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Ah, the enigmatic Graham just refined his hint, so thought we might as well open up a new thread to discuss it.

For one thing, we know it can't be Macross or Votoms. I don't think it's gonna be Orguss since Graham mentioned that another company is doing some Orguss stuff already.

It's gotta make 'a lot of Macrossworlders happy' so it should be something we're familiar with. I personally would have wanted Mospeada mecha like the Mospeada itself or even better the Alpha fighters (lots of repaint possibilities on that one too ;) so it would make sense from a practical standpoint.

Hmmm...

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Alright you Robotech nuts, if you're going to say you want Mospeada toys at least use the Mospeada names for those toys. Hmmm, maybe I'm being anal...

I would LUV Mospeada toys. Yes, I want a Legioss and a Tread and all the Ride Armors.

If ain't Mospeada, I probably ain't gonna buy it. I have a hard enough time just keeping up with the Macross stuff.

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Mospeada, from my understanding, was neither a real hit nor a failure. It came and went and developed a decent enough fan base. This was at a time though when toy companies were over-extending themselves and hoping to make fortunes on every show and Mospeada did not warrant that kind of investment so many people consider that a failure. Gakken certainly didn't get rich off Mospeada... in fact it may have chased them back to the book industry! Unfortunately, my knowledge of 80s Japanese shows outside of Robotech's original series is pretty limited so I'll keep pulling for Mospeada.

Edited by jenius
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Um... guys... how can it be Mospeada? Doesn't everyone's favorite punkass bitch Harmony Gold hold exclusive worldwide rights to all Mospeada things? Why would they grant Yamato, an apparent rival in the Macross toy department, licensing rights to make Mospeada things?

If I'm wrong somebody correct me here.

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Um... guys... how can it be Mospeada? Doesn't everyone's favorite punkass batty Harmony Gold hold exclusive worldwide rights to all Mospeada things? Why would they grant Yamato, an apparent rival in the Macross toy department, licensing rights to make Mospeada things?

Here's the deal, HG does hold the rights to Mospeada inside and outside of Japan. For all intents in purposes though they're just a rights holder. Yamato is NOT competition to HG, they're competition to Toynami. Toynami does NOT hold any exclusive licensing deals with HG meaning that HG is free to also grant Mospeada production rights to any other toy company as they see fit (kind of like BW does with Macross).

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I'd love Mospeada toys, since Toynami's Legioss/Alpha toys were disappointing (and I'm normally a Toynami defender). I don't know how worthwhile it is to parse Graham's wording closely, but in my view, Mospeada would not be referred to as a 'popular' anime in Japan (some would say it was a failure, some would say it did ok, but I've not heard anyone say it was very popular). But, like I say, parsing the words so closely is probably a waste of time - 'popular' is an ambiguous term (for example, 'popular music' refers to a lot of stuff that ain't so popular), and maybe he just meant 'popular in America'.

That said, new Dorvack toys would also rock, as would new Orguss toys. This is good news almost any way you cut it, assuming that the shoulders on whatever-it-is don't immediately break :p

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And they hold those rights for Macross too. Didn't stop Yamato Valks from getting out.

The rights are for anywhere OUTSIDE of Japan.

I think.

Nope, can't be Mospeada because as JS Arclight says HG has the rights tied up - even in Japan. Remember that their MPC alphas were actually released there as well.

I'd say it's Orguss. I know there are new smaller scale Orguss toys coming out from some other company, but that means nothing since in Japan they license based on scale. Just look at all the companies besides Yamato currently pumping out Votoms toys in different scales.

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Nope, can't be Mospeada because as JS Arclight says HG has the rights tied up - even in Japan. Remember that their MPC alphas were actually released there as well.

Why would HG having the rights be a problem? HG simply licenses companies. HG cannot license Yamato to make Macross Saga toys because of BW but since HG has universal rights to Mospeada they can license whoever they want. BW won't care about a Mospeada product... they have no right to. HG doesn't care about Macross products in Japan so they have no animosity toward Yamato.

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Why would HG having the rights be a problem? HG simply licenses companies. HG cannot license Yamato to make Macross Saga toys because of BW but since HG has universal rights to Mospeada they can license whoever they want. BW won't care about a Mospeada product... they have no right to. HG doesn't care about Macross products in Japan so they have no animosity toward Yamato.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Macross licensing mess were resolved in HG's favor (a big if admittedly) that we would see Yamato 1/48s and 1/60s being repackaged for US sale (either as Robotech or Macross). Yamato is a company that has proven they can make quality products. HG might not be able to sell their Macross products (although you can bet they wished they could) but why wouldn't they take the opportunity to have Yamato make high-quality toys for one of their undisputed properties?

