You guys own a toy store, and bought the WfM gunpla lineup.
But the Michaelis isn't selling, and you know that if they don't sell before the anime ends, it will remain there forever.
How would (You) get rid of it?
Bonus points: you actually profit
Also, ITT we remember the plamo and figure tragedies, the guardian deities of the shelves.
Buy two half-priced Mikes get a 1/4th discount off an HG gunpla (one that is of relatively similar value)
Wasn't that already happening in some stores?
Strip all the branding off and try to fleece them as being generic "space robot knight" figurines
Hire an instagram model that looks like Shaddiq and let people slap him if they buy a gunpla. They can kick him in the balls if they buy two.
Why not rule 63 Shaddiq (Shavvaz?) and make it something like a handshake event? One Michaeli̶s̶was purchase = one "handshake" interval.
Also, throw in a Miorine cosplayer with the fishnets and have her do "footshakes" instead.
Is there a Gunpla store simulation game yet?
honestly the michaelis is really good for parts , that arm cannon is awesome , and the hipjoints are good for balljoints ala thunderbolt acguy
insurance fraud
1/100 MG when?
MG is dead, you will buy Full Mechanics and you will be happy
The full mechanics one looks pretty good right? I'm not a fan of TWFM but I've heard that the 1/100 FM is really good. I'm pretty new to gunpla so idk if I've been duped by youtubers into ordering it.
It's bigger and more detailed so if you're into that, go for it.
From the screenshots and videos I've seen. If you like big thighs you will be satisfied.
This. RG is more profitable to make and sell. Unfortunate since 1/144 is toy scale.
>RG
>Sell
Black person, every hobby shop I've been to has several of them warm shelves.
I don't have pictures but where I live and from what I've assessed anecdotally...
>FMP and AMAIM sell within months
>Gunpla is either scarce or at Hobby Lobby for years
>Frame Arm Girls and Muv-Luv don't sell
>Code Geass and Evangelion get nada
My area has had negative economic growth so don't expect similar results where you anons live.
>AMAIM
>selling
Amazing, that's another shelf guardian deity series anywhere else
I bought a Kenbu, Reiki, and Byakuchi at my local hobby shop two months back when I took off work to see the Mario movie (had to buy Jogan on Amazon), all four at full price. So yes, you can say the invisible hand of the free /m/arket takes 'em off the shelves.
I bought a Miles Kenbu at my local store for $4. I haven't even watched the show but it was cheap. All the other kits were $4 too.
It's true, everything that isn't Shion or a Stork Carrier sells where I live. Most of the gunplay there consists of action bases, extra weapons, and a single HG Penelope.
>gunpla
But yeah, everything is still full price, there are a bunch of military centric models at my local. People do but Kyoukai Senki kits where I live. Muv-Luv kits are the shelf warmers lol.
>buy
Fricking autocorrect.
Now contrast this to my local Hobby Lobby. I've seen nearly every kit on this shelf for years. Boats sell, gunpla sink.
>Bael
Heh
The Battlogue kits haven't been there for more than a year. Same with the MG RX78-2.
>Helios
WANT
>Red Frame Inversion
SORT OF WANT
yeah that mg rx-78 1.5 is gonna stay on that shelf until the store burns down. ain't noone buying that thing when there's a 2.0/3.0 and OWY versions available.
Do you blur them on purpose or are you just that shit of a photographer?
Very old phone.
take your parkinsons medicine grandpa
Maybe Kyoukai Senki is one of those "flopped in Japan but did well in America" situations? It's not like Bandai bothers giving model kit sales numbers.
I wouldn't say that, my local shop has had the same handful of kits for quite some time. The one on top of the pile has dust on it.
Nah, the online shops I look at have had the same stock of HGs for a year or more, and a local shop I frequent has had their stock very slowly getting bought out as they get cheaper and cheaper, but still have a lot of the Brady stuff and Nyuren remaining. Only thing not moving is the Shion figure-rise since they're not putting that one on sale for some reason
the human model kits seem to be commanding prices higher than usual compared to their robot counterparts for some reason. the Suletta and Miorine are like that too despite having less plastic than Aerial which is 50% cheaper.
People buy the human shit? It still looks horrid and I would rather pay 200 bucks for a quality figure.
people can't afford 200$ figures you baka
maybe in the initial hype but here where I live, there's at least a 15% price reduction on the more popular local stores in my area. The one hidden gem that I go to where people rarely mention despite having a decent selection, had their kyoukai senki kits marked down as low as 50% off which I took advantage of obviously.
