NotCliche

For a lack of a better picture, here’s Ragnarok Online’s Hunter.

Or simply known as Toy Hunters, these guys are professional in whatever they do. They get their job done with no question asked (apart from what you want, of course). They are one slick and mean machine, capable of finding things that you will never want to go through.

Okay, I think I exaggerated that part a bit, but basically what a Toy Hunter does is to get whatever you want. Be it figures, models, shokugan (candy toys), plamo, garage kits or even chogokin (mecha-related stuff), these hunters will do whatever they can to get you what you want.

Basically, this is how the system works out. The would-be buyer will set a price on a particular item, while the hunters would go around in Japan in search of the product, then sells to the buyer, and finally keeps the difference between the buyer’s price and the seller’s price. While it doesn’t exactly sound too profitable, you’ll be surprised at how many people are willing to pay for some of the figurines or even model kits that can’t be found anywhere else other than Japan.

In some cases, a 1000-yen product can easily fetch USD100, even when it’s only USD10-15 at best. The average profit for a Toy Hunter usually hovers around 300%, which is quite a deal if you factor your own job in. Toy Hunters does not need to be hunting for items 24/7, and some of these hunters have their own stable job. Being a hunter is just a part-time job.

For all you know, these are people who”hunts” the goods for you. For the right price, of course.

However, even if they do get whatever items you might want to you, the competition is on the rise now, as many professional figurine sellers are starting to target the online community. Not only that, there are quite a number of other hunters out there, and they are all competing against huge companies.

Before the hunters arrived to the scene, two companies, namely AAA and J-List (you can find their banner at the left side) were the early distributors.

Over Drive, a company that specializes in export of such otaku products had seen a growth of 300% in their figurine department. Teppei Harada, the founder, had commented that, “Overseas, there is a lot of interest, but no actual contact from Japanese companies”.

The whole figurine collection thing started as early as 1980 and 1990s, starting with model kits. By 2000, detailed figurines and trading toys became even more popular, but it was difficult for people to get their hands onto figurines, because of restrictive license and distribution agreements.

Come to think of it, that’s rather true. There’s a huge demand for Figurines even in Singapore.

Via: JapanToday.

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