My ire for P-Ban is when I see a unique mold, a completely original kit being P-Ban only. I was fine when it was just a colour swap and/or an extra weapon.

My problem with P-Bandai is the trend lately where Bandai has been putting kits on there that should be regular releases (Altron EW, Sandrock custom, Heavy Arms custom).

The "premium" is actually a surprise! (that is, a 'premium' on your wallet)

My guy they literally have an advertisement that says “at Premium Bandai we deliver only the highest quality items”

People need to understand Japanese business culture here. The Japanese care about the international market a lot less than their own domestic market. Premium Bandai is just a name they slapped on for products they know won’t sell domestically (like Endless Waltz) but they know would sell abroad. So they’re making them anyway at lower volumes (and therefore higher prices) because they know we’d still get them and they’d still make bank without sacrificing their domestic income from regular releases.

Premium Bandai...more like ...region locked

Honestly very fair and sound arguments, but when the Premium Bandai USA video promotes "the highest quality" You start to see the disconnect for the average consumer. It really should just be rebranded to another name, at least in english so that this misunderstanding is cleared up (i.e., Limited Bandai or something).

I think a big part of the misunderstanding is that Bluefin/P-Bandai US has been advertising P-Bandai as "premium quality items" lol

I've never felt the problem was the quality, the issue to me has been the gradual trend of P-Bandai just taking over and dominating the regular releases year after year. The recent shift to making wholly new kits as just P-Bandai is just greed, pure and simple, and indicates where the company wants to take things in the future. The MG F90 was a test and it worked wonders for P-Bandai. Despite getting reprinted a few times and with variations, it sells out every time. Also, at this point, if they're just gonna keep reprinting the F90, just make it a regular release kit.

People will really pay at least 2x the price for a Premium Bandai kit and complain they cost so much even though it’s just them getting scalped by scalpers

I guess "Limited Edition Bandai" doesn't sound good marketing wise

I never hated P Bandai for the price or quality, I never viewed the word “Premium” in the name to mean much but limited exclusive. What I dislike about it, is when brand new models are released in p Bandai. I always thought having recolors or slightly different weapons was fair, but then they put the Woundwort, Mudrock, go4 go5, the Pale rider, F90, and Gundam MK V and then I started to get annoyed because these are all designs that I feel I would like if I saw them on a shelf, and would buy it if they were a retail release. I’m sure it’s all boils down to profit.

Premium

P-Bandai is at it's most annoying when they release a kit that was clearly meant to be retail

To me, I really like the old premium bandai way where they sell only colour variants staying true to the meaning of premium bandai in japan where it's more to limited edition rather than actually being premium. I hate it when bandai makes new mold of the whole kit to sell as premium bandai bcs it makes it hard to collect for hardcore collectors

pbandai narrative gundam b-pack noped me the f out when i found out the 'gundam' is not actually included

It would be nice if they set up a proper distribution of anything in Europe so local sellers don't have to sell them at such ridiculous mark ups. The whole P-Bandai business model is still a horrible play on human psychology, Nintendo and Square-Enix like to pull the same bullshit as well.

That change in verbiage really helped me because it always bothered me that my P-Bandai purchases have been mostly lackluster when I went in expecting something "premium." "Can't even give me a manual in color??? Where's the 'premium'???"

If lego and anime figure companies (goodsmile, max factory) can ship worldwide, but p bandai is still limited to such a few countries, you know their service sucks. Literally just an easy way for resellers and proxies to profit.

I just wish P-Bandai would stick to color swaps and weapon packs. New kits and new designs should always be available on a larger scale. Kinda sucks when you see an awesome kit..get excited and then its like oh..its P-Bandai...never mind. If P-Bandai were a lot easier to get a hold of..or rather more shops carried them and I had a chance to preorder I probably wouldn't care as much.