit saddened that many of these toy sites as well as people will deny aspects of boys and girls. It's nature, evolution and what ever you believe all aligning to history and observable reality.

So like toys, boys like certain things. Girls tend to like other things. Their is a reason Dolls have cloth and, soft features soft hair and action figures are tough and rugged and packed with accessories and articulation.

Look at comic sales. I am very much into it and it is a male dominated field. Boys love the visuals and the action. The female characters do not sell at all.

I am been banned from other toy boards for this very topic but I am hoping Tokunation and the posters are mature enough to handle a certain point of view.

The Legacy Line is likely only supporting the nostalgia base! Kids don't have a lot of reason to love figures based on older things, and Netflix and DVDs can only pick-up the slack by so much.

Saban is trying to recapture the magic of MMPR, and it isn't going to happen! Toys are one important aspect, but not the only viable one either! If they were to do something (either live-action, animated, or comic-based) that incorporated other elements (Fate of Zeo Powers, Phantom Ranger's identity, Legendary Ranger Squadrons, Serpentera's "Missing Years", Thrax's birth, etc.), and merged it with distinctive elements of MMPR when and where possible, such as intertwined character backstories, then you have the best of multiple worlds! You add more depth to the franchise, while simultaneously having those necessary elements of MMPR to fall back on! Hypothetically, if one were to say that Scorpina had a connection to Scorpius and Trakeena and someone produced a story based on such a connection, then you have depth to BOTH Lost Galaxy and MMPR! You get something for the franchise as a whole, but the desire to flood the market with MMPR remains! Any such story, applicable to a host of different topics, could be drafted! Depending on how such stories were marketed might determine if kids would be interested!

For a non-PR example, take Star Wars! C-3PO and R2-D2 were released in the seventies and therefore, classic. However, most entries since then: Prequels, Clone Wars, Rebels, Rogue One, and the New Trilogy have incorporated them time and time again and thus kept them relevant and warranting new figures over and over again!

I'm glad that our worse case scenario doesn't seem to be happening. But the cynic in me also wonders if there was enough knee jerk reaction to a possible removal of female figures from the line, that Bandai had to get ahead of it and quell the rising noise. Hopefully the initial meaning was more wave composition like this latest MMPR line vs previous ones. Hopefully they figure out what the line should be *cough weapons not zords cough* and get things selling better.

Bandai's biggest mistake was packing the two biggest characters in the franchise within the same wave in which only one of them could be double packed. If Tommy was gonna be the double packed figure in wave 1, it should have been Jason in wave 2. But there's something interesting that I haven't seen anyone touch on, and that's why did Bandai feel confident in double packing a girl in the first place?

Let's not forget that there were two series of 5 inch Legacy figures before the 6.5 inch figures began. Despite the incredibly stupid distribution of those figures they seemed to sell quite well. The girls from neither the show nor the 95 movie lingered at any store I visited the way these 6.5 inch figures have. In fact I seem to remember TV Kim being quite a good seller, and perhaps the most difficult one to find. That sales data could be what lead Bandai to believe the 6.5 inch Kim would have no trouble selling as the double packed figure.

So the question to ask is why did the 5 inch Legacy girls sell just fine, whereas the 6.5 inch girls are still collecting dust over a year later? And I believe it ultimately comes down to the sculpts. Can anyone honestly look at these figures and wonder why people aren't buying them?

https://i.imgur.com/Xw8OZ7c.jpg

They're easily contenders for the worst sculpts Bandai America has ever done. It's not that people don't want the girls, it's that people don't want female Power Rangers who look like they were drawn by Rob Liefeld.

Didn't the five inch figures have the exact same body shape though?

Personally I think the two biggest faults with the line are price and lack of weapons.

I'll be perfectly honest, I don't think sculpt is the reason. To me at least at the end of the day it comes down to shoddy wave design/assortment, lack of weapons and requiring you to re-buy figures to get the signature weapons, and the BAF. Yes the proportions for the females are in the realm of exaggeration, but why would that stop a kid? Didn't we all buy the females as kids so we could have a full team, favorite character, etc? Now for us adult collectors I could sort of see it being that we have lines such as Figuarts, but even then we seem to not mind as much.

In terms of the wave design I will never understand why Bandai thought having two teams per wave was a good idea. I don't speak for all of us or really anybody else, but I'd feel safe in guessing a good majority of us would prefer having a wave dedicated to one singular team and moving on to a new team for the next wave. Think about it, it took three waves to complete MMPR. Three. That is absurd. As is re-releasing a team just to provide weapons. I see no reason to re-buy a team you may already have just for weapons. Why not just release an accessory pack (of course this is if the BAF was always a thing from the beginning). Now if six ranger waves/extra ranger waves were always going to be a thing as well I could understand the split to have two three member teams done. But for a full 5 ranger core team? As far as the case assortment goes, yeah, that's just utterly bonkers.

