Any Steve/Tony Action Figure & Character Goods Collectors Out There?

[arachnes-web.livejournal.com]

Hello there everyone!

So I was kinda curious if anyone else here is a toy collector, especially of the Captain America and Iron Man variety, and would like to chat, share collection photos, discuss what online shops and ebay sellers they like to buy from, etc.  

And to get things started, here's some ice breaker questions. :D

1. What do you like to collect? (Brands, series, etc.)
2. What's your favorite item in your collection?
3. What's your 'holy grail' of Cap/IM collecting? (the one item you'd pay any amount for you, if you could just find it)
4. If money was no object, what item or two would you buy?

Here's my answers: 
1. I like to collect unusual stuff or variant figures. I'm a big fan of Minimates for this reason- I like being able to buy figures in different outfits or secondary characters that never seem to get their own action figures. I'm a huge fan of stuff from Japan and Hong Kong! Especially when it comes to the Japanese market, Marvel lets those companies make some adorable stuff. I mean, there's still a lot of the same angry-looking Kirby art, but you also get stuff like this. 

2. These are my Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man 2 movie cell phone straps from Japan. Cap's still easily found on  YJ and I even saw him on ebay once (although the Japanese seller was asking about $25 more than they should for him >_>). But the Iron Man one is much harder to find, because Japan loves them some RDJ and Iron Man's one of the more popular American superheroes over there, so I was really really lucky to snag him for a reasonable price.




3. This little gashapon figure has been impossible for me to find anywhere, in the US or in Japan. *cries*



4. If money was no object, I'd buy these in a heart beat. Hot Toys makes the most amazing figures ever, but they're all $150 + 

Comments

[arachnes-web.livejournal.com]

Oh, no it's all officially licensed merchandise by companies like Tomy and Asunarosya. (And it only when stuff is coming out of Hong Kong or China you have to worry about fakes and bootlegs- for both superhero and anime goods). You have to separate the Japanese manga publishers from the toy companies- toy companies like Tomy have to buy the licenses to make the merchandise whether it's Iron Man, One Piece or Harry Potter. The problem is sometimes the toy companies will only have rights (due to the deal they signed with the publisher) to sell their products in only certain countries.

So for example, Tomy makes several products for Hetalia. The only way to buy them in the States is through an anime shop that imports it or on ebay. That's because Gentosha sold all the North American merchandising rights to Great Eastern, so we get completely different merchandise for sale here than they do in Japan. But you can also get a situation like with the Marvel Bishojo statues by Kotobukiya...Kotobukiya gets to sell those in both the US and in Japan.

It is interesting that there's no equivalent to companies like Great Eastern in Europe...I mean, from the Japanese publishers POV it makes sense to sell the rights to a North American company because the combined market for both the US and Canada would be much greater than just France or just Britain. But you'd think there would be something similar for the EU market... I'm not that familiar with copyright and licensing laws in Europe. I wonder if there's some quirk the law where the Japanese publishers would have to deal with different companies in each country as opposed to just one company for my entire continent? That may explain why they don't let the Europeans make their own merchandise.

Oh god- this got really long. ^///^