The original blog post:

I'm not sure if I'm the only one just having repeatedly bad luck, but I can't help but feel like lately I'm not even looking forward to figure purchases, because I inevitably know that they will come in with defects. It's more like I'm fearing just how much stuff will be wrong with them when they come in, minor or not. And then on top of that dreading the idea of how much of a pain it will be to get a replacement.

[...]

GSC was kind of my last bastion for a few painless replacements, but then I had ITEM #604575 come in with a scrape, a dent, sloppy paintwork, etc.

[...]

I'm almost at the tipping point. I feel like I would just be better off cancelling all of my future preorders on AmiAmi (and there are a lot of them) and going totally preowned. I mean if I can't rely on their warranty to begin with, and they obviously don't give a crap about me as a customer, I don't see the point of buying anything new at this point, and continuing to support them. I'm paying extra for no reason. Sure a lot of the defects I've pointed out in general were minor, but you can't tell me this is done "partially by hand" and then turn around and tell me that a person couldn't see some of this stuff when doing it by hand. Like I didn't have to look hard at all.

Pictured: The horrific damage that has driven the OP into a state of anguish and despair

Some sample replies:

If they wrote these pieces off as 'defect', we may actually become the number one contributors to plastic waste and earth killing. It's just not humanely possible.

I feel like we had the exact same blog post not too long ago.
But I'll say it again.

The perfect figure doesn't exist. Especially not for a mass produced -+150USD price tag.

If you want perfection try commissioning an artist, not a factory.

And seriously? You'll enjoy your life much more if you stop worrying about little things like this.

Many months ago this user did one or two articles about bad quality and returning items when the items in question weren't too bad. After that from time to time I stumbled across comments from him and every single comment was some sort of complaining.

I thought, well this person obviously isn't happy with this hobby, he will soon quit and the whining will stop.

And now maybe half a year or more later the same ridiculous thing continues.

OP does not react well:

As far as your "within the realm of normal on mass produced items like these", you sound exactly like a disclaimer from one of these stores.

Well your mindset is very convenient for a lot of corporations. LCD companies practically get by, by relying on people like you. I guess this is a matter of opinion, but I wholly disagree with yours. It's the doormat stance. If you advertise a product to me, I want it as close to functional perfection as possible. So that if I resold it, wear and tear aside, it should be worth what I paid for it. If it's not, it's defective.

Okay, and it's just acceptable for those sorts of duds to exist? I don't think so, but apparently everyone here's just happy to either act like it's not their problem or doormat it out.

Uhhh... all five of them?

Wow nice reading comprehension. About what I fucking expected.

This is a bizarre thread, not least because you seem unable to cope with the disagreeing with you.

Stramwan. I don't give a shit about people disagreeing. I'm just rambling about the idiocy of the downvote system and how no one knows its purpose to begin with. Most useless system ever. Yeah go ahead and downvote posts simply because you disagree. You're proving your own ignorance. It's basically an echo chamber system of popular opinion control.

You seem unduly concerned with figures as an investment, which is a terrible idea. Buy figures because you like them. Trying to buy in hopes of being able to flip then later is just never going to work; the aftermarket is too random.

You're acting like the two are mutually exclusive. I buy figures that I really love, and frankly it annoys me to have any imperfections on them. The monetary value is a testament is just tied to it.

Again, yeah just feel free to insert intentions into my mindset because YOU can't fucking accept things that don't fit into your world perception.

Meanwhile, every single collector (except you I guess) knows that these small manufacturer defects are to be expected and, as such, they don't affect the value.

Meanwhile meanwhile, people demanding replacements for no reason and losing their minds when companies say no has actually resulted in companies being less willing to help people who get serious defects, so this attitude actually hurts fellow hobbyists.

These are art pieces made by fallible humans. Expecting each one to come from the hands of God himself to make you money is just not the way to get any joy out of this hobby.

Oh bullshit. Cutthroat corporate scum are precisely getting by on your doormat personalities. Reduce quality control (or hell, even keep it the same) while increasing costs. What the fuck are we consumers getting out of this? If I'm paying hundreds of dollars for something, I'm expecting you to at least go over the damn thing one final time and correct obvious scratches or dents. But you know, don't let me stop you from rolling over and taking your imperfections and then acting like everyone should have the same shitty standards you do.

