Interest
Coveted Goku Figures Meet Watery Demise
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
During the summer, Premium Bandai advertised several exclusive San Diego Comic-Con figures. While the event itself was cancelled due to COVID-19, the limited-edition figures still went on sale and in the case of the event-exclusive color variant of the S.H.Figuarts Son Goku Ultra Instinct "Sign" figure, promptly sold out in minutes.
Fan demand for the figure was high, so Premium Bandai opened up additional pre-orders for another week. The latter pre-orders would ship out later as the manufacturer would need time to create more stock. The initial SDCC pre-orders themselves shipped out fine, but the later shipment may never reach collectors. Goku is, as they say, swimming with the fishes.
The Goku figures, along with other Bandai merchandise, was loaded aboard the Japanese ship One Apus as it was enroute from China to California. The ship encountered gale-strength winds and rough seas approximately 1,840 miles northwest of Hawaii on November 30, causing more than 1,900 containers to go overboard. One Apus turned back and is now docked at Port of Kobe, Japan to be assessed for damages. Premium Bandai told customers in an e-mail sent on December 21 that it will take several weeks to over a month to confirm what was lost.
The Figurarts Goku is in good company. Premium Bandai also notified customers that purchased the SDCC S.H.Figuarts color-variants of Android 17 and Android 18 and S.H.Figuarts of Son Gohan -Kid Era- that they may not arrive. Additional items loaded onto the One Apus include Metal Build Eva-02 Production Model, S.H.Figuarts Scarlet Witch, S.H.Figuarts Iron Man Mk-85 -I AM IRON MAN Edition, and THE ROBOT SPIRITS <SIDE MS> RGM-79C GM TYPE C SPACE ver. A.N.I.M.E. items.
The lost containers is huge for an industry that averaged no more than 1,400 lost shipments at sea a year in the last decade.
Thanks to Kevin Snow for the news tip.
Source: Email correspondence, Star Advertiser (Rosemarie Bernardo), Reuters (Aaron Sheldrick), The Loadstar (Gavin van Marle)
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