Hella Bread

JDM Swimbait culture has devolved into artificial scarcity + hypebeast culture limited releases and/or raffle releases = brainrot prices. The worst offenders are DRT, Roman Made etc. The 2nd hand market flip prices of used DRT rods will actually give you a headache. Retail was like 1/8th of this. Funny thing is roman made also offers a rod specifically designed for that bait……and the rod is significantly cheaper than the bait (still doesn’t mean the rod cheap by any means it’s up there with the other jdm flagships)

unrelated note how are legit design rods they been piquing my interest along with raid japan

goes back to the point of “I/most people could care less where it was made if the product is good just don’t lie about it” which I think is a reasonable stance I shoulda been more specific I was referring to the reel manufacturing plants, (thailand and japan) not including obvious sourced parts like bearings, screws washers etc they have a much greater amount of control over compared to a start up company designing a reel with an oem. When you get into the greater scope of the globeride supply chain and which components they own/have stake in it gets muddy real fast bc of how many diff industries they’re involved in. Like daiwa having a high ene streetwear clothing line for some reason.

+ This point is moot bc daiwa/shimano own their overseas plants which means total control from the top down in terms of production and the engineering side vs with an oem contracted reel a lot of the non sexy internal bits no one likes to talk about bc it’s boring ultimately can make or break a reel and you’re at the mercy of that oems quality and engineering since you’re gonna be sharing parts with the rest of the models in said oems catalog

actually japan specifically has pretty strict country of origin labeling laws that japanese companies have to follow and all major parts (bearings, gears, roller clutches etc (basically everything outside of screws, o rings and washers) have been clearly labeled where it was made and by what company if it was a sourced part like bearings. it’s actually so strict the bag the part is packed in is labeled “printed in X” separate from the label on the part itself stating where it was made for my shimano parts

Idk what it is about the saltwater conventional side of the market but yeah you’re more likely to see companies producing and assembling their own designs. Accurate also comes to mind. But little chance of that happening with the low pro market which i think is due to the amount of molded parts used in the average low pro today. Molds and tooling become dummy expensive quick which is something I have first hand experience with.

The issue isn’t really the country of origin itself I could care less about where something was made so long as the product is good evidenced by the fact I happily pay for and use megabass and steez rods both which are made in china but they don’t actively try to hide this fact, it’s pretty clearly stated. issue that pops up is when companies either are flat out lying about the production origin and/or purposely obscuring the **** out of it while pushing the image and branding it was designed and produced somewhere else. It’s an honesty thing at the end of the day. Most people don’t like being lied or misled.

doyo gets a lot of undeserved hate most of the time, I think they’re fine and my top pick out of the main oem factories. The only legitimate complaint I had was the lack of a fully supported pinion across all models but idk if that was just a gen 4 revo lineup specific quirk and/or if that has been fixed in all current doyos Actually scratch that they deserve all the hate I still blame doyo for the discontinuing of zpi spools to sell completed reels 😂

Yeah it’s pretty normal behavior in this industry the only thing I personally don’t like is the lack of honesty when it comes to these things bc i swear to god I couldn’t find country of origin marked anywhere on the bates packaging. (not sure if that’s even legal to exclude). Any there’s excitement over a new reel company coming onto the market people just gotta remember outside of niche ultra specialized reels (ie: fully sealed spinners like the visser/zeebaas/vs or tournament casters) there hasn’t been any new reel companies offering fully original designs with in house manufacturing in a very long time especially in the low profile department and it will continue to stay like that for a reason. The amount of time money and effort that would have to go into setting up a facility and engineering from the ground up is literally not feasible/possible for any new company.

They put in a bit more effort than the average oem sourced reel company considering the factory doesn’t offer any low profile models in its standard catalog which probably suggests bates has exclusive rights to that body design but outside of that bates is operating like every other oem sourced reel company. Lots of effort went into marketing and the branding. Side note loongze/bates reels are stupid light for a full alu bodied reel which would make me decently worried about how it will hold up. We all know there has to be a trade off getting the weight this low and the route they took seems to be thinner than normal wall thickness on the frame and side plates. Also found it kinda weird/funny they featured the use of NMB bearings as a marketing point when they’re pretty much the standard across the industry.

Sorry for being late af to this thread but for those still curious the actual answer is wonkier than you thought. They’re made in china by loongze. Loongze reels share the same braking system as the hundo + some internal parts (big thing unique to this manufacturer is that red clutch plate with the threaded posts). I really don’t care or mind where a company produces its reels as long as they’re honest about it. The amount of posts Bates share and acknowledge that claim they’re made in the states kinda rubs me the wrong way.