Starting with her announcement last November we reported on the production of an original Niθ-designed “Aile” (アイル) garage kit under the auspices of Kotobukiya and the Plamo wo Tsukurou! CUSTOM TV show. It shaped up into a very nice kit, but we learned in February that she’d only be available in unpainted/unassembled resin form at Wonder Festival and that was the end of the story – until now. See below for more:
Word is in from online shop Kid Nemo that Aile will be release in PVC (at least to the international market), at a retail price of $59.99 USD and with a sculpt from Shirahige Tsukuru (白é«å‰µ). Release is expected in November; a notice on the Kid Nemo site however says that “THIS VERSION IS FROM KOTOBUKIYA’s NORTH AMERICA DISTRIBUTOR. CANCELLATIONS AND HEAVY DELAYS MAY BE EXPECTED”, so it seems the date is tentative at best.
Regardless this is great news – I just hope they’ll announce her for Japan side release as well. We’ll be on the lookout for more information. Thanks to desudesu for spotting this!
About Niθ
Niθ (pronounced Nishii) is an illustrator and character designer in the employ of eroge company Nitro+. He has produced designs for several of their games, including Demonbane, Jingai Makyou, and Zoku: Satsuriku no Jango (Tre Donne Crudeli), the characters from which have become popular subjects for figures in recent years. He also recently produced the Queen’s Gate Alice combat artbook and designs for her Excellent Model CORE figure.
Note: this figure has been confirmed as noncastoffable.
Man, I would feel much more confident and seduced if this were in Alter’s hands… we can only wait and hope!
Looks nice, I guess. I’m sitting on the fence on this figure.
Kid Nemo puts that ‘warning’ on all US Koto releases, it seems as a way to try and scare people into buying the much more expensive (and identical) JP release versions. Speculation on my part sure, but every company has canceled and delayed figures here in the US, but they only put a ‘warning’ on Koto figures. I will freely admit Diamond (their US Distributor) doesn’t give a damn about Japanese figures in the least and Koto is a bit inconsistent with its US releases, but most are just late/delayed and not canceled.
Oh yeah, glad to hear it’s coming to PVC. Pretty likely to get this one.
“Aile/Air” is going to be a very hot figure indeed. I am very interested in what the end product will look like and I definately won’t be leaving it in the box. However, I do think the wooden base is pretty ugly. ^^
On the note of the “warning”, we have all seen figures arrive VERY late from Diamond, and it is pretty much a disclaimer that our customers know which version they are buying.
You would have to admit that Diamond Comic’s SRP on Kotobukiya figures are MUCH less than the actual Yen SRP that Kotobukiya releases in Japan.
It is actually a huge difference at times.
There is absolutely no scare tactic involved with the “warning”, because when it comes down to it, we don’t make more money on one version than the other. It is pretty much the same. The only difference is, importing Kotobukiya figures direct from Japan cost more. However, we can get them within a month of the release date in Japan, versus “whenever” with Diamond’s releases.
Also, it is true, Diamond does delay figure a lot, but there has been couple cancellations too such as the Shakugan no Shana figure(the human version w/ the melon-pan) and Shining Tears Clalachan.
We are pretty much taking steps so that we give the option to our collectors that REALLY want a specific figure like the Aile/Air, can make sure they get thier figure and on time.
Kid Nemo Company doesn’t like to be or even try to be “scary”. Unless it’s Halloween. :D
Becky Lee
Great news indeed!
Very nice figure but I don’t know if I like it enough. Too many nice figures, not enough money.
she’s really pretty. do you believe that we’ll find Aile in others sites?
Very nice. I’m still not sure if I’ll get her but I’m looking forward to seeing the final product.
I can also vouch for KNC about the warning. I ordered quite a few Koto figures that came in late and before the warning I would frequently email them about it because I didn’t know they were delayed and thought maybe my order was missed. I’m glad they put the warning up though. It doesn’t veer me towards ordering the more expensive Japanese release but now I have an explanation for the delays.
