On Monday, November 30th at 10 am (JST),
we are releasing Takashi Murakami’s two new signed Doraemon collaboration posters on our online store.
Signed and numbered Doraemon posters have constantly been rising in value on the secondary market and, in a way, I am impressed by the dedication of the resellers involved. I must confess, however, that these people make our efforts at quality control through rigorous negotiations with the printing company, the pristine printing condition, and hours spent on autographing by the artist (Murakami), look ridiculous.
As a counter-measure, we considered an evolving system similar to Nike’s where we identify the user with their user-specific account. Unfortunately, we hear that it’s an endless battle, with these resellers keep breaking through such measures as well.
For now, we manually filter out customers who abuse the system or those that purchase the same items beyond the permitted quantity. Although it is the least we could do, it is sad to know that there are people who think and act in a way that makes the creator’s and manufacturer’s efforts go to waste.
As these are works from such a popular series, I can already expect what’s coming. Regardless, dreaming of a day we no longer have such a grim outlook, I will do my best on the day of release, filtering out malicious orders one by one.
Takamura, Tonari no Zingaro Staff