Tamashii Nations Interview

Behind the Marketing Curtain - SDCC 2024

July 26, 2024

Ormond-Bryne 'OB': Chief of Promotions Team Collectors Division.

Interview by The Articulation Series

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Figures; they move us to the core. Cool, fun, amazing, scary, sorrowful... The feelings we get from figures can change from moment to moment, but the one thing they all have in common is soul — or tamashii. Tamashii Nations is a place for products with tamashii instilled by Japanese master craftsmen. Based in Asakusa, Tokyo, we make fully-assembled figures for collectors, as a division of Japan's top toymaker, Bandai. Fifteen years have passed since the brand was established in 2007, and the products are now sold in twenty-six countries around the world. Moved by our love for figures and characters, we pursue a uniqueness that cannot be found elsewhere by bringing tamashii to the world.

THE ARTICULATION SERIES (TAS): I am here at the Bandai Tamashii Nations booth at SDCC 2024 with OB, who flew all the way from Japan to share his love for the brand and all things toys with the good people here at SDCC 2024. OB, would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?

OB: Absolutely. I’m OB and I am the head Chief of Promotions Team. Some people may know me out there; I run a lot of our social media channels, but primarily in charge of anime properties like Bleach, Naruto, and Dragonball. I've been with the company for about eight years now. I'm happy to be here to just chat and answer your questions about our brand.

TAS: Great! I wanted to know, how expansive is it within Tamashii Nations? Are there many divisions and teams? How does it work juggling so many franchises?

OB: So, and this is different for all divisions within the company, but to give an example, I work for the collector’s division, which is Tamashii Nations. The way we sort of divvy up the workload is by franchise or by licensor. I work with Studio PR, who makes Naruto and Bleach which means I will cover everything that's statues, minifigures, Proplica, and S.H.FiguArts.

TAS: How involved are licensors when it comes to creating depictions of their characters?

OB: The licensor is involved through the whole production process, from concept through production and even marketing. Each licensor has very specific rules about what can or can’t be done including what characters can be made into figures, statues, use of graphics, accessories, everything really to do with their characters. Sometimes products rely on the licensors time schedule. Just a really quick example, Deadpool & Wolverine just came out in cinemas recently. We’re required to time that with the movie release; we can’t do things in advance. So, the movie released in Japan earlier than the United States. However, the licensor only allows us to release all the information in Japan. Then we had to wait two days before we could solicit in the United States through Bandai Namco Collectibles, even though it's already online and everyone globally has seen it. So, this is an example of the licensor being involved every step of the way.

TAS: It sounds like there’s a difference in regional marketing at play due to licensor agreements. Is it common to have that information locked behind Japan for a certain amount of time and then release to United States? Or is it in the case of movie tie-ins?

OB: It can go both ways. It's definitely a very Japanese way of business. They have a tendency to forget that there's stuff beyond Japan going on. So, information is generally solicited there first. That said, one of the big things I’ve been doing is trying to get everything out worldwide at the same time, as much as we can control it. A very small thing that some people may have noticed in the past year or so is that Tamashii Nations now releases information 10 AM in Japan, which is 6 PM Pacific in the United States, whereas we used to release at 4 PM in Japan and it would be 2 AM Pacific in the United States. And that was just something I brought up to department heads--like, fans are overseas as well. So little improvements get made here and there.

TAS: With S.H.MonsterArts, news tends to drop on a Wednesday or Thursday at 4 PM to 6 PM towards the end of the month. Beats staying up until 2AM to post news, so thank you for having that adjusted!

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OB: Yeah, absolutely. There are so many fans around the world and we want to try to make it more accessible for them.

TAS: Regarding figure production to solicitation, to hitting store shelves, how far in advance does that process start, generally speaking?

OB: This depends on the character and their overall design/engineering. For S.H.FiguArts the minimum would be a year in advanced before hitting store shelves. To break this down for everyone, information comes out, on average, four months before it hits store shelves in Japan. That's a good eight months into the process. So, if we started something in January, information about it will start coming out around August. And say there is a movie tie-in figure, people may think, wow hey got on that IP really fast. But in reality, we've known about this movie years in advance thanks to the licensor’s involvement. And the head of each department here, they fight really hard for accurate references like 3D data, if it’s available, and 2D production materials because they’re trying to make the best figure they can and one that the fans will enjoy. This is particularly something S.H.MonsterArts really tries to do. I can't exaggerate how helpful the people over at Toho have been at really getting together with us and talking about the specific details. The directors from the films come in and give us feedback. Other people who were involved in these movies come in and give us feedback just to really get it as accurate as possible. For recent movie tie-ins, all of this happens way before the movie comes out, so it can be tricky if elements are changed in the movie later on.

