>Japanese companies continue to innovate and put out ever more impressive toys>China of all places is suddenly making some really nice stuff>Western companies still lagging behindWhat gives? Granted there are some great Western toylines- G.I. Joe Classified is really good and Jada makes some amazing figures considering they started out doing diecast cars- but the West is still so far behind with this sort of thing it's baffling to me.
>>11704885The west has kept the mentality of toys being for kids much longer so they put less effort into them. It only seemed to hit home in the last few years around covid that adults are buying a shitload of action figures for themselves nowadays.
>>11704885That's only really true for robot toys like Transformers. Fucking Yang and Chang got masters of structural engineering degrees just to make ultra-complex transformers. But when it comes to action figures that's not true. Their prices have managed to rise at even higher rates than western toy prices have, and they just don't know how to produce a visually-clean figure at all. Everything looks too visually chopped-up because of that articulation
>>11704897>The west has kept the mentality of toys being for kids much longerThe west started to pander to toys as something for adult collectors in the 1990s, years before Japan did.
>>11704902Yeah as statues/borderline statues like McFarlane. Not action figures.
>>11704950Some had more articulation than others. It wasn't a fixed constant. And the point still stands that adult-marketed toys started in the west in the 1990s.
>>11704885Is Japan really innovating though? Feels like China has been mogging them a lot lately
>>11704994Anon, I didn't say adult-marketed figures didn't exist. I said the western mindset for a long time was that toys were for kids and the most popular, profitable lines reflect that. Yes, stuff that emphasized sculpt and paint like McFarlane, DC Direct, DST, NECA, etc. existed for decades. But these were always niche compared to Hasbro, Mattel, Jakks, and others that were more likely to show up in toy stores than comic book shops. Japanese action figures were targeting adult collectors from the jump, hence the higher price point and lower production runs which led to a higher overall quality.
>>11704885Japanese imports are fucking imploding tho, awful QC and overdesign. I just got my Figma A2 and I can't believe how badly they fucked the arms by making the torso to shoulder joint to be a fucking long stick inside the body. The ab crunch it's also a fucking abomination. Marvel legends ab cruncy looks bas but works, this one looks bad AND doesn't fuckinh works.It's weird because their 2b it's such a simple design with normal ball joints on every cut and do anything that a2 can do
>>11705005Bandai (not the Hobby division) and GSC have both been shitting the best with their most popular lines.
why do you faggots write so many goddamn essays about this hobby?
>>11704885>>Japanese companies continue to innovate and put out ever more impressive toysI get that you're trans and wish you were asian but you can't just lie like that and expect to be taken seriously. Japanese lines are charging higher prices for worse products than they ever have. Features are devolving, build quality is worse than ever, the Chinese are eating their lunch in every category.
>>11705142>essays>only post ITT longer than 3 lines is OP's greentextHaven't had a run in with subby yet, huh?
