Welcome to what will probably be the final Official vs Bootleg. However, this blog should deliver – not only do we have two bootlegs to compare with, well… you’ll see!

I will be comparing her both cast-off and clothed – if you’re not interested in seeing her unclothed, I can offer one (1) free click of the back button.

NSFW - click to reveal

This figure was my first Pop Up Parade so is the first release. Pop Up Parade is known for being a budget line, so how does a knockoff of a budget figure compare?

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥3,545
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥3,900 (£29.28)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $20.07 (£14.14)

The official I pre-ordered from Big in Japan.

Box

Front:

Can you tell the difference? No? It’s hard isn’t it…
As is common with figures that come in clear boxes, the bootleggers have made their own card design with dubiously-sourced art. I’m not an art aficionado so I don’t know what was sourced from where. Interestingly, we have a photo of the bootleg crudely slapped on the bottom right of the box – interesting they didn’t go for promo art of the official product. The cutout is also of an interesting shape which is a surprising amount of effort for a bootleg box.

Sides:

The official has some geometric shapes and the Pop Up Parade logo – the original Pop Up Parade boxes really were very generic.
The bootleg has photos of the bootleg figure – at least we’re not being sold a misrepresentation of the contents! We also have the NGNL logo and the figure title repeated. Honestly, this isn’t a bad-looking box all things considered.

Back:

For the official box we have all the legally required stuff and not much excitement. Gotta keep those costs down. The bootleg though… is a colourful clusterfuck of elements. It’s not a well put-together scene, but I still love it for its crazy composition.

Top:

Nothing for the official, a repeat of the image on the front of the box of the figure.

Bottom:

Not much to see here on either box. But we do actually have a JAN on the official – no barcodes on the bootleg.

Inner:

Generic triangles for the official, a chequered grid with a gradient for the bootleg. Looking at this, I think it would be nice if Goodsmile did simple character-related motifs for characters that have them for the Pop Up Parade line. Doing a similar grid effect for the official card wouldn’t have been too complex.

Back of the bootleg box:

Again, I love this bit of design for the bootleg box. Would look better if it was just the official figure without the stand taking centre stage, but this bit works without being too chaotic like the back.

In terms of telling these apart, that’s easy. A lot of bootleg Pop Up Parades come in cardboard boxes, so that’s an easy tell. Though some aspects of the bootleg box I think it would be nice to carry over to the official just so it isn’t so generic and boring.

Blister

The blisters are very similar, though the bootleg one is an inferior plastic and not as sturdy.
We can see the bootleg figure doesn’t occupy as much of the blister as it should.

Base

Packaged:

Mine isn’t as neatly packed as it was new, but the official comes with a baggie for the base and the bootleg did not.

Out of the bag:

The bootleg base is very clear compared to the official. The holes also also placed differently and it lacks the copyright. Instead we get extra injection mould marks.

Accessory

She has the one accessory – a gun of some sort. Probably a bubble shooter? Kind of looks like a hairdryer too, but those don’t tend to have triggers. Or maybe she does have some heart-shaped bullets!

OK, let’s have a look at this thing:

From the sides the bootleg doesn’t look bad – the paint’s a little messier but not massively noticeable when not up close. The colours are also a bit different but not noticeably wrong.

Back:

On my bootleg copy there is a fairly noticeable ding. It won’t show on display, but shows that these things can have random defects.

Front:

The biggest difference is noticeable here – the official is painted black inside whilst the bootleg is cream inside and out. The plastic cast is also a bit wonky on the bootleg, but far from the worst I’ve seen doing this series.

Overall, the bootleg gun isn’t too bad – it has some defects but nothing major. If I replaced the gun on the official with this bootleg one, I’m sure casual observers wouldn’t notice.

Out of the box

Here they are, out of the blisters. We can see distinct differences in their poses – the difference between the base holes becomes much more apparent once she’s on the stand. Though we do have some bending/misassembly in the bootleg that changes some parts of her pose further.

Spin-around

Definitely seeing some grossness with the bootleg – shiny skin and lumpy hair. The hair looks deflated on the bootleg, as well as the colours being duller and less attractive. Her left arm is also posed differently.

Aiming at you:

The bootleg hair is trying its best… And lots of shiny on display on the bootleg body and clothing from this angle.

Figure close-ups

Face:

The bootleg hair doesn’t disappoint in sadness – the stray hairs are all melty and lumpy. We’ve also got scratches in the paint. However, moving onto her face, it’s not actually that bad – the print is definitely not up to par with the original, but the alignment issues aren’t as severe as other bootlegs I’ve covered. From a distance you wouldn’t be able to see that some of the lines are slightly off.
One thing you do notice, however, is the neon mouth paint – that does stand out along with the shiny skin plastic.

