9 replies to this topic

[Soupie]

Found this interesting video on Youtube:

You'll especially want to watch at the 4:15 mark. It shows "trees" coming off the line (not keshi figure trees though) coming off the line, workers grabbing them, and later, trees/pieces being placed in packaging. Good stuff.

And the following site has some pictures: http://altjapan.type...bandai_factory/





And then this site: http://tvinjapan.com...-toys-included/

Unfortunately, the video was removed from Youtube! If anyone can track this video down, that would be amazing. It looks like the video might feature some Gundam keshi being made!?

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[Soupie]

Another interesting video. Some decent footage inside a factory.



Also, there seem to be a few video floating out there of inside the Bandai factory, but they seem to get pulled from YouTube. So, they're out there, we just need to find them.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Cool! Thanks for sharing your finds Soups. Gundam models Those Dies look insanely expensive to make. You could probably buy a car with what it costs to make them.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Interesting. Even with, what I assume to be more modern machines, it seems to confirm much of what we believe.

It's hard to get a feel for the "bins". I assume they are these things, but there was never a good shot of the molded pieces going anywhere. We just saw them ending up in the package. My gut tells me that the MUSCLE situation would have been similar, but still quite different.

Actually since these were model kits I would assume no bin was necessary for sorting, and chances are the runners went straight from the injector to the package. Some kits can be pretty brittle where small parts can bust off the runner if they are dropped or bang up against other runners in a bin, note the robotic little arm that seems to carry the runner to safety after molding. I could be wrong. I should look at the video again myself.

Basically models are just toys the factory doesn't assemble themselves. So alot less work is usually involved, and that's why Gundam kits in particular are so affordable.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

Crud I think I am sort of wrong. at 4:23 and up you will see them placing the runners onto the belt, but they are pulling stacks of them out of those big Cardboard boxes next to them. I guess they have to gently box all the parts, and then transfer them to the packing and distribution center/area.

[Universal Ruler Supreme]

I'm not sure, four packs were actually cleverly packed. They almost always managed to stick 4 different color figures in each pack, and each from a different tree. So I can't really begin to figure out how they managed that. Maybe they had four small bins each with cut figures from a colored tree, and they would just pick one out of each bin and pack them. Dunno. A case will have alot of the same figures in it so that would make some since. But for sure they used a different method from the 28 pack.

[Soupie]

Okay, not related to Bandai nor MUSCLE at all, but it is a video about toy making in Tokyo, Japan.