The weapons to me should've just always been included. Yes the BAF takes up space, but while I wouldn't want to pay $30-$35 as was asked on Twitter a while back, I'd at least pay $25 to get what we have and at least a weapon. Then again being that Bandai wants this format just make a weapon/accessory pack for each team. And the BAF, eh I don't really know what to say. I like the idea of having a little megazord, but as others have said for less than an entire set of the figures to built it you can get a bigger and more playable megazord.

Really an "all of the above" kinda thing, just kill the line.

I'd like the line to not die if possible. They're good figures, just poorly delivered.

How dare they do what is going to make them the most money.

So they aren't being sexist?

i mean this thread doesn't mean much now considering Hasbro's doing the toys, and Hasbro's actually decent at female characters from what I can tell

Well considering Hasbro is pushing more female transformers... I mean POTP has Elita-1, Moonracer, Novastar, and Slash. Assuming this line's as short as it's looking without anymore waves to make a complete fembot combiner, that's still above average, and those are all mass market releases. Strongarm got a ton of figures in RID, and Winblade got quite a few too. So Hasbro's definitly trying to up the ammount of female characters getting toys.

Maybe people should be forced to buy things they don't like. That'll make it fair, right?

It doesn't help that outside of combining robots where individual components are sold seperatly, like Transformers and Voltron, Power Rangers teams are one of the things you'd most want the whole set for.

This seems pointless now considering Bandai America lost the toy licensing to Power Rangers to Hasbro. I don't think we will see the same issue.

[QUOTE=GoseiWonder;699342]And it’s now time for another rendition of “Jonny Wonder Discusses Sexual Dimorphism in Play Patterns.”

What is that supposed to mean?

Can I just make a point, almost every merchandiser wishes they could do female action figures and merchandise, but the simple fact is: it doesn't sell. Retailers don't stock it. So you're left with inventory that goes unsold.

There is no sexism at play. It's all data driven.

To put it in perspective, a very real sales note I received from Playmates was to promote Pidge the Green Paladin as a transgender character that identifies as a boy. That's how unpopular female action figures are, boys are apparently more comfortable playing with transgender male toys than female, which is great obviously in its own way but also bad for female toys.

funny stuff. The very first SHF Sentai figure I bought was AkibaYellow,..because she was funny and a good character.

Then again I'm not a little kid.

yeah I guess when I was a little kid who actually played with toys instead of collecting them I didn't want a "Girl" toy. It was all GI Joe and Transformers and stuff like that.

The legacy line was aimed at collectors, though, not kids.
But they chose to sculpt the characters as if it was still kids they were trying to appeal to.

I bought all the Zyuranger (MMPR) Legacy Metallic figures.


...still bothered that Boi, the Yellow Sentai, has boobs.

hahahaha

I'm glad Bandai America no longer owns the rights to Power Rangers anymore.

This is okay, though -- while there is just enough of an adult market for popular franchises like Power Rangers and Transformers to be able to make a line geared towards their interests, that market is not sustainable on its own. There just aren't enough adults who are going to be interested in a new figure of the Green Turbo Ranger, so you've got to make the line appealing to kids as well. Transformers has understood this by integrating gimmicks into its Generations line, and it's been going strong for years.

... not that I agree with PR's methods of appealing to kids, though. I'm not gonna act like I'm a master of marketing and know every inside detail of BoA's data, but I'd be very interested in seeing what graphs exactly keep telling them that these terribly body types shift more numbers than more show-accurate sculpts. I'm not even asking for SH Figuarts level or anything; but even taking cues from, say, Kamen Rider's gimmick figure lines or as many have cited Marvel's Legend lines; you can easily make a figure which looks very close to the show without straining your budget. I'm looking at my TK Type Tridoron figure right now and he looks bloody amazing for what his RRP is -- why is it so hard for Power Rangers to get this right? I just want a nice looking Ranger Operator Series Silver, man.

Then again, this all seems moot -- as it's clear now that female figures not selling well wasn't BoA's only problem, haha. I'm incredibly interested in seeing how Hasbro now handles things - as I noted, they've nailed things with the Generations line even if I have personal grievances with how much they focus on G1. And talking of personal preferences, I really liked Go-Busters; so if Hasbro can put out decent looking figures... I will so be looking forward to 'Beet Buster' and 'Stag Buster'.

If Power Rangers can't have girl figures, then no other boy toy line should.

http://rangercentral.com/toys/toy-mmpr4.htm Remember when Bandai America made these? I'm surprised they don't make them anymore.