Neck joint:

The bootleg is a bit gappier than the official but not too bad.

Side of the head:

Seams galore on the bootleg! The purple shading is also less subtle in spots especially by her ear. Both arms have a noticeable join at the shoulder.

Top of the hair:

What should be the topmost strand on the bootleg curls underneath the other hair strands and the parts are not as well put together as the official.

Back of the hair:

Mmm, the back of the bootleg looks gross – dirty and shiny on the blue part. The poor construction of the bootleg is fairly apparent back here too. The hair fades are more abrupt on the bootleg, plus they occur at different heights.

Side of the hair:

Here we can see where the bootleg’s hair is much flatter and lacks the volume of the official. All the hair strands seem to be present, just in a much more squished configuration. The green also extends further up the hair tips.

Closer look at those hair tips:

Yep, definitely not a match for the official. The green paint is pretty messy on the bootleg with the longer strand seemingly getting some overspray from the lower hair strand. Also the pink paint is nowhere to be seen in this area on the bootleg.

Holding the gun:

The bootleg holds the gun at a slightly different angle. But the most noticeable thing is the very melted finger – not going to be doing much trigger pulling with that! Just awful – makes her had looks like it is made out of wax. However, she does hold the gun well so if you can get past the mutant wax hand it’s still functional.

Left hand:

The bootleg’s fingers are less spread out and and blobbier. The skin tone and finish is also different. Due to the thinner cuff, the hand has been glued in at a different angle.

Shirt:

The bootleg is a very shiny plasticky affair – not very realistic-looking. The details have also been muddied by poor casting, leaving it looking a lot flatter. On the original you can see the detail of each button/popper whilst the bootleg’s are barely visible.

Bottom of the shirt:

The lack of definition is evident down here too along with a messier hem. Moving to the stocking, the bootleg’s is less glossy than the official, sports a visible seamline and paint slop onto the leg. Peeking out of the bootleg shirt we have some pallid, shiny leg.

Side of the shirt/leg:

The edge of the official’s shirt has a nice crisp, clean edge. The bootleg is less so, but not the worst crime against plastic. The bootleg has the same level of shiny on its leg and stocking – not the best look.

Stockings in their entirety:

In terms of pose the bootleg and official are very similar. Main noticeable difference is that finish. We also have a scratch on the bootleg.

Left leg:

Unfortunately due to my inability to focus the camera properly, the official shot is blurry but all the interesting action is on the bootleg anyway. With the bootleg, the toes are slightly less well-defined and there is a seam running down the front of the leg. And that scratch also shows from this angle.

Foot support:

The supports are pretty similar, though the bootleg’s is less transparent. Looking about the lug and peg that goes into the support the official is the same colour as the stocking but the bootleg’s is unpainted.

Whilst taking the bootleg off the base this happened:

Not the neatest paint job. It did go back into the base support and stay, so not a critical issue but wasn’t glued as it should be.

Pantsu:

The bootleg has lighter and messier stripes that don’t quite got to the edge in all cases.

Conclusion

With the box, there is no mixing these up – clear boxes for Pop Up Parades. For the figures themselves, there’s some key tells like the deflated hair, shiny skin, semigloss stockings, bent finger and the clear base. Looking down the end of the gun, we can also see that the bootleg one is unpainted.
In terms of the quality of the bootleg, it’s definitely not the worst. It mostly lacks in the hair department but the shiny skin and shirt also look fairly bad. Though there’s also a chance the bootleg’s leg may bend over time – haven’t tested for that. I can see a less particular collector being happy with this bootleg despite its flaws as it doesn’t contain any hilariously bad issues like some other bootlegs.

This figure was an instant preorder for me – I like monster characters, especially of the aquatic variety. I did have some small reservations as I didn’t think Tomato Girl came out as well as it could’ve done. I don’t actually own Tomato Girl, but haven’t been that impressed by the photos I’ve seen. However, for an octopus girl I was prepared to risk it.

I preordered this before orders in Japan were available so didn’t get to get the AmiAmi scroll. Would’ve been a nice bonus to have.

So let’s see what we got!

Box

The box colours work well with the black and the muted blue. The tentacle designs are a nice inclusion to decorate the box instead of leaving it plain.
The box unfolds to reveal a lid, and underneath there is supposed to be the two pairs of ribbons tied in the middle. However on mine these were already untied as the proxy had done an inspection so wasn’t sure how they were supposed to go – there are photos from other users in the MFC gallery for her, if you wish to see the inside of the box. The figure and her accessories are in a cut EPE foam block, so everything is held securely. Which, based on the rough time that the figure I had her shipped with (ODD Lille – see previous blog), is a good thing!
Overall the box is good-looking and functional. Two very good traits for a figure box!