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HG can't afford Yamato, they can barely afford Toynami. Yeah yeah I know, the toymaker pays for the rights to license the toys, but if it was that easy why haven't they pushed their products on the many other toy companies in the US?

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HG can't afford Yamato, they can barely afford Toynami. Yeah yeah I know, the toymaker pays for the rights to license the toys, but if it was that easy why haven't they pushed their products on the many other toy companies in the US?

Because they have a disputed license to (in the US) a third tier 80's cartoon show that has at best a small cult following? That's not exactly something to entice most US toy makers (especially for Macross/Macross saga merchandise which can't be sold in Japan). On the other hand international licensing for a show that has it's own small cult following in Japan in addition to the one it has here in the states, to a small boutique toy manufacturer with it's own cult following (both in Japan and in the states) makes a lot of sense. Honestly I'm surprised HG hasn't tried it before.

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HG doesn't care about Macross products in Japan so they have no animosity toward Yamato.

But they probably DO have some bad blood against Yamato with the whole Toycom (US Domestic arm of Yamato) Macross Plus toys thing in their mutual past. It might just be me but I'd think twice about giving a license to a company I had to C&D in the past and as Yamato I probably would not be asking for a license from a company that shut the door on me in the past. Plus HG has stated in quite bold terms that they hold Toynami's MPC line as their "Mospeada" toys for release in Japan. I would assume that would mean Toynami has been given HG's Japan license go ahead. Why would HG suddenly contract someone else to make very similar foreign market toys that directly compete with the other company they licensed? It makes no sense.

Yamato and HG "teaming up" on anything in the near future just seems way too hard to swallow.

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At any rate if Toynami did get the Japanese Mospeada toy rights as reported, they would have gone to (at the time of annoucement) Tatsunoko not HG, HG still only have the outside Japan rights.

But makes me wonder if they still have those rights as we only ever saw Mospeada boxed Superposables, no MPC Alphas in Japan, which could be another sign that Toynami have "discovered" that Mospeada/New Gen doesn't sell enough in their opinion to be profitable or even break even on production costs to justify further releases anywhere...

As I said, what's life without hope?

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At any rate if Toynami did get the Japanese Mospeada toy rights as reported, they would have gone to (at the time of annoucement) Tatsunoko not HG, HG still only have the outside Japan rights.

I thought Tatsunoko doesn't even exist anymore. I'm pretty sure HG's Mospeada rights are global either way. Then again, I haven't ever been to Japan so I have no idea whether or not MPC Alphas exist there. It might be an issue where Toynami has no inroads with Japanese retailers (heck, Toynami has no inroads with American retailers).

I would assume that would mean Toynami has been given HG's Japan license go ahead. Why would HG suddenly contract someone else to make very similar foreign market toys that directly compete with the other company they licensed? It makes no sense.

Ignoring the Toycom thing for a moment, assuming HG does have Japanese Mospeada rights (if they don't, I imagine no one does... and if no one does I imagine HG would get them...). You possess the rights to the likeness of characters from a cartoon... that's not worth anything unless people are making merchandise for it. Now, one company says "hey, we'll give you 5 cents for every toy we sell from that cartoon you got." You say, "GREAT, deal." Now, another company says "We'll also give you 5 cents for every toy we make." Do you say "No, we already made a deal with someone" or do you say "GREAT, deal." Since Toynami's license doesn't appear to be exclusive (also somewhat of an assumption but it's what an HG person apparently said at one of dem SC talkabouts) then it really behooves HG to make a deal with any company willing to produce toys that won't tarnish the license. The only reason HG would care about the new company competing with Toynami is if they had a deal where they received smaller royalties from another company and there was evidence that other company's products would dampen sales of the first company. Since Toynami is apparently dead in the water it really makes perfect sense to give another company a chance to run with it.

What's key to remember is that Toynami is not HG. Now, whether or not HG is heavily invested in Toynami is another question (i've tried to find out to no avail but got rumors that the answer was "not heavily invested.") So, if HG's only interest in Toynami is a revenue stream from toy royalties and HG develops an opportunity to create a second revenue stream (even if isolated to Japan depending on licensing issues) it makes sense for them to go with it. A good example is BigWest with Yamato, Banpresto, Bandai, Kaiyodo and whatever other companies make Macross toys. BigWest didn't shut people down because one company was licensed already.

Yamato and HG "teaming up" on anything in the near future just seems way too hard to swallow.

Except that HG does sell the Garland and reportedly try to ink a deal to sell Valks before Bandai and BW ixnayed it (man, am I just the rumor man today or what??).

EDIT - No, i don't think Yamato is working on Mospeada products... I just think it's possible that someday something could be worked out... but I'm sure Yamato has plenty of other things they could focus on.

Edited by jenius
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