[AOW] Guts Black Swords Man -The Spinning Cannon Slice

I own basically every Guts sculpt (it's basically all I buy) from AOW and I would of probably bought this if the price wasn't 100,000 yen.....for that kind of price I can't have any doubts. Like the rest of you the face brings up immediate concerns but that pose is just really strange. If no one told you it's the spinning hand cannon, you would just think wow that is a weird looking pose. Probably pass @ this pt.....saddens me to say.
 
sensui said:
I own basically every Guts sculpt (it's basically all I buy) from AOW and I would of probably bought this if the price wasn't 100,000 yen.....for that kind of price I can't have any doubts. Like the rest of you the face brings up immediate concerns but that pose is just really strange. If no one told you it's the spinning hand cannon, you would just think wow that is a weird looking pose. Probably pass @ this pt.....saddens me to say.

the statue is good imo but they really went overboard with this price ,this is just insane
and i completely agree with you on the pose
 

ZODDOII

BERSERK
Hand cannon has a lot of meaning for Berserk, and The Spinning Cannon Slice is one Mark of Berserk, so go for it~ Forget the price :troll: :troll: :magni:

Seriously i like AOW made this one,The pose is not so bad, but the face just same Guts20101/6 and Tentacle Ship, I can't believe it...... :casca:
 
Video is up, with the exclusive puck figurine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4FTsLMDLjE&list=UUUS7jCV2-cDqO4x3poNqg5A&index=1
 
Maybe its not even worth the effort, but I was thinking of sending AoW an email , expressing ( with all due respect) my opinion about this piece and their current practices.

Maybe if everyone did that. Their items are so limited , that if a reasonable number of people said something, they might notice that they're failing hard and change course.

The head sculpt, price and pose are so half-baked.
For a 1/6 piece, there is no real likeness , the pose is awkward, and the price is way way overblown out of proportions.
 

Akebobo

my god... it's full of pants
I'm in. I don't have a 1/6th scale, and this is the first time the cannon arm is really represented. I don't have a problem with this face sculpt, and the brand/seal on the back of his neck is a nice touch.
 
Sankari said:
Maybe its not even worth the effort, but I was thinking of sending AoW an email , expressing ( with all due respect) my opinion about this piece and their current practices.

Maybe if everyone did that. Their items are so limited , that if a reasonable number of people said something, they might notice that they're failing hard and change course.

[from AoW homepage]
KdkYWYU.jpg


...they will also continue to find ways to improve the diversification of their products...!!? :troll:
 
i like the statue, i dont see why you say the pose is weird, obiusly the price is always worng, but i think thats never gonna change
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Zoddit said:

They've been saying they're sorry and trying their hardest for years now, since the very beginning in fact. The bottom line is that prices keep going higher and higher. Same thing I've always said, but the only way to change the status quo is for the die hard customers to stop buying. Even if AOW sunk as a result, would it be so terrible for Berserk fans? It would open up the franchise to other companies, breathing in some much needed fresh air.
 
Aazealh said:
They've been saying they're sorry and trying their hardest for years now, since the very beginning in fact. The bottom line is that prices keep going higher and higher. Same thing I've always said, but the only way to change the status quo is for the die hard customers to stop buying. Even if AOW sunk as a result, would it be so terrible for Berserk fans? It would open up the franchise to other companies, breathing in some much needed fresh air.

This is such a ridiculous excuse. If they can't offer decent prices, then their business model is wrong. And obviously , in the sculpting department, they've been struggling for years, and never gave us real LIKENESS in the headsculpts. These days, with so many alternatives, so many new techniques and technologies, if they want to insist in the same broken business model... I think the only option is that customers abstain from purchasing. At this point I'd rather the Licence go to another company.

They say - low volume production. We know that its just a bait. They usually wait a while, and then re-release everything , in another paint scheme. It cheapens the whole idea.
Also, it seems the company can't keep its focus. They try to release Berserk figures, Samurai, Miniatures of japanese mountains, acrylic panels, watches...

Most likely the high prices are just to cover the overall production costs of the other lines as well. Sorry for the rant.
 
The face,the arms can cannons are bull shi t to me. What an awkward pose/position they put into this piece omg. I have no respect for this kind of work no matter the excuses. A mega failed piece.

Not gonna buy unless it is 55000.
 
jokes apart I used to email to them from time to time, giving some feedback, but my words have affected as a fly against a window closed.
honestly it's going to be tough because talking about Berserk franchise, they discarded "mass production" since 2008, from 1/6 Griffith (75,000 YEN!) statue forward. Since then, despite the prices, they sold out almost every project not in months, but in a few days/weeks. They often produce repaint because are more cost-effective than a new project and sell out them quickly, too. Why would they change their selling policy?
Manufacturing quality is always there, the rest seems mission: impossible!

andrewdsz said:
The face,the arms can cannons are bull shi t to me. What an awkward pose/position they put into this piece omg. I have no respect for this kind of work no matter the excuses. A mega failed piece.

