Podcast: OTAKU USA - Episode #5

There’s no escape for the guilty as OTAKU USA editor in chief Patrick Macias and contributing writer Matt Alt invade the 47th annual Shizuoka Hobby Show. Treachery and greed run rampant as the pair survey a host of new toy and model product, run wild in a “box art” galley, and have a fateful encounter with Bandai Collectors' Division Sub-Leader Adam Newman who lays out the B-Club’s big plans for the San Diego Comic Con. The battle for “The Shizz” finally reaches a fever pitch as the gang is nearly thrown off a speeding bullet train in a hail of glow-in-the-dark tracer BBs and empty aluminum cans leaving the survivors to wonder, "was it worth it?"

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HOT LINKS
Otaku USA Magazine
Pics from the Shizuoka Hobby Show
AltJapan

Comments

[Steve Harrison]

I believe the correct phrase is "DUUUUUDDE! SO WASTED!!"

(Message for Matt: cut down on the eyeliner. Nothing can hide the fact you're aging backwards and will soon be donning the traditional Japanese 'short pants and suit coat' look, cosplaying Daisaku from Giant Robo....)

Powerful podcast. Did my feed hiccup because the subject of the 'amazing toy store' vanished like it was some tea house dope dream.

This Adam person...sounds like a nice enough guy, but I feel sorry for him. It sounds like he doesn't know the history of all of Bandai's failures to really stick in the American market (Power Rangers being the one exception, and frankly, the toys are getting worse and worse each year compared to the Japanese releases), and from just the few comments I can already tell Bandai has dropped the 'do it like it's 1982' playbook on him.

Does he know that Bandai has had a deal with Diamond for the past couple of years to import SoC and SiC toys and it's pretty much gone nowhere? Oh, there'll be mobs of people at their booth at SDCC but man, there's mobs of people at EVERY booth at SDCC, because it's insane. The 2500 or so comic shops in the US are not on fire to buy dozens of $100+ toys...

Ah well. Nobody asked me.

[Steve Harrison]

I should say, Adam WILL have a good deal of success if he's just following Bandai's current plan: Focus on Pac Rim first, then the EU, then South America, and then get around to those stinking, ungrateful Gaijin in the US of A...