That stuff lurks around the shelves in the hobby store I go to. There might have been more at one point, but it's hard to tell beneath the Kamen Rider and other sentai stuff that doesn't sell well.
Sell them to the idiots at Hobby Lobby.
Every two purchases of any kit, 1 free Mike, or every in store purchase, 1 entry for a bingo ball raffle thingy, prize is a FREE Michaelis! The promise of a freebie always helps move stock, if the Michaelis wont sell, at least use it to help sell other stuff to free up space.
Bundle them with 40k boxsets, large scale models and multiple gunpla sales so you buy one and get a Michaelis for free
I literally bought this guy just because he had a no holds barred fight with Darilbalde. But after ordering and building him, I grew to love the design and aesthetic. The claw stickers are a pain in the ass to apply that I almost lost one and almost ordered a metallic green marker, also I wish he had a bigger pair of feet.
In my country though I think the top 3 shelf warmers in order are Heindree, Demi-Trainer, and Dilanza
So here's the important part that a lot of stores don't understand: you've already lost the money. Stop holding out hope, and mentally write these off as losses.
Depending on how many you have, take some an assemble them. Then have them hold a sign. Also put the signs elsewhere.
Free High Grade Michaelis Kit with a $30 purchase. (Or two gunpla. Or $20/one gunpla if you REALLY need to be rid of them). Add the price of the Michaelis kit on the sign - maybe take it down a dollar or two. "A $x value"
Then while you're at it, post picture of the Michaelis holding the sign and post it to your social media.
These are no longer items you intend to sale. These are now loss-leaders for your store. The idea is that you're trying to bring more traffic to your store, or trying to get the customers in your store to spend a bit more, or if you go with 1 gunpla for a free one, trying to get someone who might have come in to just browse to get convinced to open their wallet.
One episode left
Is Michaelis redemption possible at this point?
I haven't seen Witch of Mercury, but this mech seems cool enough. What's wrong with it?
It's Pilot is so bad at fighting it couldn't take down a guy who was holding back.
Thanks for answering me. No mech deserves a pilot that uncharismatic.
>No mech deserves a pilot that uncharismatic.
Such is the absolute state of wfm mechs.
He’s not even uncharacteristic, he’s just a massive pathetic loser who thinks he’s changing the system when his plan is borderline ridiculous and couldn’t possibly work (even though they end up going with it in the finale so he won on that part I guess) and he’s also a colossal cuckold on par with Iron Mask
Miorine's plan is even dumber since it lacks any threat of force, but there's no way Miorine can do wrong so whatever
>but there's no way Miorine can do wrong so whatever
I don't even care about her, but did you actually watch the show?
Are any of the pilots in this show actually good?
I mean their all kids, with incomplete training that only pertains to DUELING, not even real combat scenarios.
I feel like any of these kids would get spanked by someone with even a little field experience in the same mecha.
Well, the upshot of it is that there's maybe just two and a half real battles that the kids take part in, the rest of it is training, exams, and duels.
piloted by the most hated character in the series. yeah, sales based on adjacent popularity IS a thing at certain countries.
I really like the Michael
don't get why they stripped so much of what made the Beu unique from it. Might be why it's not that popular as it's so similar to regular GDS suits while the Daribalde and Pharact are similar yet still distinct to the grunts
>make a roster of 10/10 fujo-bait
>squander a third of it; little twink is a Rei clone made for sadistic fujos to get wet over thinking about executing him
>make the final big-bad a more straight edged brother of the fruity haired himbo
I was really expecting Shaddiq to be a Sirocco clone, but I guess we can't have nice things anymore
Its screentime is minimal, the two times it appeared it didn't even put up a big fight and it belongs to one of the most useless characters in the series so rip
>left hand has useless small shield in original equipment
>relatively simple design compared to its predecessor unit and other major character suits, also no notable gimmick other than INCOM claw which has been done multiple times in the past
>piloted by a character people either dislike or have no strong opinion towards
>said character is also a schemer who jobs with the machine twice and he had backup although honestly it didn't matter the second time, but his opponent was holding back and trying not to kill him
>only gets two fights compared to other big name character suits which got more, and it jobs both times
You left out the corset.
Pilot is a seething cuckold, its action scenes consists entirely of it either relying on cooler MS doing the actual fighting or just jobbing, kit itself looks like a 30MS but costs twice the price so people who'd be drawn to the design will just buy a 30MS kit instead.
In addition to what everyone else said, a lot of the suits from the same in-universe company have fairly similar design language. So if you like that general look chances are there's one that you like more, or don't associate with worst boy.
Also the feet are too damn small so the stability is shit and I'm not wasting a base on that thing.