Not gonna buy unless it is 55000.

if you think it's a mega fail, you shouldn't buy at all...
 
Sankari said:
Maybe its not even worth the effort, but I was thinking of sending AoW an email , expressing ( with all due respect) my opinion about this piece and their current practices.

Maybe if everyone did that. Their items are so limited , that if a reasonable number of people said something, they might notice that they're failing hard and change course.

We've done that before, lots of us sending them a whole barrage of emails, but it doesn't seem to have helped any. I still encourage you to write them though, because perhaps they THINK they've improved somehow... some way... and they need another reality check.

TheWillOfT said:
Special Discount:

1,000 JPY Off for Pre-orders and The First Payment Before May 31st!

HAHAHAHAH, yeah that was pretty funny.

BTW, about the likeness... they are really just being lazy. That or they are completely incompetent without enlisting outside help. For their Gantz line, their Katou statue had the most horrible face ever. No likeness whatsoever. And that statue bombed completely. 3-4 years later they still have statues in stock. Then their next one, their Kurono statue, they enlisted the help of the manga author and the face actually looks respectable. Doesn't seem like they'll be able to enlist Miura for his help, but my god, how hard is it for a professional sculptor to study a face and tweak it as much as possible to match? Pathetic.

PS I have actually emailed them before that I know sculptors that could help aid them in improving the likeness of their faces... I don't quite remember their response (I'll have to look it up), but they weren't interested.
 
Everyone pointed out the obvious weak points but I just want to say what a Bland ass plain cat scratch post looking base... Like really? :/

I'm 100% sure they could have made the base so much better... :???:
 
After really looking at the statue for a while and watching the video (which isn't a video just a compilation of still images):puck:
I figured out why it doesn't appeal to me. It does not look to me like guts is doing anything except dropping to a knee in defeat. I shown the pic to a few people who don't follow berserk and they couldn't figure out what he was doing. When I explained what it was supposed to represent they just kinda scratched their heads.
This would look exponentially better with something like gun powder exploding out of the canon or a ghosting image of the sword or on the base debris flying away from guts or all of what I said! :beast: I am going to pass on this statue.
 
Sent them an email, they replied and said I could bring the answers here:

We would like to explain the questions to you and all other Berserk fans concerned here, maybe you can help us to convey the answers to them.

1. Low Quantity Problems

1) As every Berserk fan knows, several years ago Berserk was very hot in Japan and all over the world.

At that time our products sold very well and that made it possible to produce large quantity and simple action figures.

However, recent years Berserk just stopped, though the serial comic started again last month, we do not know when the next volume will come.

Under this situation, it is dangerous for us to make large quantity products,

therefore our company decided to low down the quantity and make every item qualified and limited.

2) All our statue products are hand painting items. Hundreds of hours cost to paint 1 piece.

This makes the large quantity production impossible, because the job needs skillful artisans, not just figure factory workers.


2. The Repainting Works

1) The original one sold well or sold bad.

-When an item selling well, we will receive many requests for a repainting.

We understand that the repainting will low down the value of the first version, so we always limited the repainting into a very small quantity.

We hope you can understand that we do this as business, if we just do 1-2 new figures in a year and do not repaint any item, how can we maintain the company.

-If an item selling bad, sometimes we will repaint it and sell as another version.

There is a quantity line for every model, so if the item cannot reach the line, we will consider to repaint it, otherwise it will be a deficit.

2) The cost for a new item is really high

We have explained this before to other Berserk fans. The sculptor need 3-5 months to finish a new model, and the factory need at least 3 months to produce.

We almost do Berserk only as our business. Therefore we cannot wait for so long to release just one new item.

During the period we need to sell other products, so we will do repainting works based on the previous models, but we always do changes and improvement to make the repainting one better.



3. The Copy Right of Berserk

Some customers misunderstand that we hold all the copy right of Berserk goods. But apparently we are not.

There were other companies did Berserk items, and recently Figma released Guts Casca and the god hand.

So Berserk is open for any figure company, the problem is why they do not want to do it.

We do not mind customers buy other companies’ products, we understand that they have some superiorities which our products cannot reach.

For example, the face expression, the price, etc.

We also have explained before about the face expression, the truth is if we have to do the face same with the comic, we need to change our sculptor because his personally style is hard to change. And we may also have to change our president, because he likes the faces.

This is not a joke, but maybe in the future we can find another sculptor who has skills both on molding and face expressions.

Therefore all is your choice, we do not force our customers to buy our products.

P.S. We have to remind you and all other fans that buy the items from independent sculptors without the copy right is illegal!

We have to report it to Hakusensha so please do not mention this kind of information to us again.

4. The Price

We do not want to explain this problem again and again, because any of our explanations will be translated as a “ridiculous excuse”.

