>>10489654The factories are in china and the companies are in Japan. If you buy straight from Japan, you cut out the American middleman and can get the toys faster and cheaper. If you buy straight from China you can get it even cheaper, but you run the risk of being robbed.
Also American toy stores/websites need to estimate how many units they want to purchase before they have accurate pre-order numbers, meaning sometimes they don't have a large enough allocation to satisfy all their pre-orders and have to cancel some of them.
There are also distributors that give preferential treatment to Japanese retailers and will under allocate the international market so that the Japanese Salary man doesn't have to suffer empty toy isles on his way home from work (Bandai's 30 Minute Sisters distribution is completely fucked internationally for this reason).
