Forum - View topic

Hunting for Limited Edition Anime Swag in Japan

As purely an art collector, it is hard for me to understand why anyone would want to pay so much for items with high(ish) print runs. While that's not the case with the Madoka film strips, it still boggles my mind when I see mass print runs of 30 year old children's manga sell for a couple grand.

While I appreciate the commentary on the systems used in Japan, I don't really "get" this article. It seems to be written by a non-collector (often citing his own disinterest in "exclusives" and various marketing of such) and doesn't really go into methods for obtaining exclusives BEYOND what can be summed up as "read the advertisements and follow their instructions" (ie. "X is available at Y theater, so go to Y theater to get X"). I mean, for what it IS I guess the article is well written but I don't find it particularly "informative".

As much as I try to find things online, I always wonder what is sitting over there is some little non-internet savvy store in Japan that sells anime goods. And it does not have to be the new stuff either.

As it stands, I'm limited to what is posted on a website, auction or store.

I find it amazing how much some people are willing to pay for these items. While the items that were shown don't resale for that much, when the Madoka Magica movies were shown in Japan, some of the film strip clips went for hundreds and thousands of dollars. As purely an art collector, it is hard for me to understand why anyone would want to pay so much for items with high(ish) print runs. While that's not the case with the Madoka film strips, it still boggles my mind when I see mass print runs of 30 year old children's manga sell for a couple grand.

Not super hard to collect stuff in Japan, sure. But for people like me living in the US, collecting Limited Edition Japanese releases is a huge pain in the ass when it comes to store exclusives. I pretty much have no choice other than getting the Amazon version, since most other sites don't ship overseas, or have those sets exclusive to addresses inside Japan. A bunch of these companies have gotten the bright idea of making the store exclusive only available via a redeemable code, which makes even the Amazon exclusive out of reach... since it can only be used on their fully Japanese language website after all other volumes are purchased, and can only be shipped to a Japanese address in every case I've found so far. As a collector of LE stuff, rather than resigning myself to getting the regular version, I usually just don't buy the series at all, in cases like that, until I can get it used via Yahoo auctions a few years later, if at all.

Cutiebunny wrote:

As purely an art collector, it is hard for me to understand why anyone would want to pay so much for items with high(ish) print runs. While that's not the case with the Madoka film strips, it still boggles my mind when I see mass print runs of 30 year old children's manga sell for a couple grand.

Mass produced items are eventually end up as garbage as they go through wear & tear and exposure to elements. People eventually throw out their stuffs without realizing the value as their lives go through changes. As time passes, only few will survive and becomes the collectibles.

Indeed. But there's also the mindset "if it's old it must be [collectible|valuable]". When I owned a used & rare bookstore, that was the hardest thing I had to deal with when buying books... most people don't realize that if there's no demand it doesn't matter how old or rare it is.

You'd think the companies that make these limited editions would acknowledge there are international fans who want them too. That case sounds like they just turned down money. Then again, maybe they're too few in number to justify expanding their online reach.

*cough* I do have two copies of the Lemon Magician Girl card... and the Dark Knight card from the week before... my friend watched the movie twice with me but didn't plan to keep her card so she gave them to me

All these crazy exclusive stuff really does drain people's wallet.

nobody in their right minds would buy used discs for more than what they originally cost, even if they are Limited Edition. Oh and the fact that they're still being sold even though they're labeled as Limited Edition doesn't help things either.

(Currently) In the US, 99% of the time "Limited Edition" is simply a marketing gimmick for a more expensive release with bells and whistles. My personal favorite example of that craziness is from the 90s comics scene. When Marvel debuted a brand new "Spiderman" book by Todd McFarlane, they had like 5 different versions, 4 different "Limited edition"s and the "mass market" release. The most "valuable" book was the "A" limited edition because it was exceedingly rare, but the second most "valuable" book after a month was the "mass market" release because so few people bought it, speculators and collectors had bought all the "limited edition"s instead.