AoW and Berserk: how long will it last?

I am always astonished when I see the amount of statues Art of War realizes in a year.

At the beginning (when I first discovered Art of War... and those marvellous sites such as Skullknight and Berserkstatues.com), I tought that they were used to making 4 or 5 statues per year (high quality and priced resin statues, assembled and hand painted).

Now, I wonder if they will keep this awesome rate till Miura-san finish his masterpiece (I know, we have the time...).
This fact, I don't know how the "hardcore" collectors (who buy every statue) consider that (DirectDK, you're not consered... but yes actually ^^ ). In 5 years, think of the outstanding amount of statues you have bought/you have to buy (place and money problems).

Moreover, I wonder if Art of War will continue to produce Berserk statues after the end of the manga.

I checked but I don't find such subject on this forum, sorry if you have already discussed it.

Re: AoW and Berserk : how long will it last ?

Honestly I don't think AoW will last more than another year or two. Well in the very least keep making Berserk statues for more than another year or two.

Their producing less and less regular edition statues (I think in 2005 the only regular edition statue was Zodd II) which means the shops and distributors in Japan aren't supporting them as much as they used too.

The exclusives aren't selling out and trust me when you only make 300 units of something you expect/need it to sell out when it ships. My company wouldn't even consider making something if we only thought we were going to sell 300 units much less have 300 units as the ceiling. I doubt we are a much bigger company than AoW. (30 people or so) www.masterreplicas.com

I know they are doing so many Guts and Pucks because they sell but being "Hard Core" to the point where I do buy everything I am getting very frustrated. I mean how many Guts do I need. Especialy with the quality of the new Guts such as the new Berserker and the Guts: Daka. If not for the Daka (despite it's color) I really would have thought about not buying the newest Guts.

I hope I'm wrong but I bet AoW stops making Berserk statues by the end of 2007.

Re: AoW and Berserk : how long will it last ?

Well personally I'd be happy if Miura & co. decided to use another company to create the statues. The price/value ratio is far from ideal

Re: AoW and Berserk : how long will it last ?

CnC said:

Well personally I'd be happy if Miura & co. decided to use another company to create the statues. The price/value ratio is far from ideal

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Given that AoW has had it for five-six years I have to assume Miura is pleased. In that time the license must have come up for renewal at least once. (not that I disagree that AoW is wee bit pricey to say the least)

Re: AoW and Berserk : how long will it last ?

Maiku said:

Given that AoW has had it for five-six years I have to assume Miura is pleased. In that time the license must have come up for renewal at least once. (not that I disagree that AoW is wee bit pricey to say the least)

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Nothing says we need a new company like the old one going out of business.

Maiku said:

Given that AoW has had it for five-six years I have to assume Miura is pleased.

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More like ~8 years actually (around the time the anime came out). And I wouldn't assume too much about what Miura thinks of it, to be honest I don't believe he cares much nor has time to check what they do in detail. Of course we'll never know his exact involvement (except from his exceptional collaboration on some items) unless he talks about it himself, but from what I remember (fuzzy memories) he didn't seem to mind their work in the past, or at least didn't publicly say so (then again nobody would do that).

As for whether AOW will continue producing Berserk collectibles or not, that's hard to say. I don't think their business is going very well but I also don't think they're dying. However I can't imagine them producing items until the series end, at least not at their current rate. There has IMO been a decrease of quality (not on a technical but creative level) in what they produced over the years which was paradoxically the opposite of their growth from a simple shop to an actual company.

I believe they can still (easily) get back in shape if they start releasing more varied and appealing products, but if they just keep milking the series they won't last much longer. Now that's rather obvious to me so I'll assume they won't completely fuck up, when they feel they've crossed the line they'll just bring out all the stuff people have been waiting for.

On a side note I think the independent kit builders (Headlong, Team Getsurou, Mimyan.GK, etc) may be causing them some trouble, even if only minor. That and the secondary market that exists on Yahoo Japan auctions.

I'd just like to see a new company get the liscense who makes statues in a bigger scale (IE 12" normally) and also sells them cheaper.

Like Kobotukyia or such. IMO one of the reasons berserk statues sell to a niche market is mainly the price and the supply for out of japan area's. The statues are generally smaller then others plus they are priced at a higher price. Look at the vampire hunter D statues <150 bucks and they are 12" tall, with one of them containt not one, but two characters.

Toycom helps but more on the figure line and not the statues really.

Wow, nice topic. I have been thinking about this myself.

Well the last couple of statues have not been really impressive. The Griffith [Hawk Soldiers] is a nice take on a old favourite. And it is finally nice to see a new Griffith sculpt (still I am a bit worried about the face sculpt).

The Puck and Guts overload I agree is a bit much. I think most of us here can list at least five characters not released that we would love to see made. I think AoW should at the very least just take a poll on characters not made into statues currently and see some sort of customer feedback into what would be a good idea to keep in mind for a new statue release.

