Tamashii Webshop Opens For the West
 

http://herotaku.com/blog/1/entry-145.../#.VEp55mddWSo

http://shop.tamashii.jp/

This is pretty amazing!

It really sucks to live in europe sometimes :lol

Germany isn't in Europe. Europe's a country, that's where London is.

This is that juicy news from NYCC I wasn't allowed to share!!!

Lol well looks like Tamashii spilled the beans.

Yes, but what does it mean?!

That's pretty cool~

I'm excited if it means we can buy exclusives without having to go through middlemen or other stores to get them.

I'm floored that this has gone public sooner than I expected, but it's a great news for all the collectors here in the US, and gives me a break running the middle service :) VERY EXCITING TIME!!

This is awesome.

So I guess North America buyers will only need middlemen for Tamashii exclusives when it's something like a Toei Net exclusive?

So I wonder how long until everything is fully set up as it looks like they haven't got much online yet for ordering...or else I didn't look in the right part.

There's also a questionnaire available to request stuff & provide feedback. No idea if anything specific (recent or otherwise) requested would actually show up based on feedback from this...but for those interested:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EtK...ewform?c=0&w=1

(Link to it's also on the front page of the new site, on the far left, before the smaller TonyTonyChopper image.)

Yeah, just USA and Canada is hardly "the West".

Don't get me wrong this is fantastic news for most of you, but given how poorly Tamashii Nations seems to handle product in Europe I feel it's going to be a long time before the rest of us get to see anything like that.

As long as the prices are reasonable then I say YYYYEEEESSSSSSS!!!

Oki is gonna be out of a job soon lol.

Will licensing still screw us out of Gaim and Macross?

Hnnnnnnnnnnngh yes.

Well...YES.

Hopefully I will be able to afford Kikaider or the B-Fighter figures.

Technically since this is a direct ordering service and not a company "distributing" to retailers in the US, it should work out that we could buy things like that. But who knows what kind of legal loopholes are involved in this new venture.

Fingers crossed

Presumably Bandai could squash Harmony Gold if it wanted to
And if it gave a shit about Macross as much as it loves Gundam

I'm so excited I may have to change my pantalones!

Edit: I wonder if the Premium Bandai shop will ever open up to orders outside Japan.

This is fantastic news. This made my day!

I think Macross is enough of a legal quagmire that even if it was technically legal to sell them, Bandai Premium will opt not to bother to avoid having anything to do with Harmony Gold. With Gaim, Toei and Saban don't seem like they would have enough reason to get in conflict with international sales, plus the whole thing of no longer targeting the US with Power Rangers branding, unless there's another factor I'm missing.

We're most likely not getting any of the releases that are also coming from Bluefin this way, so don't expect MonsterArts or the anime exclusives (DBZ, Sailor Moon, Digimon) direct from Japan a few weeks early this way. Also only a personal hunch since this is in the testing phase, but I don't anticipate the upcoming event exclusives being available this way either.

This also means that it'll be a long, LOOOOOONG time before we'll see any Toku exclusives if at all.

If the prices are reasonable... my wallet thanks/hates you.

I inferred nothing of the sort. :eyebrow Properties with no licensing present in North America will of course be the easiest. If there are any Garo Makai Kado releases to come, I wouldn't be shocked to see those available, or perhaps the Kikaider or even B-Fighter Figuarts. Don't see any issue with anything Kamen Rider that isn't Gaim or Drive either, and if Gorenger or Sun Vulcan ever get more team members, if Saban has no hand in Akaranger or Vul Eagle, then non-PR Sentai might be good to go.

EDIT: How could I forget to bring up Ultraman! Of all the toku franchises you usually see on the Webshop, its chances are by far the best for porting over, at least the Heisei ones. This is helped by the fact that there's no longer issues of releasing the Showa Ultra-Acts here and that Bandai owns a good chunk of Tsuburaya Pro already.

Is it only me but I can only see Chopper?

Fun times ahoy.

Holy shit, if this goes well in terms of product offers, it'll be so easy to get exclusives now. I'm excited.

Yup, that's all they have on there for now.

This. Is. Incredible!

I really hope that the items they carry will be identical and the days of middlemen (no offense to them... they're very useful, especially our own Sentai Tamashii ;)) are over. I can't wait! :)

Best news I've heard all day! Ideally, this is going to make obtaining exclusives so much easier. Not much to see right now, but hopefully we'll see more stuff showing up sooner rather than later.

Too cool. Going to check it out

My body.

It is so fucking ready.

I also live in Germany, but I have a US address so I am pretty stoked

Speculation, but this could be the beginning of the end for Bluefin. When we were told of this at NYCC it was "super duper uber secret do not share" information and we figured it could change the entire face of the import business, both for Bluefin, but also for middle-man services.

Who knows? Exciting either way.

Hopefully it'll be easier to get the Gaim figuarts. That's if they'll have them in the shop.