Toy Stories Chapter 22: SprüKits

by Paul Fish | 16 Aug 2021

Industry Commentary, Op-Ed

If there is one thing that Bandai Japan can do better than anyone else on this planet, it's making poseable figural model kits. We took the incredible success of Gundam and brought it to licenses fans know and love in the west. And the product looked amazing, thanks to the skill of the Bandai Hobby group, and Daizo Uehara's design leadership. Special shout-out to Craig Drobis flexing his early stage social media skills in 2014! Toy Stories Chapter 22: SprüKits!

 

Bandai Headquarters in Japan wanted western markets into the Gundam business, but there still was only a small entertainment market for ultra-violent teen-targeted anime. Our answer: Action Figure models kits of properties kids in western markets know and love. Batman and Halo to start, with Pokemon soon to follow. Reaching agreement with the Bandai Hobby Group on product features had its challenges, and Daizo Uehara and I had to fly to Tokyo three times just to get the go-ahead, but the end product itself is amazing.  Great play value, great aesthetic poses. Craig Drobis did a great job photoing the product in cool poses and settings for social media. We had a lot of arguments on the name.  “It sounds German.” What’s bad about that?  “People don’t know what a ‘sprue’ is.” People don’t know what Lego means either, so Sprü Ü.

SprüKits Bandai ToyStories
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