We have no idea how to make a reasonable reason to satisfy you, so we just give up it.

But if the same thing happens to other companies, the price will also become that high, so please just remember one thing that we are not charging you with a black-heart.

If we do our products like other normal figures, that is not ART OF WAR, and we do not think we have any advantage to compete in the market.



From this summer, the factory which produces our products these years will be moved to another place in China.

And then we will have more chances to do some special and limited products, and maybe the price will be able to low down a little.



Thank you for your reading.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time.
 
hubalo said:
i like the statue, i dont see why you say the pose is weird, obiusly the price is always worng, but i think thats never gonna change

Like krzykoopa pointed out above.....unless you told someone that the statue is Guts performing the "Spinning Cannon Slice," there is no way anyone could guess what Guts is doing. It's very awkward and contorted and exhibits no relativity to the spinning motion other than the scratch @ the base lol. Anyhow, I'm sure there will be people buying but thank god for my wallet I won't be one this time around.
 
Personally I like this statue, even If It seems they used some parts of the Guts 2010 statue..

I think they should go for 3D printed models.
There are many artists like me out there that can provide at least better quality head sculpt than their own; and by 3D printing a prototype and then casting it they would win. It's also faster to sculpt in 3D and easier to get details right.
 
Thanks for sending them an e-mail Sankari. They seem to be getting fed up with those kinds of e-mails, which is good. I am glad people are questioning their business practice.

They contradict themselves by saying that they hand paint these pieces, which takes hundreds of hours, they "don't just use figure factory workers". Later, they talk about the price and say that their production will move to ANOTHER factory in China..... So you ARE using figure factory workers then? Sheesh. BTW this is totally normal, pretty much every statue company use china factory workers for cheap labor, and those companies are thriving. How come Art of War somehow found the most expensive chinese factory around?

This one is more interesting:
P.S. We have to remind you and all other fans that buy the items from independent sculptors without the copy right is illegal!

The issue I have with this is how Japan celebrates independent sculptors without the copyright, like Headlong. Sculptors can make statues of their favorite characters, and display them on dedicated statue festivals for all the world to see (while also selling off a few of their garage kits). They don't have the copyright, they just love the works, and Japan embraces that loving spirit. If they are popular enough, some distribution companies will even sell their statues for them. They promote their works by creating a friendly competition where the winner gets his statue mass-produced & sold - like the Banpresto Figure Coliseum. So AoW is pointlessly trying to be in the right, and it seems almost ignorant for a Japanese company dealing with statues to not be aware of this.

I don't know which independent sculptors you were talking about, I'm going to assume you mentioned the commission thread we have going here in AoW. This is outside of Japan, so it would technically be illegal.

Most of the other arguments AoW puts up are rather childish, so i'm not going into those.
 
Liad said:
This one is more interesting:
The issue I have with this is how Japan celebrates independent sculptors without the copyright, like Headlong. Sculptors can make statues of their favorite characters, and display them on dedicated statue festivals for all the world to see (while also selling off a few of their garage kits). They don't have the copyright, they just love the works, and Japan embraces that loving spirit.

What are you talking about ? The independent sculptors that you are talking about MUST have the copyright in order to display and sell their creations during events like Wonderfestival.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
The problem with Art of War is that they're disingenuous. They're just throwing everything they can at the wall and hoping something will stick. It's the price of the yen because they have to pay in dollars (didn't they outsource to save money in the first place?), it's the fans who don't buy enough anymore, it's the series itself, because of the prepublication breaks! The problem is that for those of us who've been around since the beginning, these excuses just don't work. The prices have been going up steadily since the very beginning, and nothing will change that fact. The reason they can't give an acceptable answer for it is because there isn't one.

As for their sculptor being either incompetent or just unwilling to faithfully represent the likeness of the characters, what is there even to say? It's just amateurish. Lastly, their talk of copyright/other companies/Hakusensha seems quite misleading to me. Figma is releasing figures as a tie-in to the movies, so it's not really comparable. And the people at AoW know full-well that their foreign fans just can't waltz in Hakusensha's office and ask questions about merchandising contracts, so it's easy for them to say whatever they want. The same goes for reporting independent sculptors to Hakusensha, it's a completely hollow threat. I'd like to see it done though, I myself have a lot of illegal misuse of Hakusensha's property on the Internet to report to them, so I'd welcome the opportunity.

The Beast of Darkness said:
What are you talking about ? The independent sculptors that you are talking about MUST have the copyright in order to display and sell their creations during events like Wonderfestival.

There is a specific situation regarding festivals that involves temporary permissions for hobbyists to sell their products. It can't be compared to the licenses companies pay for.
 
What I actually said was that for those high prices, people would go after rare event items.
The sculptor thing was what bothered me the most. So they admit it doesn't bear any likeness, but their reply " our president enjoys it" So what?
Are they selling statues to their company president only?
 
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