I didn't say you were a new collector, I was just commenting that you see this sometimes with new collectors with a smaller collection freaking out over a lack of perfection when a figure breaks or something! I promise - you're the orderingest orderer of us all XDDDD (You can't blame some people for being confused when you don't keep your collection up to date on here, though!)

That part was more aimed at the little hyenas that needed something else to go after. Like wow there's a person that doesn't care to dial into social media whenever they purchase a figure. What a surprise. That must mean they never purchase anything.

I'm going to apologise for being so initially confrontational with you as I took your tone and contents in a different manner than you probably intended it to come across.

Nevertheless, I guess this is where we simply agree to disagree. I fully believe that they can afford to give one extra round of QC, at the prices they're charging. Most of these can be fixed by small touchups that they totally have the tools to do over there. Until someone can actually present some good evidence that this viewpoint is wrong, I'm not going to change my opinion.

Yeah, I get it. Most of you have much lower standards than me. That has now become readily apparent. The industry is happy for your mindless patronage. Enjoy free upvotes for going along with everyone else.

Here's the other thing: I was pretty civil until the point where people started forgetting the discussion topic entirely and simply focusing on attacking my standards personally and ridiculing the fact that I don't have my collection in the system (well and ridiculing my standards). Go ahead and flip through the topic yourself. My tone was pretty neutral up until a point, when people started outright ignoring any discussion and shitting on my standards and turning it into an echo chamber. If you want to sit there and personally attack me, I'm not going to take it sitting down (well... figuratively speaking...).

Like I'm pretty convinced that no one on here wants an actual discussion anymore (well stopped wanting it a long time ago). Downvotes, ridiculing, hyperbole, anecdote, and nothing but subjective opinions. If that's what people want out of this topic, that's what they get. I could have easily deleted all of this BS going forward but obviously that's not my style. If anything it'll stand as a testament to remind me why I hate humans and society on the whole so much. So yeah, if my tone gets more condescending and belligerent as this goes on... it's certainly not your imagination. I seriously feel like that about this community. It's bleeding through.

OP brags about his financial irresponsibility and having over 300 confirmed pre-orders:

Wow, I'm actually really surprised and sorry that people are ganging up on you. I wasn't trying to be mean or anything. You are 100% allowed to be frustrated with QC that you find unacceptable. If you feel like it's not worth the price and you've been getting burned on customer service, then definitely think twice before preordering. There ARE other people who do this for sure!

I just find it sad/unfortunate that some collectors seem to get really upset and a lot of anxiety over flaws / breaks / defects (especially ones they cause themselves, but also QC issues) and IMO it's not worth being THAT picky. Defective waifus need love, too, right?

I see this more often with newer collectors who expect everything to be mint / perfect forever and then feel devastated like a figure is ruined if something ends up breaking / getting scuffed / paint transfer / wearing out over time / or has some defects from the assembly line etc.

Sigh... I'm far from new, nor am I some person that just orders small amounts irregularly.

I mean here's just a small cross section of my past AmiAmi order (this is just one of a few pages).

I have something due roughly every month, and I even kept it up while I was on chemo last year, medical fees be damned. This is in itself just a small amount of the orders I've done, considering I frequently use Mandarake, Nippon Yasan, sometimes Crunchyroll, other users, etc. I used to almost strictly use preowned sections. Then I started doing preorders. Which for a while I was satisfied with preorders. However, it's just that lately I've been noticing more and more things coming in with various small defects, and it only seems to be getting worse. I can accept some stuff, but I want some degree of aesthetic perfection with what I get. I'm more lenient with preowneds obviously, and only a few times have I had to go after someone who sold me preowned stuff. Obviously I find myself questioning why the hell I'm preordering though, if I'm supposed to be just as lenient, if not moreso, with preorders lately, as I am with preowneds?

I don't really think people are ganging up on him/her - to me, it more seems like people didn't agree and things got aggressive from there. His/her comments are the only ones (to me) that are coming across as pretty hostile.

I also don't think this turn of events had anything to do with what you originally commented. He/she asked for opinions and got them.

