Banpresto make their money selling case orders to JPN gamestations, as result they often play things safe so they can get good amount of case orders. That's why we have these Prize Fairs and why public can't attend (by invite only IIRC).Michsi wrote:Out of curiosity, Is there any analysis/ info out there regarding which characters's merchandise sells and so on?Baggie_Saiyan wrote:
As for Gohan since it is planned it doesn't matter if you buy it or not. But the reason why Banpresto are doubling down on Cell arc Gohan is well back in 2016 with their RoS line SS2 Gohan was released before adult Future Gohan and unfortunately Future Gohan ended up getting half the amount of case orders than SS2 Gohan which at that point Banpresto presumably decided that any future Gohan commercialisation will be Cell arc one and not adult. Honestly our best chance for an adult Gohan is if someone picks him for the BWFC (they really need to bard entries for Goku tbh). Just gotta hope the figure gets mediocre case orders so Banpresto rethink but maybe at the cost of poor Piccolo though.
Regarding Gohan, I think he might not look distinct enough as an adult to get attention from general and casual fans, so his stuff might get bought by his fans and not that's about it? Cell Games Gohan, though, was not just his most iconic look, but he garnered more popularity than any other DB charater has ever gotten ( here I mean vote numbers).
Japanese after market is important as while it doesn't affect how much money Banpresto get as they already made theirs but it will affect gamestations in deciding in the future of whether or not to put in high case orders for the line/character/form. Ie. If you go on the OP look for the DXF SUPER WARRIORS line each subsequent volume kept getting low and low in orders and then got cancelled. Banpresto did bring it back a few months later for UI but dropped DXF tag. Conversely the SON GOKU FES line will hit 10 volumes in June and even had a re-release, it gets good case orders and popular among fans will continue for a while.
Now Broly. The two figures Banpresto released had high case orders (Jan's one had the highest case orders of any DB figure!!) And high value on the after market which shows they were sought after HOWEVER Banpresto anticipated Broly wouldn't be as popular as Gogeta so for April's Grandista they scheduled Movie Gogeta not Broly. Banpresto plan things in advance so I am sure we'll probably get more Broly end of this year.
As for Gohan, his recent figures lately haven't beem doing well on the market. Grandista Cell arc Gohan came out in October and is yet to go up in price. Cell arc Gohan hasn't had relevancy for a while, and that is all that is ever released of Gohan so I get the low interest. ToP is over now so any opportunity for Adult Gohan is now gone them not simultaneously marketing DBS until Mastered UI was a huge misstep. The September case orders will decide Cell arc Gohan (and Piccolo since it's a shared volume) fate.
As for Piccolo the last August Match Makers did get good case orders but did terrible on the after and still available super cheap. BWFC Piccolo is out next month let's see how that affects those orders.