TAS: It sounds like you’ve had your own interactions with Toho & Legendary, what was that like?

OB: My involvement isn’t too deep. I've done a bit of translation work between them. This goes way back to the first legendary Godzilla movie, I got to meet the director, Gareth, and show him around the toys on display at Tokyo Comic-Con as well. They’re great people to work with though.

TAS: Regarding obtaining reference materials used for figure production, sometimes solicitations will either say “using various reference materials” or “based on the 3D data”. Could you elaborate on who decides which assets are utilized?

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OB: It all comes down to the licensor and how much they're cooperating with the whole process, including materials like 3D data, if it’s even available at the time we start working on the figure. An interesting thing I want to share is that people think, oh, you got the CG so it should be perfect, one to one. But CAD data for 3D doesn't work the same way as a 3D object. Also, when you shrink something down from a giant asset, a lot of detail gets lost. So, we have to decide what to highlight. So, even if 3D data is available, sculptors and licensors will keep working and keep checking. It's a lot of back and forth.

TAS: Tamashii Nations has their own planning teams, R&D, etc. But does a licensor, like Toho or Legendary, ever approach Tamashii Nations to have characters made?

OB: For a company like Toho and a brand like Godzilla, we've been working with them for years now. They approach us a lot with “this is what we are planning and this movie's coming out or this anniversary is coming up, and we would like you to make X character and X character”. We of course are like, cool, let’s do it. Maybe we can't do all of them. Maybe we can. There are internal variables to consider. But it’s always been a very cooperative process from the beginning all the way through. Our role is that we want to help promote these new figures that are coming. It's a lot of discussion about what's best for the brand and sometimes you don't know the what that response is going to be. For S.H.MonsterArts it takes more time compared to S.H.FiguArts. I wasn't involved with a lot of the Godzilla stuff, but I was involved with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and that took several years of back and forth before seeing it realized.

TAS: Since you mentioned Blue-Eyes White Dragon, I wanted to ask about marketing decisions or rules Tamashii Nations goes by when it comes to disclosing who crafted/supervised a figure. For example, for a lot of the Godzilla line, Yuji Sakai and Shinichi Wakasa are mentioned in product descriptions while some figures like the Blue-Eyes White Dragon or the Monster Hunter Series make no mentions of who sculpted them.

OB: Yeah, so there's two aspects to it. If it's a well-known individual involved, then that's great for marketing and we want to use that to let the customers know it’s coming from someone who’s really talented and passionate making these figures. But for those who don’t get mentioned, as talented as they are, some artists prefer their privacy. One thing that's become more common lately is they'll have a pen name. In this way, you'll never know who that person is, but they worked on figures X, Y, and Z. So yeah, that information will generally stay between them and Tamashii Nations.

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TAS: You mentioned you were involved with Blue-Eyes White Dragon; do you know if those figures are hand sculpted or do they utilize 3D data?

OB: I'm not entirely 100% on this, but I've seen the reference material, and I know there is some stuff by hand in there.

TAS: Last year when I spoke with Tamashii Nations I asked about the best way to relay Western feedback and the answer was to engage with official social media channels. Is that still the best way for fans to offer feedback?

OB: Yes. As I mentioned earlier, Japan business can be very focused on Japan only, at times, and there's a tendency to forget about overseas fans. As an example, they kind of just assume if we publish materials on our website and it's auto-translated, things will be fine. Which at times a lot of information can fall through the cracks. So, one of the things I've really done to push for is getting more content up on social media at the same time when solicitation in Japan occurs. This way our overseas fans can get the latest info in English and communicate their thoughts as product drops. For those curious, our main Instagram channel is InsTamashii and that is completely and solely run by myself. I've been pushing for a team, but for now it's a one man show there. That said, I’ve observed that it’s done a really good job of helping get information out there for people and receiving feedback.

TAS: We see product surveys posted online as a figure is released or even through social media channels periodically. How effective are these in deciding what’s next?

OB: One of the big things we use for getting information has been through surveys. Department heads of research and development are actually really, really attentive to what fans are saying. They love to get as much information back as possible, so please continue to participate in them when you can.

TAS: When it comes to R&D researching what's popular like what's the greatest thing and what’s best for the brand, are there other influences involved beyond fan feedback and surveys?

