>>7933337>I'm comparing apples to apples.>western children's toys that cost $20 to japanese collector toys made for adults that cost $60 or more. Let me preface by saying I'm not being contrarian and I apologize if I sound patronizing.
Actually, you're comparing apples to oranges, because you neglect to take import cost into account. Consider a Hasbro Transformer that's about 20 bucks in the US, but is 3000 - 4000 yen in Japan, and that's before you count the shipping. Which would bring it to around that 60 dollar mark. And it's the exact same item.
That said, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. I'm a SEA-monkey, so both US and Japanese toys are imports to me. Until a few years ago, Figuarts, Figma etc were definitely better bang for my buck. A Figuarts around 2007 was just RM70. When Hasbro started coming out with ML, they were RM100 but the sculpts, articulations etc were no where comparable to Figuarts and Figma, especially when you considered the accessory count. Even when Figuarts climbed to the 120-150 range vs ML's 100, it still made sense to top up the equivalent of 5 USD for way more impressive articulation and sculpt.
Figuarts Kamen Rider Gaim (2014-2015) was only RM125, although by then, Figma was starting to be a bit too pricey and the Shinkocchou line was popping up. SRC were still okay as the cheap alternative to SOC, whose pricing had gotten so out of hand that the SRC had to be made.
Then boom, prices climbed steeply. Nowadays, Figuarts, Mafex and similar are in the RM300-400 range here. Meanwhile, Hasbro's keeping ML, Black Series etc at 130. And while Japanese quality remains more or less the same, Hasbro's improved their articulation and the face printing tech is so great that it can exceed the Japanese versions.
