Hello! I’m derpchan, the member of Sternbild who is trying to find ways to kill time before episode 21 airs. There’s a lot of merchandise talk now that release dates are finally coming up, so I figured I’d share some of my thoughts on that. It’s not something new for me to buy stuff related to my favourite show/movie/book/etc. I’ve got a collection of figures, books, posters, gunpla, games, CDs and DVDs that I’ve accumulated over the years to show my powerlevel. But Tiger & Bunny is really making me lay down the cash from my meager funds like no fandom before has. And judging how fast the merchandise is selling out already on preorders, I’m not the only one…

Popular theory: Keiichi Satou is a powerful NEXT.
His ability is to make people buy merchandise.

Usually I buy a lot of fanmade goods, so I didn’t mind it too much that to begin with there was barely any official merchandise for Tiger & Bunny. Many people were even looking up stuff that had been placed in the show by the animators and buying those instead to fill the merchandise void. (I wonder if Kenzo has noticed an increase in sales thanks to Tiger & Bunny? People are still buying it to smell like Kotetsu!) Now it’s like the floodgates have been opened and stuff just keeps popping up left and right (and selling out on preorders) and every week there’s something new when I check the store listings.

For me, wanting to support the show plays a big part in why I’m buying so much merchandise. I could manage without, and I could certainly use my money for something that I need more. But there’s just something irresistible about Tiger & Bunny. And it gives an odd feeling of satisfaction to me to proverbially push my money over the counter (I buy most of the stuff online, see?) to prove it to Sunrise that the show they had no faith in is really pretty awesome, at least in my opinion. That’s also why I’m mostly buying official merchandise this time – I want my money to count.

Although I’m dying to have that shiny Fire Emblem Figuarts on my shelf, I don’t expect actually getting one. The battle for every Figuarts preorder so far has been bloody, and with online stores crashing under the flood of people wanting the items I don’t expect success in getting a preorder in. Many of my friends want especially Sky High, and I’ve got a feeling there’ll be a lot of tears and despair when he finally becomes available. Even Rock Bison who isn’t so popular among the Western fandom as in Japan sold out in minutes. In that light it’s kind of relieving to be primarily a book collector, since even though the books are selling out they’re not going as fast as the figures. There’s gonna be at least as many as five or six official source books (maybe even more) and only two are out so far, so I won’t be done with my book shopping any time soon.

I wanted to finish this post with a sip from a Barnaby coffee mug like a boss, but sadly it hasn’t arrived yet. How’s the shopping working for you guys?