Bluefin To Distribute Figuarts ZO, VulEagle in North America

Courtesy of their Facebook:

Vul Eagle
Zo

Should be good news for anyone who missed the overseas preorders last night.

Cools~

This gives me hope for them picking up Blue Beet and Black Beet for U.S. distribution. If they'll give these characters/figures a shot, why not ones with an established fanbase in the U.S.?

They've already made mention on twitter of there being "rights issues" in regards to releasing the B-Fighters here.

Aw, really? That sucks.

Here is the issue (most likely).

Saban Brands licensing out Power Rangers toys to Bandai of America. And while Saban Brands still holds the rights to Power Rangers, they've probably let the rights of Beetle Borgs, Masked Rider, and VR Troopers (beyond the actual show itself) expire, meaning to release an item as "Big Bad Beetle Borgs" they would have to purchase the license on the toys, of which Saban Brands no longer holds to be able to grant to them.

So the urge to purchase the licensing rights to use "Big Bad Beetle Borgs" on a package probably doesn't outweigh the actual amount you'd make on the figures (ie: you wouldn't make enough $$ off the figures to justify the expense of the license).

*NOTE* Totally hypothetical, I don't really know what's going on or what the issues are.

Can't they just release them as B-Fighters/Metal Heroes here? I mean it's like releasing Black RX as Black RX not Masked Rider right? or because Metal Heroes is different that causes a problem. I'm not really sure about this.

Happy about ZO and VulEagle though.

It's because B-Fighter Figuarts are web exclusives.

Well no that has nothing to do with it. We've gotten ALL the Zyurangers here, 4 of which were web exclusives in Japan. Same goes for Kiba/White Ranger. Nearly every DBZ figuart is exclusive in Japan and we get those. So just saying we won't get them because of that isn't correct. Granted MMPR and DBZ are much more marketable properties here, but that simply isn't a correct assumption.

It's literally a rights dispute issue right now that's hindering their release here. Bluefin was testing the waters at SDCC to see if there was even broad enough support here for them to be released in the first place. The hurdle now is these undisclosed rights issues.