Hi everyone, I have been liaising with a few of the Japanese retailers I shop with regarding this restriction and wish to clarify a few things (from what I have read here so far and from my correspondence with them):
1. If you have any pre-orders from HLJ or Hobby Search for Boba Fett and Slave 1, they will honour it. The restriction encompass ALL of Bandai Star Wars model kits. HLJ are still selling theirs but once their stock runs out, that's it.
2. The restriction imposed is based on the contractual agreement between the Japanese manufacturers and Disney in which states the Star Wars trade mark merchandises are only meant for sales within Japan. This not only encompass model kits, but other Star Wars merchandises as well that falls under this agreement. From what I am hearing, it was a blanket agreement that was given to Japan (this one is not confirmed and I am guessing only applies to all the newer agreements).
3. From my understanding (and I may be wrong here since my sources' English isn't that good), apparently these products became available to the world due to a misrepresentation of the terms of agreement in which case the manufacturer's claim of "selling within Japan" referred to only covering Japanese retailers, was not in spirit with the original agreement, which states the products are only meant for sales within Japan regardless whether its from the manufacturer or retailers. In this case, Bandai was deemed to have breached their agreement.
4. In all my correspondence with the retailers, there were no mention of any outside influence (Revell, Hasbro, etc etc). It was basically Disney finding out Japanese Star Wars products were being sold openly everywhere against the agreement, so their licensing department initiated a clamp down.
5. Fans worldwide are not the only ones unhappy. The retailers too are badly effected as they not only stand to lose out on potential sales esp with the coming movie, but some of them had ordered massive stock in anticipation of a sales surge, but they have no choice now but to comply or risk getting blacklisted by Bandai (who is under tremendous pressure to police their distributors and retailers).
6. To make matter worse, Disney apparently is pressuring on the manufacturers directly, so the retail shops in Japan are in limbo as to which other Star Wars products will be effected next. They themselves are hearing a lot of rumours, so to be safe, some have chosen to remove the products while others are still waiting for an official directive.
