I'm honestly baffled that Bandai doesn't do what Goodsmile does and allow global shipping straight from their store. Like, is it really that hard to set up a similar distribution system?

It really is ridiculous, I only ended up snagging one because I was checking it almost religiously and got extremely lucky. That should not be how a product gets distributed. But I guess I'm preaching to the choir.

As I check out the comments on here, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, YouTube,and other platforms, the general consensus is: THE FANS ARE TRULY PISSED OFF ABOUT THIS
I wonder will this be the critical moment that hurts their relationship with the paying fans

What's frustrating is the stock. We are essentially ordering products that's about half or one year away, which I think is mostly for production of the products. That means that they can essentially have more time to prepare for the stocks if the demand is high. I know this because I have been ordering from different region, and they all come from the same distribution source in China. but what they do is they do drip feeding There are 3 shopee channels, SG, MY, TH, When the item goes live, you are essentially competing against two other regions to see who clicked fast enough, and how lucky you're because, sometimes the product bugged out during check out, and as a result, you will miss your chance. You know on animal documentary, you see predators competing for a dead prey? Yeah, it's the very same thing, except that there are fuck tons of predators instead of 2 or 3.
The only time I got something is either A. the demand is not that high B. someone cancel their order and I got lucky checking it randomly. If it wasn't for someone releasing their Ark One, I wouldn't have got it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G2N_g_mb...pg&name=medium

https://x.com/t_features/status/1973583769899819151

It's beautiful.

I was able to preorder a kaixa on premium bandai us just now. I refreshed the page and it looks like it is out of stock.

I guess randomly checking every now and then you could get one?

Yeah, I saw it last night and by the time I logged in it was out of stock again. The listing is over as of 10/3. Hopefully that means that P-Bandai US will put up another listing with advanced notice? Japan has had 3 pre-order runs already. Whoever decided against making Kaixa a retail should be demoted.

It used to be the case where main characters were guaranteed retail releases, and exclusives were limited to extra/Movie Riders and certain forms

I hate how every Rider line these days is basically just 2 general releases and the rest are P-Bandai, even for characters who are clearly popular. Hell, IIRC, both Gotchard and Gavv only have a single retail release a piece.

Second round of Kaixa for Pbandai US just went up on 10/3.