From a pure kit perspective, it has a shitload of stickers and its tiny feet can't support its huge shoulders, let alone the Samus aran arm cannon. Add Shaddick's discount Utena villain status and you have a perfect flop.
Honeslty if you busted out the Green Stuff how hard would it be to unfrick the feet to give some stability? Or even just gluing on some 'cheat' transparent plastic extensions onto the front section of the foot for stability assistance
Am I in a shopping center or my own building? I might just fricking give them away to everybody that walks past, with a free set of tools if I have to so they come back and buy something else later
Granted in saying this I might be underestimating volume, i'm not all that familiar with large stores
If you're a large department store that has hundreds of stores you probably have like 50,000 Michaelis
Oh yeah I wouldn't do that then, i'm pretty new and the only store I have been too is a little thing in a shopping center which could probably pull off just giving them and a set of tools away
The Michaelis is shit. It looks like a mook level Soldat from Cold Steel.
>Also, ITT we remember the plamo and figure tragedies, the guardian deities of the shelves.
Basically happened to SEED Gunpla several times. From what I can remember:
>Buster Gundam stock in excess; so much so the execs stepped in and demanded Dearka join the Archangel in the hopes of selling more kits. Problem was that Buster's design kind of limited how much action it could get on-screen too, which didn't help.
>Duel Gundam also somewhat of a shelf-warmer, but sold more than the Buster. IIRC, feedback was more over how boring the design was, but Yzak had a sizable fanbase (for a side character; moreso when the bit about Shiho came out later).
>Blitz became a shelf warmer when he died. Still sold more than Buster though.
>The Extended Trio's MS also became shelf warmers, not selling many Gaia, Chaos, or Abyss compared to Impulse and Saviour.
Then there's that whole bit about how SEED character figures, OSTs, and everything BUT SEED Gunpla merchandise were selling so well that Bandai was weirdly upset by it.
Wasn't that because of SEED having a rather large female audience who ate up character goods instead of Gunpla?
Yea apparently something about Kira and Athrun apparently made every Japanese chick just find them to be sexiest thing ever although I don't know if they ever latched onto the Wing Boys as much as they did with those two dorks.
I will literally never understand Kira's popularity.
Standard overpowered protagonist
I guess. There's something annoying about how in a franchise filled with so many leads that try something more interesting and challenging and even succeed a lot of the time, it's complete slop that rises to the top of the pile. Turns out what Gundam really needed all along was to take less cues from Gundam.
I supposed I do understand it, I'd just rather not.
I presume it was the fact they could easily slap him into a yaoi ship with Athrun because apparently there's sexual tension there according to them (I don't understand those people so I don't get it)
But Kira just was so bland but Seed always felt kinda bland and paint by numbers at times.
I bet he doesn't even like Jazz
It’s two things. Either people like him because he’s a “nice guy” who spares his enemies (at least the small fry) and wants to protect the world even though it’s a massive shithole or they like him because he’s a overpowered blank slate that they can easily project themselves onto without much conflict. He’s meant to be the CE version of Amuro but Amuro has very blatant flaws in character and can be abrasive and difficult whereas Kira never gets worse than being a douchebag to his supposed friend one time of which he is forgiven for.
If my anecdotal experience here in Tokyo is to go by - does anyone have that Shinn/Kira comic where Shinn takes his dates to trailer parks and how Kira is such a gentleman? Because I think it's basically that.
>offer my umbrella to a qt
>eh uh uhhh why oh my gosh such gentleman
>pick her up from work
>eeehhh oh my gosh no one ever do this omg kyaa so romantic
>get her some flowers
>omg so romantic make me pregnant ASAP
A lot of these Japs are deprived of romance/affection. Not all, but definitely a lot. I know married couples who only see each other once a week at most, maybe once every 2 weeks, and apparently it's not unusual.
The West has a boner for Heero who has a dysfunctional relationship with just about everyone in Wing. Does that mean Westoids project their failed marriages and hookups to him?
More of the HG Gundam SEED line sucking ass over anything.
Compare the HGCE Freedom to the original HG Freedom and it is night and day.
You know that's got me wondering when Bandai's eventually going to feel like spinning up HGAS. I'm sure they will one day but that day might be like, 20 years unless there's some gigantic leap in gunpla tech.
They were about as shit as most other HGs from that time and earlier. It's only really with 00 that AU HGs started to get decent(and even then mostly with season 2 as the season 1 kits were inconsistent).