Back on track, I am not sure how hurtful it is to the company AoW but I am a bit surprised to see so many statues not sell out. The only noticable one I can think of other than Griffith [Hawk Soldier] (which I dont think was a surprise to any one that it sold out) was the Guts Berserk Exclusive 2, which was limited to only 100 so that really wasnt a surprise that it sold out either.

I agree with Aazealh, that they could easily get back into the game if they release a bit more creative products that they seem to be known for.

Edit: I was also thinking. One thing I think would be nice would be another action figure. It isnt much, but I really do enjoy their previous action figures.

Maiku, I hope you're wrong too.

I think the price is well justified.
Think about the quality of the resin statues they produce.

Honestly, Art of War has shown me the BEST resin statues I've ever seen in the Japanimation domain.
Statues such as Guts on Horse, Guts bloody Magun, Armored Berserker wolf version, Guts & Slan diorama, the new beherits (it has nothing to do with statues but oh yes, take a look to the new models of the beherits, thez are absolutely WONDERFUL, the crying new beherit freezes my blood) are really high quality models.
Textures, hand painted work, details etc... Art of War HAS to sell them at such prices to survive (because of the quality standart, they are expansive to produce). It's so much far away from the famous Final Fantasy statues by Kotobukiya (3 basic colors, no textures, no details etc...).
Unfortunately, the last Guts Berserker I saw haven't conviced me, and the Darka one seems to take the same way. Have they changed the sculptor since the guts falconia ?

But I agree, their oversees customers are not very helped. I know it would be difficult for them but paypal would probably encourage a lot of people to buy.

Nota Bene : I love the Pucks and Guts is my favorite character ;)

Kenji-kun said:

Maiku, I hope you're wrong too.

I think the price is well justified.
Think about the quality of the resin statues they produce.

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Just so you know, Maiku works in the statues/figures/collectibles industry, so he knows about the quality, price and all that.

Aazealh said:

Just so you know, Maiku works in the statues/figures/collectibles industry, so he knows about the quality, price and all that.

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Yeah, I have seen that ;)
I was talking about the "financial death" of Art of War that Maiku has quoted. I hope he is wrong on his prediction.

As for the price and quality of AoW products, I still beleive the majority of them worth the price in term of quality, time spent on one statue to finalize it etc... But we can debate (Maiku, aka the pro, we are waiting for your opinion ^^ )

For all their quality then, why can't they for the life of them ever get the faces right? Some are ok, but some just look....well bad, like the Recent Guts with the "old" looking face, I mean how hard is it to notice "hey his face looks off, we need to fix/re-touch it," Na....lets just put it in production, the face isn't important."

Well, to put my 2 cents in... I think AOW still has some life in them. I know most of us have been disappointed in some of the sculpts recently, but the reason isn't because they are rushing through to just put out products, but actually because AOW has been trying some new sculpters. From what I've heard, there used to be 4-5 sculptors for AOW, one of them being the MAIN one. The guy that did the first Guts: Black Swordsman, the Guts: Attack Form, the Guts on Horse, the Griffith HS on Horse, both of the incredible Zodd Apostles, the first Guts: Armored Berserk, etc etc... THOSE were all done by the same guy. The last few releases though, have been done by new sculptors I believe, which is why sometimes the style varies. As far as I know, the main guy hasn't left AOW, and he's actually the one that sculpted the new Griffith MF: Leaning/Star statue. So... not to downplay the other newer sculptors of AOW (because all in all, they are still very talented artists), but as long as that main guy sticks with AOW, I'm POSITIVE we still got some great GREAT releases yet to come.

But how do you know such information ?!

I have thought of a new sculptor therory when I saw the statues such as the new Guts on his berserker armor. You have confirmed my doubts, thanks DirectDK. But JUST HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT

Kenji-kun said:

But how do you know such information ?!

I have thought of a new sculptor therory when I saw the statues such as the new Guts on his berserker armor. You have confirmed my doubts, thanks DirectDK. But JUST HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT

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Haha, I have this friend that works in the modelling/toy industry in Japan and the US, and he's actually friends with the sculptors at AOW. I met him fairly recently (after I created www.berserkstatues.com) and he's shed a lot of light on the Berserk merchandise world (both about statues and kits). If only I knew him BEFORE I made the site, damn, it would have been a lot easier =P. Actually Maiku, was the one who introduced me to him. Thanks Mike!

DirectDK said:

Actually Maiku, was the one who introduced me to him. Thanks Mike!

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I understand.
You are lucky guys you know !

Awesome information, thanks. It would be a good thing to precise this on your site DirectDK, wouldn't it ?

Hey Derek, me and some of my friends (and probably few others of this board) are very interested on Art of War's sulpters.
Do you know their names ?
You told us what statues have the main sculpter sculpted, thanks a lot. But do you know who are the others and what each of them have sculpted (in order to know what other statue(s) did the Magun scuptler sculpt for exemple, do you understand ?) ?
Maiku, maybe you can help us too