Shueisha has suffered a second stock incident in two weeks as measures to prevent the scalping of ONE PIECE-related items prove ineffective.
As previously reported, Shueisha printed an additional 500,000 copies of Weekly Shonen Jump issue 33 in anticipation of massive demand for the attached exclusive promotional card for the ONE PIECE Card Game. Some card shops even set the trade-in price ridiculously low to deter scalping, but many fans still reported being unable to get their hands on the issue at local bookstores and convenience stores once it went on sale on July 13.
Oricon spoke to one such scalper, who said the following:
"I'm doing this to make a little pocket money for myself. I set off in the car just before the calendar changed and managed to get about 25 copies. There weren't many convenience stores around me with purchase limits, so I managed to get five to seven copies from each trip."
July 2 also saw a report on the chaos surrounding this year's Natsucomi, an annual campaign ran by Shueisha. Once again, scalpers bought copies of manga in bulk to resell the metallic cards that came as bonus items on flea market sites such as Mercari and Yahoo Auctions. Footage of customers running across store floors, grabbing manga haphazardly, as well as even fighting among themselves circulated on social media, only further stoking the outrage.
Given the regularity of such incidents, it's clear that this problem isn't going to go away anytime soon. Shueisha must do more to ensure that products are reaching the right customers, especially when it comes to sales in brick and mortar stores.