​OB: This is actually interesting because it's very licensor involved. Each IP has different aspects in how it’s communicated. With Godzilla, they're very cooperative and they’ll come to us and say, we think this monster would be a great toy for the S.H.MonsterArts line. Then there are the lines where nothing's moving and we've never worked with X company before. For example, a recent one is the Berserk line. That came to fruition due to the passion of a person who was the head of R&D at the time. She basically went up to our boss and pitched it saying “I know we can do this. I know we can knock it out of the park. I know it's going to be great… Can you let me approach the licensor and make a pitch to them?” And they're like, “All right, if you think this is a good idea.” So, she did and things moved forward and it did really well, and the fans seem to love it. So that's why that line is expanding and more stuff on the way that's going to be very exciting.

TAS: That’s really cool. So, it sounds like the licensor offers their input first and feedback from surveys comes second?

OB: It’s a complex answer. It depends on the R&D person and the IP involved. There may be similarities in how things are done, but there’s also a lot difference between departments. For example, with the Naruto line, the guy in charge of that never read Naruto before he became the head of it. So, he spent hours, days, and months reading and watching the series, getting to know the story and character. He talked a lot with the creators. Some of the licensed characters actually needed approval from the original mangaka himself. But even through all of that, because he didn't have that passion that fans have, we did tons of surveys. He wanted to know what characters do you want to see. What kind of parts you want in this figure. So, a lot of the feedback was like, we want more of this and more of that. Which was great, but we had to figure out a balance because all of that would just blow out the price to ridiculous proportions. Factory capacity is another problem and what you can and can’t fit inside the box. So, things had to be narrowed down; hands, faces, and effects. Since that was done, I can say that the entire lineup now is basically based on what the community gave back to us with their feedback.

TAS: That’s quite insightful! It’s refreshing to know that the surveys are being looked at and fan input taken into consideration.

OB: Yeah, like I said earlier, it depends on the person in charge of a line. The head of the Dragonball line has a very clear vision that he's planned out with all the companies involved, so there are less surveys involved with that line. The person in charge of the Godzilla line is very attentive on what people are saying, and he's the one who set up the survey for SDCC. Know that he'll definitely take that information to heart. He's a great guy in general and passionate about those characters as well.

TAS: That’s great to hear! I wanted to talk about accessories. When it comes to inclusions, who decides that? Does the licensor dictate on what can or can’t be included or is there more freedom for Tamashii Nations to pitch ideas?

OB: It goes both ways actually. But at the same time, it's complicated and more nuanced than you would think. It can be approached from the licensor or our R&D development teams based on fan feedback. But also, sometimes accessories can even be impacted by the law in a certain country where selling a figure isn't allowed to have a certain type of effect part. So, certain characters may not be packaged with weapons like guns or in something that’s a key part to a character. The character Bleach, for example. His transformation is called the “Bankai” that's made with the kanji symbol, which is the Manji, which looks like a reversed Swastika. So even though it’s a part of the franchise, we can’t use anything of that anywhere, unfortunately.

TAS: Wow. I don’t follow Bleach so I didn’t know this was a thing. But it’s fascinating to see how something like that can affect inclusions. Well on that note, lets close out with this. Is there anything that you want to particularly share about your experiences at Tamashii Nations and in the business of how collectibles are made?

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OB: One thing that I feel that doesn't get across enough… Japanese companies have a tendency to be kind of faceless, like it's a cold corporation or there's no representative. There’s probably not as much transparency as you would like, but it's definitely a company made of fans and people who love what they do, who love the community, and who grew up with toys. So much that they're just geeking out at San Diego Comic-Con and buying all the other people's stuff that they all love. There's a lot of passion that goes into it. It may feel like a whole company is trying to just grab some cash off of a franchise, but it really isn't. The guy who's in charge of Godzilla right now, he loves it and if he could he would be doing it for the rest of the life. We just want to make the best stuff we can for everyone. Feedback is super important through surveys. If you can’t participate in surveys, then your best option after that is to comment on our socials like Instagram. I personally round up all of the comments and I make regular reports back to R&D. So please, continue sharing your thoughts.

TAS: Thank you so much for taking time to share a little insight about how things are approached when it comes to licensor involvement, R&D feedback, marketing, and everything toys at Tamashii Nations.

OB: Absolutely. I had a great time as well. It was a pleasure!

TAS: Thank you so much, OB!

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