[acdcguy]

A lot of us are mostly familiar with Bandai Japan and their American counterpart. However their other international markets that often get overlooked and aren't fully understood. I don't know much about it either and I am trying to find some answers.

From what I could gather is Bandai Japan and Bandai America act almost like independent companies. Bandai Japan is the originator of products while Bandai America remolds them, and sometimes relabels them, for the American market. But there are also other branches as well.

Bandai Asia and Bandai Europe are two other Bandai groups with Bandai Korea and Bandai UK as subgroups and at the moment I cannot figure out if they are a subset of the two former groups or if they are independent entities. Bandai Japan and Bandai America seem to be the only two groups capable of creating molds for the toys while all other groups just distribute the two main Bandai's products.

Now it appears Bandai Asia simply distributes Bandai Japan products repackaged in Korean boxes. From ToQger it appears that Bandai Korea are within their rights to release repaints of Bandai Japan products. But Bandai Europe appears to have abandoned toys altogether and only focuses on video game distributions while Bandai UK distributes Bandai American toys for the most part.

What I find interesting is that Super Sentai is only known as such in Japan. Everywhere else, including Bandai Asia, it is known as Power Rangers. But I guess my questions are how does Bandai determine which goes where? Do any toys cross over markets or is the western world limited to Bandai America and the eastern world to Bandai Japan? Why has Bandai Europe abandon toys (probably has something to do with their parent Namco)? Are Bandai Korea and Bandai UK independent from Bandai Asia and Europe respectfully? Are there any Bandai groups I missed? I came across Bandai Premium for Singapore and China so I'm not sure if they are a part of Bandai Asia or something else.

Another thing that seems a bit odd is their websites are never updated. Bandai America is still on Dino Super Charge. Bandai Japan has very little Super Sentai stuff, nothing for Kyuuranger yet. Bandai UK also only has Dino Super Charge, no Ninja Steel. And Bandai Asia/Korea are still on ToQger. Why are the websites so dated? Shouldn't they keep up with their releases. Too many websites to navigate through.