SEED had a massive fanbase; for a time, it even exceeded that of UC in terms of popularity and interest (which supposedly is another reason Bandai and Sunrise tried to limit SEED materials when it was taking away from their flagship UC). Sure, a female fanbase was a sizable part of it, what with all the Yaoi fics and even Yaoi doujins going on involving Kira/Athrun and Yzak/Dearka, but there was also a notable male fanbase who were lusting over many of the SEED girls more than they were the Gunpla.
>a notable male fanbase who were lusting over many of the SEED girls more than they were the Gunpla.
Not that hard to understand, Seed was the first gundam for most of the millennial. And for once, the girls in Seed were all charming and more real than the girl in the previous or at that time mecha franchise. You have Murrue, Flay, Lacus, etc that hit all the waifu tropes. Other gundam female characters are either scheming butthole, doormats useless bridge bunnies or annoying kids
It's weird how little I see this discussion. Witch from Mercury arguably treats its women worse than Seed did and it has two female leads. Seed really does stand out with how much power is put behind the women.
Except SEED kills its b***hes in cold blood. WFM didn't even have the guts to show the lardo die.
Killing b***hes in cold blood is a kind of respect.
I guess they were just copying Wing because I don't recall any women dying in that.
I actually remember seeing on hong kong news one night over 20 years ago where they talked about gunpla in Japan and I remember seeing footage of huge piles of kits and they were stuff like GINNs and a bunch of other seed stuff. I would assume it was about how so much gunpla went unsold but I was so young at the time, maybe it was all a fever dream.
>Then there's that whole bit about how SEED character figures, OSTs, and everything BUT SEED Gunpla merchandise were selling so well that Bandai was weirdly upset by it.
What? That's blatantly false? Seed had GIGANTIC gunpla sales. Before Aerial from Witch from Mercury had all these massive Bandai cited sales reports that was the Strike Gundam, which had sooo many god damn models and variants created in such a short time. Why do westerners question why China gets a Freedom Gundam statue? Because Gundam Seed is China's first Gundam. Seed is massively popular in most of Asia And it's why SEED gets the majority of bootleg Gundam merchandise.
Time to re-live the times where the NG 1/144 Chaos were sold at 50 Yen and the 1/60 Force Impulse was at a clearance of 1000 Yen (MSRP was 5000 Yen + tax), thank God that Wayback Machine exists for this.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190330171541/http://www.geocities.jp/bachaos50/index.html
He is more on about how Gunpla of other less important suits didn't sell than main character units in general, but there were some extreme cases of trying to clear out unsold Gunpla.
Holy frick, this is probably why they gave the Strike Dagger the P-Bandai treatment and Bucue as Robot Damashii. Everyone was at fault here.
At least they did a Strike Dagger kit in the end.
>execs stepped in and demanded Dearka join the Archangel
Wow, seriously? It's shocking that executive meddling ended up with a good change.
The Michaelis is a cool design I don't get why it doesn't sell. Yeah Shaddiq is a pathetic nothing character but that doesn't stop the GP01 and 3 from selling
Because the majority of people who came into G-Witch associate the character with the mecha. So buying that mecha=your support of that character.
This is also true for SEED. Strike/Freedom/Strike Freedom sold a lot initially when their first kits came out because of those middleschooler/high schooler fascination with with Kira Yamato
You make it sound like a millennial/zoomer thing when boomers would buy anything that has Char custom on the box.
Why is that generational? If you're a person that likes the character you'll buy stuff of the character. So of course people would buy Char stuff if they like Char
Genuinely infuriating that it's easier to get Char customs of some MS than the grunt versions.
Because not everyone who's a UC fattie will care about Shin Matsunaga or Jack Bayard. Johnny Ridden is also pushing it despite having a modernish manga about him.
Hey it's not even about side story heroes for me, I just like my grunt suits.
surprised no one has any of the pics of that kyoukai senki b***h that no one liked piling up in stores
Wing RG and an Aerial at my Target along with Universe figures. Gundam merch sells here surprisingly.
Target didn't start stocking up on Gunpla until the 2020's right? I remember when I still lived in the US, they never had these pre-pandemic.
target has an exclusive HG granddaddy gundam kit, so there's at least some demand for them. also picked up an aerial kit of all things from the local target, which is something I wasn't expecting to see
I haven't been to a target in years I wonder if you could see one here in australia
maybe at the real big stores in the middle of the larger eastern cities, I think target in American is a more general purpose store in general than it is here though
Target Australia isn't actually affiliated with the US company, despite the similarities in branding. Both registered the names and logos around the same time.
Ah I see, I guess that's why I always hear about stuff selling there I wouldn't expect to see here
Now for the hobby shop at the bad side of town. Nice place.In terms of KS shit they have a Shion, a Stork, and an ASC truck. Going to share more, lots of gunpla that were not here a few months back.
