Forum - View topicTales Of The Industry - They Shoot Their Hostages, Don't They?
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MorwenLaicoriel
 Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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Man this story was so shocking at one point I gasped "Oh my god!" at my computer and my husband got worried and asked me what's wrong. This makes me a lot more sympathetic toward the licensing companies for moments where it seems like the show is being mishandled--there's probably no way of knowing what's going on that's preventing the marketing to succeed or packaging working out.
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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No offense to "Brad", but that was probably the WORST way to handle that. From my few dealings with the Japanese, the worst approach you can take is basically saying "this is your fault" even if that's true in this scenario. That was OBVIOUSLY gonna lead to (at best) "Kazuhiro" not giving "Brad" another chance to make him look bad. I'm not gonna deny that all options were bad at that point and that one would hope (and think) that "professionalism" would've carried the day, but I know Americans who would get bent out of shape out of how that played out, to say nothing of the Japanese who place a MUCH higher value on "saving face".
(ALso, I TOTALLY understand about the anonymity, but MAN it'd be interesting to read people comments/specualtion on the show) 
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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Yipe, the industry is paranoid even something as displaying them online makes them panic. While I understand the no reselling part, winners of exclusive editions consoles have been confronted with no resell rules for decades but those rules for just showing them online are ridiculous. |
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Yause
Posts: 97 |
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There are different categories of unreasonable. Sometimes it's just one business partner being difficult or impractical. However, there's also the classic method of reneging on a now-unwanted deal after some breach of trust or serious quarrel. Instead of negotiating the termination of a contract, one side might impose such demands that the initiative fizzles out on its own or so that the other party fails to meet an agreed upon condition (i.e. accomplishing a particular task by a specific deadline). |
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ProjectLEAF
 Posts: 29 |
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The article is a little deceitful. I get changing details, but changing around important facts as if they're irrelevant is just plain lying.
All you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of someone editing the original story and it's pretty obvious what show it is. Some of the supposedly "unimportant" details changed around are arguably very important to the story. |
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Xristophoros
 Posts: 149 |
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obviously their point of contact in japan screwed up and was protecting his own ass by putting the blame on the american distributors. god knows what stories he told his superiors to make them think it was the fault of "geneon" and not his own. all that is besides the point, though. he was freaking out over eggshell vs white? and that was reason enough to do a recall and destroy every single keychain in existence, not to mention ruin his company's partnership with western distributors? how bizarre. there are far more important thing to worry about in this life, guys. the exact colour of "Mu-sama" is not one of them.
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FLCLGainax
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Such a shame. Perhaps issues like this may be a factor in why some older renowned titles are MIA commercially in the West, despite having achieved cult status otherwise.
Last edited by FLCLGainax on Tue Mar 10, 2015 3:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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thenix
 Posts: 265 |
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This could be wrong but it seems like because of the way Japanese society runs (you give the person above you all the respect and never question them, even if they make a blunder) they expect to be treated that way from the US where we try to figure out what's going on and take a team approach to being responsible. Then problems arise and everything breaks down.
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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No offense, but this seems like a very naive view of American business, where we ALSO have no end of finger-pointing. In my experience, in ALL business, the saying is true "**** flows downhill". You ALWAYS (no matter in Japan, US, etc) give the guy above you respect and expect to deal with crap from above ALL THE TIME. Heck, I know peers who are toxic as hell and look to cut you at the knees for slights real or imaginary. Sometimes you get good co-workers, sometimes you don't , but you never "blame" the boss or you get screwed on promotions, raises, etc. Now whether Kazuhiro was a "peer" or a "superior" no way to know, but if the Japanese side was strong-arming Brad then he should have asked his "actual" superior how the company should handle it, since otherwise you risk future deals. Heck, they should have just thrown the Chinese supplier under the bus, since they had their money and wouldn't care anyway. |
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DmonHiro
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Aha, figured it out. Makes sense now. Yeah, I can see why that happened.
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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With all due respect, but how was the U.S. company supposed to do that? And exactly what would that accomplish? |
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Tanteikingdomkey
 Posts: 2346 |
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OH dear lord I feel so sorry for that guy and what that guy was put through.
Yay I agree that it was not the best idea to point out who was at fault but that seriously WAY WAY overreacted. and I am sorry but the shamelessness of the japanese guy was just insane! seriously I totally did nothing wrong this is all your fault and go up to your customers and demand they give back their keychains it makes me want to go to an old website dig up a copy of that first release and then take of photo of me with the keychain and send it to the guy just to spite him. |
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Maize Hughes
Posts: 81 |
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I'm a little surprised that they didn't "say" they had recalled the merchandise.
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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"Apologies Kazuhiro, the initial proof of the plush figure we received was correct based on the spec, but the mass produced versions apparently were not of the same quality. This was not brought to our attention until now. Because of American distribution, it is not possible to recall all the currently sold versions, but we can look into recalling the current release. We will of course look into a better suppliers (read: maybe do nothing) for future items. Recalling the current distribution will represent a significant expense, but we will make our best effort to retrieve any pending items." This allows the Japanese side to save face and go back (probably to the mangaka or Production Committee) and say that they addressed the issue with the American licensors. The American company could in all likelihood drag feet on ACTUALLY doing anything while this discussion is happening and get through at least the initial "first rush" sales before really doing something. Companies could bicker/negotiate on the "retrieve all sold items" point endlessly to the point that it's basically irrelevant when people don't care anymore. The point isn't "the Chinese were bad so lets gang up on them" since neither side is realistically gonna go after some small product manufacturer in China. The POINT is to LOOK like you're doing something so everyone can tell their boss that this mistake will never happen again because as employees we all fixed the problems. What Brad did by saying "you emailed me that we were cool" is tell Kazuhiro "not my problem". IDEALLY Brad should've said "my bad" and most of the Japanese would nod and say "foreigners are dumb" and after some initial complaints things would move on. But if Brad shifted blame to the manufacturer, at LEAST then both sides could nod and lament, "yeah, those shoddy, bootlegging Chinese" and again everyone would move on. |
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DmonHiro
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HeeroTX that would solve nothing. The Japanese would still demand that all key chains be recalled from the buyers. They didn't care who screwed up (maybe because it was them), they just didn't want the key chains out there, and didn't want to pay anything themselves. Giant dick move. Ironic, considering it's from the Japanese.
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