Art of the Shelf: It's coming from Japan!

So recently I reviewed the 1st volume of the new manga ULTRAMAN on this blog (you can read that post here). Now as a tokusatsu fan I deeply enjoy the Ultraman franchise. I discovered it when i was young and just getting into the whole giant robo and kaiju thing. The show instantly pulled me in and kept me entertained. Now as an Adult Collector you would think I jump at the chance to collect high quality figures of the franchise. Now you would be right with one exception the Ultra-Act figures by Tamashii Nations are far too numerous and had fast collector price mark up than I have ever seen. So I stayed away sadly however when Tamashii Nation announced that Ultra-Act and S.H. figuarts  would be crossing over for a Ultraman figure based on the manga I was all on board.

The Ultra-Act X S.H,Figuarts ULTRAMAN is based on the vary manga I reviewed. Now I was excited for two reason one this was an awesome starting place and two it was being brought state side by Bluefin Distributions. So In march of this year I preordered the figure from my favorite web store BigBadToyStore.com. One month later I received this email:

Hello,

We have been informed by our vendor that the manufacturer has cancelled production of the BAN16290 Ultra-Act x S.H. Figuarts Ultraman. Unfortunately this means we must cancel our preorders for this item because it will not be produced. We do apologize for the inconvenience and greatly appreciate your understanding. If this product is re-solicited in the future, we will be sure to publish it on our website once again.

Thank you for shopping with BigBadToyStore and have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

BBTS Customer Care

Nw this had me worried was the figure canceled and not coming out.  So I checked the Bluefin Facebook and the Tamashii Nations website they both had it listed although with different dates but that understandable. So I went to amazon and preordered it. I thought nothing of it until my book arrived and I got excited again. So I checked on it to see the status and nothing had changed on Amazon. Now the figure was out in japan by this time and there were some reviews up for it but I needed to be sure it was coming to me. So I ventured back to the Bluefin Facebook and there was nothing no pictures nothing. The only proof that it was even on the site was this cover photo. Now Amazon still had it listed to sell but they were no longer a seller option any more. So I thought nothing of it until an email from amazon canceling my order. So I go back to amazon buy out right this time from an 3rd party seller and will now wait a whole month for it to ship to me. This up sets me because I am still hoping to get more figures from the manga but it also got me thinking why would Bluefin can the figure states side. At 1st I thought they didn't have the licences to release the figure but they have released Ultra-Act figures before and wouldn't of listed it if that were  the case. The the only other option that I could think of was that the figure failed to meet with the  Consumer Product Safety Commission's standards for toys. What ever the reason is I know two things for sure one Tamashii Nation figures are awesome and Bluefin Distributions sucks.