This is more of a train and RC place, but kits do sell. Boats sell here too quite well.
And for new KS kits, just a Kenbu Zan and a Jogan Kai, these were not here last I came.
Last pic for today, Zoids gays might enjoy this one.
>Xi, Penelope, and Nightingale on the same shelf almost side by side
I wish I could reach out through this image and just grab them.
>Garuda gear beluga
buy shit ASAP if it's actually "special priced"
also nuts seeing an AUG on the shelves without 5 or more A-tolls collecting dust next to it
>blue logo on a 1.5 rx
it should illegal for bandai to reprint such an outdated and "redundant" kit when the OYW ver. Anime exists
>All these Hexa Gear kits
Motherfricker I wish I was there. Luckily they don't seem to be popular outside of Japan but I wish I had direct access to them
>go to my local Ace Hardware for miscellaneous house shit
>they have a small hobby train & plastic model section pushed off in the corner
>it's fricking stocked with at least 2 of every HG from WfM, a ton of other gunpla, and they're all priced lower than everywhere online
>walked out with Aerial, Aerial Rebuild, Lfrith, ChuChu's Demi Trainer, Pharact, and the Flight Pack for $65.
Good lord, what a find. I'm jeaous.
"Boats" was a little misleading, it's a catchall term I use for battleships/aircraft carriers/submarines/etc type models.
like this
The story is affecting the sales!
Immagine the shop owner didn't keep up with the latest episode of mercury witch and the shop gone bankrupt
imagine buying Gunpla based on the characters
They have to earn my respect (money), dipshit.
Drill holes in them.
God I love 30mm kits so much but I can't justify buying them over a kit that had a cool anime scene and a pilot that makes me question my sexuality
actually, Zeta ver Ka is not selling that well in stores.
hobby stores I know have lots of stock of Zeta ver Ka. the only hype was in the first shipment, but right now, it has a worse sell-through rate compared to MGEX Strike Freedom
>Assembly Model Gift for Boyfriend
Kek, do Peenoise really? How does this make it enticing to buy?
I think I've seen some listings from this "seller".
I'm reasonably certain it's not legit.
If it isn't a bot listing, it's probably a bootleg.
Me again! Dropped by the local Barnes and Noble while waiting for Indy 5. Small Gundam stuff like those 4 inch tiny kits sell well (shelf currently has a Rick Dias and a Sazabi) and Gubdam Universe (00 Raiser shown but there's also a pair of Sazabis and a Full Burnen from 0083). But what we're talking about are the two The Os, they have been sitting here for FOUR MONTHS; there was three at first but I bought one when they were first shelved. The Heavyarms one wasn't here two weeks ago when I was killing time for a ahowing for The Flash (and thanks to Funko Pops the twist villain got spoiled for me). Looks like Scirrocco ain't sellin' here.
I swear this place sold more gunpla until around last year, new releases since Build Divers showed up here like crazy (randomly and no PGs but still).
>There is a place on Earth where AMAIM sells more than Zeta Gundam
Where the hell are these stores if you're comfortable sharing?
Great Lakes region, very industrial area with a high amount of armed forces veterans. Economic times have been slowly getting worse for the better part of 15 years.
Why do these places always have RG Exias?
a contest! buy the michaelis, build it. whoever is able to make it look the most awesome wins a years supply of gunpla where they get 1 copy of every hg release that year from bandai. the finished gunpla will all be display in store and winner decided by vote of the store's visitors
>tfw French
>Gunplas are fricking hell to find here beside buying on the net
There's a weeb focused shop opening in my hometown, 100% it won't have any fricking gunpla
It's weird considering France love japanese stuff including mechas.
Don't you have an actual Bandai sponsored store in Paris? Though I wouldn't risk my life there willingly.
I don't know, i'm not parisian and most of non Parisians really fricking hate Parisians.
Must be nice having somewhere to actually buy gunpla at only hobby shop near me only sells military/car models (and their selection on that is shit these days), 40k shit, board games and table top shit, and rcs. Oh and tcgs but their stock is usually worse than just buying online or at the local wally world so I don't even bother going to them for that anymore.
Only time I've been able to buy gunpla in person was when I was I'm Vegas last year and decided to take a break from all the casino shit to check out a hobby shop in person for shits and giggles.
You're living at some flyover state aren't you? If you lived in the coasts, there's going to be at least one decent shop.
I can't speak for assurance her, but a lot of products offer a certain buy back on unsold merchandise so it's possible anything that can't be discounted and flipped can be shipped back to the factory
I would love a rg thunderbolt