Sadtiems

When I first inspected the figure, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was talking to someone on Discord who mentioned they sent theirs back for a break. What break? I inspected the figure more closely and:

Damnit. Some glue on the end of a sharpened BBQ stick later and I had it repaired. I left the figure for 24 hours to check if the glue was going to hold and luckily it did. Looks like there’s a QC issue where this bundle of tentacle wasn’t given enough glue and the slime pulls on it a bit, resulting in it separating like this. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad to repair as it may look – pull it down slightly, apply glue with stick, then hold in place for 1-2 mins. I held it longer than I normally would due to the weight and the slime potentially not helping! If you need to do this repair yourself, I’d recommend a long pointy object for glue application and to do a test fit before starting glue application – you have to push it in a certain way to go back into the right place, and the damaged paint should be fully hidden if it’s back in its original position.

Figure overview

The figure mostly comes as one piece, so didn’t do an accessories section – there is a small amount of assembly with putting on the treasure chest lid, sword, dagger and necklaces.
The figure comes with various paper bits, which are folded up like a sealed treasure map. I forgot to take a photo, so here is one by Toprharley:

Annoyingly, the loyalty card is slightly bigger than credit card size but did just fit in my card holder.

So let’s look at her set up:

Wow, certainly a lot to look at here – no shortage of tentacles and she has been hoarding some treasure. I love the shiny finish on the tentacles and the colours came out well. We also have plenty of slime.

A couple of other angles:

Colours so pretty… prior to getting her, I was worried she was going to be a bit too washed out but was glad to find out that was not the case, and I love her purple-blue hues.

Left:

The slime looks good, plus there is a good amount of ‘animation’ in the tentacles.

Back:

She also has tentacles back here, guarding the back of the chest.

Top:

From this angle you can get a feel for her size. She’s not a small lass! From here we can see she’s about as wide as she is long. But as a 1/3 scale, she wasn’t going to be small XD.

Figure close-ups

Now we’ve seen the figure in its entirety, let’s look at the smaller details.
Top of her head:

The shading nicely converges towards the middle of her tentacle ‘hair’. The spikes are also nicely shaded, but only one of them seems to have green speckles, which makes it look a little odd.

Face:

She has a cute face nested in the tentacles. There is some purple shading on her face.

Body:

Her body sculpt is good, but the shading is lacking in my opinion – she has painted nipples which is nice, but the body doesn’t have much distinction otherwise. I feel this is partly stylistic but I think would’ve benefitted from a bit more subtle shading around her chest/belly button.

Legs:

She has very lean legs – not much in the way of muscle or fat here.

Feet:

If you like your figures barefoot this is a part of the figure that may appeal. I like the way she’s spreading her toes on one foot to give her more character.

Weapons:

She’s not left unarmed to protect her treasure – she has a sword and a dagger to keep her jewels safe. Getting the sword into place was a little bit difficult – needed to use the light on my phone to find the hole it slots into. Once you know which way to direct it, it slots into the hole easily. If it won’t go, try rotating the sword. Both weapons look nice and are sturdy once assembled.

Chest lid:

The connector is pretty small for this part but feels decently sturdy once in place. The sculpting and shading has been nicely done on this part, though the metal banding could possibly do with more shading to sell the damage more. The wood finish is pretty shiny which is a bit of an odd choice to me.

Nestled gems:

She has a couple of these translucent balls – not quite sure what they are. I like the way she’s holding one instead of them just lying about the place. As for what they do and what they’re worth… who knows?

Necklaces:

She comes with two necklaces to hang off of the chest ‘teeth’. They’re a little awkward to get into the right place, but do look nice when added.
With the chest having these green spiky teeth, I do wonder if it could protect itself if it wanted. Or maybe it’s some kind of trap set by the octopus girl herself? Maybe this is some kind of interesting couple? Monster and the Mimic? Whichever way, the shading is nicely done on these protrusions.

Gooey slime:

Liquidy parts on figures often look bad, but I’m glad to report the slime looks slimy. It is rubbery to the touch. I’m really happy with the way the stretchy slime parts came out.

Suckers:

Also really happy with the way the suckers came out – they’re actually sucker-shaped unlike Idol Cthulhu’s. The bottoms of the tentacles nicely transition to paler colours. If she grabs on, she isn’t going to be easy to shake loose!

Back tentacle:

Just admiring the shiny finish and the speckles :). The purple sheen really adds to the figure.