That's really easy to say when you're on the good side of the echo chamber. I would be perfectly civil if presenting a dissenting opinion is effectively committing yourself to public censure and getting your posts hidden by people silently disagreeing turning it into a snowball of ad hominem and censorship. I mean ffs again, one of the top posts didn't even read what I said correctly. And thanks to upvotes it's at the top. And by momentum it's going to stay on top. By the time I even got to respond, I got downvoted to hell by people who obviously don't care about how the system is supposed to work, and by momentum that means I'm fighting an uphill battle right from the getgo to even try to say my piece. Ever heard of cornering an animal?

Combine this with people in general just mindlessly treating my opinion as insane with no quantitative or research oriented support, inserting random ass contexts and whatnot into my mindset, and just other assorted bullshit? Yeah. I'm getting a bit annoyed. Let's go to reddit, where you can hide viewpoints that challenge yours. Where how something is stated matters more than the actual content. Where "the majority agrees so you're just obviously wrong."

Yeah this is a waste of time in general. If I wasn't a fast typist I don't think I would normally bother.

The OP’s plastic toy order history is here. Note that 1 dollar is equivalent to about 100 yen.

The OP’s juiciest REEEsponse, posted here in its entirety for posterity:

These are normal small defects, as is the one in your other journal entry (the 'gouge' in the arm).

If I were GSC, I wouldn't want to give you a refund for these either. Any mass produced item, even if it is expensive, is going to run the chance of having tiny defects in paint, structure, etc. And this isn't new. Older figures had even more of these small defects.

I hate to say this, but if you're getting really upset over small things like this and wanting a refund or new product over them, repeatedly, maybe you should stick to preowned, or maybe figure collecting really just isn't for you if it's going to stress you out so much.

Well good for you. I'm glad I'm at the mercy of your standards (and apparently everyone else's). I'm sorry for expressing my opinion that they could reasonably be higher considering the prices charged. I guess I'm just not cut out for a hobby because I don't subscribe to your journal of reasonable figure quality, which is horribly convenient for the industry, and express some amount of stress at the state of the industry. Or express concern and that the intrinsic value of everything I buy is (increasingly) frequently being ruined by factors beyond my control, with no repercussions.

/s

No really, I guess at this rate the only thing that's going up is my misanthropic levels. Ever considered that people like you ARE the reason why everyone has to accept things being like they are? Yeah.

I also don't need your advice. I'll stop when I'm full and ready. Kay? Kay.

Question though because you mention that you are far from a new collector; if you've been into the hobby for awhile, doesn't that mean that one would be aware of the risks? My collection is quite small but before I even got into this hobby, I researched these kind of potential outcomes and from there one should make the decision if they are OK with these kinds of things happening or alternatively decide not to take the chance.

Being aware of things doesn't mean you have to just accept the status quo. Furthermore, really the title of this includes "lately". Meaning, just from my recent experiences.

I also get upset about the figures losing value from manufacturing defects. People seem to be arguing that it won't devalue the figure. But I feel like if I list a figure for sale in the future, I have no choice but to list it with full defects disclosed, even if the defects are "normal" for a mass manufactured item. Or risk having a Paypal case opened against me. Then if you list it with full defects disclosed, you have no choice but to drop the price accordingly. I'd definitely rather not deal with a potential Paypal case.

See, this is what no one here seems to get (or are just unwilling to admit). This is a very salient part of it. Forget me personally feeling bad because of defects and feeling of intrinsic value loss, the thing is LITERALLY worth less because of these defects. Thank you for concisely stating this point.

Mind you both of us are going to still get downvoted to shit by people unwilling to use their brains, but you know. It's a rodeo.

I find that the LCD panel comparison is the absolute most apt. You buy a monitor on ebay, it has some dead pixels. You HAVE to state that in your description and it WILL often be worth less because of it. The number of buyers go down. If you don't disclose it and someone buys it unknowingly, you WILL be on the hook for money afterwards. The point is that your item is intrinsically worth less if you simply accept it with blatant defects. Small paint botches, okay. But scrapes and scratches? No.

The drama is still ongoing as of the time of this post, with the OP currently raving about le Reddit downvotes and censorship.