>>LiLonG
I’m sure she’ll appear at other retail sites who purchase from Diamond / Kotobukiya USA distributors. The question is currently whether she’ll see a broader international release… no news on that yet, that I’m aware of.
I would first like to say that I received the Shining Wind Clalaclan from a company that got it from Diamond. So did my best friend. Secondly, I’m all for purchasing options, but when the difference is $36-ish for a US release or $60-ish for a JP release, price is going to win out for me, and likely almost everyone else. I would not be at all surprised if a lot of people end up changing their preorders to the US releases when they are announced.
Now, I hate Diamond as much as the next guy… scratch that, much, much, MUCH more than the next guy (I used to preorder most of my figures through a comics preorder company that dealt only with Diamond, and got screwed repeatedly doing so). My point about the KNC ‘warning’ is that it singles out Koto even though Diamond is the distributor for other figures too, and it just so happens that the only ones that KNC offers both US & JP releases of are said Kotos. I understand it’s likely that’s because Diamond sucks, I just find the ‘warning’ a bit of a Draconian overstatement. I’ve gotten nearly ever Koto I’ve even ordered, and the ones I didn’t wouldn’t have been worth the import prices to me. In a way I applaud that KNC offers both versions, but from a pragmatic standpoint is seems like a bunch of extra hassle that wouldn’t really be worth it.
Lastly, I have ZERO problem with Kid Nemo on a whole, in fact I have some preorders with them, and have gotten in a few hard to get figures from them as well. Just making a few points since Shingo mentioned their ‘warning’ in the article, and I wanted to present the other side of the coin.
Yeah….i’m glad now I didn’t grab this up in resin- most definetly happy she is coming to PVC. Fingers crossed on production value- but I am very happy with this.
>>the_pseudokings
I didn’t mention the “warning” with any malicious intent; I was simply reporting what it said on the Kid Nemo site (hi Becky!) and what the company represents to be true in their product listing. I don’t have an opinion either way on the issue (heck, I don’t even know what the issue is).
I think people should go for the lowest price available for whatever their personal priority matrix looks like. If your priority is price only and nothing else you choose one store, if your priority is price and speed you choose another, if your priorities also include supporting a site through an affiliate purchase (*cough*) you might choose still another.
Ideally, a shop that retails items via cheaper international distributors would establish an affiliate program and provide the best of both worlds to those of us reporting the news…. Might help this operation make more financial sense instead of the loony bin that it currently is, though insanity has always been one of our strong suits.
>>Shingo
I wasn’t implying any intent on your part at all. I just know that some people are going to take what’s written in the article as gospel, because of the overall high quality of the ‘reporting’ here on HD, and I didn’t want all US figure fans to just assume that ordering a US release version was a foolish proposition, doomed to fail, which I believe some readers would take from the KNC ‘warning’, if another opinion was not presented.
As far as the priority/price thing goes, I agree and understand your point, and I personally will always error in the side of price when it comes to Koto. I like Koto, I have a ton of Koto figures, but a lot of that is due to reasonable prices. Let’s face it, in gereral they really don’t compete on the quality front with some of the companies like Alter, Mega House & Max Factory, and they don’t compete on ambition with the likes of Daiki, Enterbrain and Yamato. I’m not in any way saying they suck or anything, and their stuff has been getting a bit better lately, just being honest. The fine points of the hair, the finished PVC faces, they just aren’t ‘there’ yet. I’ve noticed that folks that have to pay JP Yen prices for figures are often not big fans of Koto, simply because of the ‘bang for the buck’ factor implied above. So at the moment the idea of paying import prices for Kotos sounds like a tough sell in the first place, but really a stretch considering that they do (most of them) get dramatically less expensive US releases. One last point/example, I bet some HD readers living in JP who are really interested now will be less so when Aile/Air ends up with a 8190 or 9240yen price. Or they’ll be figuring out how to get the US release to save money.