What happened to MSIA?

Became a dodo due to a lot of reasons, though one is the collapse of the gundam market here in the US back in about 2004~2005.

Most American kids only bought action figures and back then Bandai flooded the market with them in response. However as with all fads, the demand died quickly while the supply was overwhelming and what happened is that you had a SHITLOAD of figures sitting in shelves and inventory.

Couple that with poor DVD and VHS sales and it helped nail the coffin for most of Bandai America in mid 2000's.

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It got replaced with Robot Damashii.

>>13775675
Bull shit. The only figures I remember seeing were those awful clown gundam ones. We never got the good ones.

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When sales dropped, the toyline over-extended itself and died.

>>13775741
I only ever saw the Deathscythy, 01, and Heavyarms here. Of course I bought all three. I didn't even know there were other figures until I moved to another state. A friend of mine in another state only saw Rose Gundam, Bolt Gundam, and Taurus Gundam.

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>>13775731
Somewhat, though MSIAs were cheaper and be outright played with as toys and not as "collectibles" (I know, I know there's hardly any distinction between them and it's semantics)
with the Arch Enemy series being meant more for serious collectors.

There were also a pause of a couple of years when the MSIA line ended and the RD line hasn't been introduced yet a transtition period perhaps where Bandai figured there's really more profits to be made on smaller scale production and collectibles.

>>13775731
Not really. RD is a much higher end series of collectors' figures for the Japanese fans with limited production whereas MSIA was aimed at kids who could reasonably drop like 15-20 bucks on a toy every once in a while.

>>13775741
Quite indeed, I never got the ones I wanted as well. That being said, what ever there was available, it's there (ie the supply was there) but not exactly in demand.

>>13775762
>There were also a pause of a couple of years when the MSIA line ended and the RD line hasn't been introduced
Look at that picture. The last MSiAs were 00 S1 and the first RDs were 00 S2.

They moved upmarket and into multiple series because one semi-cheap Gundam line wasn't working anymore. (you can see the various experiments with EMSiA)

>>13775772
I don't think the Extended MSIA were ever marketed to the general public here in the US, they certainly weren't available back then in Amazon either.

>>13775772
Oh and incidentally a couple leftover MiA (Zudah and Nadleeh) still snuck out after RDs were already around.

There was also the brief Offshoot in Action line around about a year before and after but that pretty much became Knightmare Frame in Action.(despite RD only being Side MS, Side KMF, and Side LFO for the first year)

>>13775741
Everything from G got released. They were just released in waves. The Shuffle Alliance Gundams were in the first wave. The problem with G is that only Domon got an upgraded suit. So when God got released the other 4 main characters could only have Hyper Modes released. So the market got flooded with shit like Jester Gundam and a ton of Hyper Modes.

>>13775798
If they had cut out most of the G suits they would have got at least a couple of years more sales and maybe would have ended up with a small continuing presence in stores to this day.

>>13775753
i like those zaku proportions. hands are a bit big though

>>13775798
>>13776339
really they should have spaced out the cooler G suits better, like only 1 Shuffle Alliance member per wave, would have probably helped long term sales

also it really sucks that MSIA is dead, it's probably the single greatest action figure line ever in terms of overall quality

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About a year ago I found the Burning Gundam with Fuun Saiki for $20 in a variety store. They're very nice figures, though the beam sabers are a bit flimsy.

>>13775798
To this day, I kind of kick myself for not picking up the Heaven's Sword fig when I had the chance.

Did not last long on shelves compared to things like Matador.

>>13775753
Is it just me, or does the first Zeta look a lot better than the second.

>>13779156
It does. Personally also preferring the first version of the Zaku II to the second.

>>13779156
>>13779347
EMSIA isn't a first version, it's a fancier subline.

I wish more shit would have used those Zaku feet instead of the fucking ankle shitshow every Zaku until like HG Origin was.

>>13779156
>>13779347
EMSIA really was something else. it completely retained the playability of the MSIA, was still pretty affordable, but improved almost every single aspect of the line. I have the G3 and it's really fun to play. The butter smooth joints feel so good.

I'm pretty sure in another alternate universe, Bandai would have tried pushing it a little harder and RD would never have had to exist.

>>13775767
>RD is a much higher end series of collectors' figures for the Japanese fans with limited production whereas MSIA was aimed at kids who could reasonably drop like 15-20 bucks on a toy every once in a while.

This.

I hated the MSIA line because the detailing and proportions were so shitty, they looked horrible compared to 1/144 gunpla.

I would like to bring up the Gundam Fix toyline here. I loved these because of the quality jump upward from the MSIA. I know a lot of people do not like the Gundam Fix line of toys because they are VERY fragile...... and this is true. I never had a problem with this, though. I do not play with the toys I collect. I want a really good display piece. To each his own. But I loved the Gundam Fix line, even with the higher price.

Bandai could see people wanted the playability of the MSIA with the higher quality of the Gundam Fix, so out came... Robot Damashii. I am collecting this line, Im pretty impressed, so much so that between the Gundam Fix i have and the RDs I am getting, I stopped getting a lot of Gunpla.

>>13775762
That reminds me, I still have the Arch Enemy Wing Zero and Strike Gundam somewhere.

>>13780514
>I would like to bring up the Gundam Fix toyline here. I loved these because of the quality jump upward from the MSIA. I know a lot of people do not like the Gundam Fix line of toys because they are VERY fragile...... and this is true. I never had a problem with this, though. I do not play with the toys I collect. I want a really good display piece. To each his own. But I loved the Gundam Fix line, even with the higher price.
The FIX also have terrible range of motion and often have loose joints on the ones that have parts-swap transformations. They can't even be called action figures desu. They're basically just stand-art, you just have it stand with arms neutral to show off the color and detail and imagination of the designer. They're like art pieces.

The RD are actual high-end toys. They're durable and they often try to capture the look of the source material rather than showing of some original/novel interpretation like FIX.

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This was the coolest shit.

I still have mine

I used to have these toys. I had all of the Gundam W suits except for Sandrock

This was the hardest line to collect! The distribution was awful and you had to go almost everywhere to get it. Walgreens would have certain ones, Kmart had a variant etc. I worked in a neighbouring state a few days a week was the only reason I found most of them.

I sold off my collection when I moved to Hong Kong, most of mine went right back to Japan to a store owner. He paid $258 for my carded Real Type Guntank but he had a buyer shelling out ¥4K for it.

>>13783888
holy shit man. you should have gotten rid of the middleman.

And yep, pickings here in Houston was a mess as well back then.

Either go to Toy's r us or kbtoys