Gem decorations

She comes with some gems to decorate the base with:

A fun way of making a boring base not boring! However they will likely go all over the place when setting them up – the bits vary in size a lot so you may find the smaller and larger bits pinging off in various directions as you pour out the gems. Initially they do start plastic-wrapped, but the ones in the hessian sack the bag burst at the bottom, so pulling them out just ended up with a plastic bag in my hand XD.
These photos is with roughly half of the hessian sack contents, with none of the extra golden ovals (whatever they are? Not sure).
If you buy this figure, I would suggest putting it where you intend to display then pour the gems out carefully a bit at a time to cover the base. Putting them back in the bag after the photo session was a mildly time-consuming process.
I’d say they’re worth the effort though – it does a good job of decorating the base.

Conclusion

She’s a big beast, and here she is displayed in my cabinet:

Whew, just fits on the shelf! At ~8kg I wouldn’t recommend trying to display her in a detolf lest it breaks the shelf. This cabinet is a shop display cabinet so is designed to be able to take a good amount of weight.
I haven’t put all the gems on the base – there are a lot of them! So I’ve left the extras in the bag and displayed it next to her. To get the gems on the base, I cupped my hand and poured some into the larger spaces available on her base. From there, I spread them out before pouring more. Some went flying, but not too many.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this figure and glad I got her. Some may find her rather small for a 1/3 but I was expecting it to be like that. The paint is mostly great, though I’d like to see a tad more shading on her body. The manufacturing flaw with too little glue on the tentacle is not great – I’m not the only person that had them separate – but easily fixable. And if you squidge out any glue… hey, more slime! There are some parts that should’ve probably been sculpted to touch like the tentacle going through the chest teeth, but they don’t stand out enough to bother me.
I think most people will be pleased with this figure so long as it survives the journey, though it does have its imperfections. Whichever way, it’s nice to have a monster girl that isn’t some kind of cat.

This figure is an original character, and is made by the company ODD. They’re a Chinese manufacturer with 3 released figures, and more on the way. All of them, well, odd. You have been warned :P. There will be uncensored genitalia photos.

Each of their figures comes with a backstory – this character is member of a winged race, and was captured as her eggs are delicious and nutritious. The backstory doesn’t go into how nutritious, just that they are.

The mythical creatures are captured then cloned and placed in machines to take advantage of them. In Lille’s case she’s been put in gachapon machine and kept in heat so she continuously lays eggs. An interesting concept for a figure, for sure.

If you’re interested in the full story, I paid for a translation which can be found in the spoiler below

Lille's Story

Show NSFW

Time for everyone’s favourite slime – Rimuru! He’s survived many things, so let’s see if he survived the bootlegging process!

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥4,444
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥4,732 (£34.34)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £9.90

The official I bought from Nippon Yasan (so much money, so little retailer…)

Box

Front:

There are instantly noticeable differences right out of the gate – no logos at the top, no authenticity sticker and they’ve even removed the “Rimuru” in Japanese as well as the copyright! Looking closer, we can see the white parts on the bootleg box are slightly yellowy and the print quality is poor and grainy.
The “Rimuru” on the bootleg’s plastic may appear to be in the wrong place, but the plastic sheet had fallen off in transit.
Looking into the box the yellow background shines through a lot more clearly on the bootleg.

Sides:

The poor print quality persists here, and the “Nendoroid” text from the bottom has been removed.

Back:

They have been a lot less ruthless with the removing on the back surprisingly – even going so far as leaving a Good Smile Company logo in the bottom right. They’ve just removed the block that refers to GSC support – good – as you won’t be getting it for this bootleg!

Top and bottom:

Both of these ends have had their logos removed. Rimuru gets to keep his Japanese name on the bottom of the box. They have also kept the correct barcode.

A peek into the boxes:

Now we get to see why the bootleg background was so dayglo – the inner of the box is a very bright yellow all the way around.
The official box has a slightly less bright liner:

Blister:

Not too dissimilar, though the mask is upside down in my bootleg copy, and one of Rimuru’s hands plus the yakitori is making a break for it. And bootleg slime Rimuru is too embarrassed to show his face.

In conclusion, if you have the box to look at it’s going to be very apparent if it is a bootleg copy – the bootleg box feels suspiciously blank and is noticeably poor quality.

Accessories

Well, he’s got a few of these to get through! Let’s start with the packaging:

OK, my official one isn’t packed as it was – the little pockets at the top contained the arms in the grip seal baggie I’ve used to contain the bits whilst in my drawer storage. However the bootleg has chosen to go for a single bag for everything, just letting it rattle around.

Well, with all these bits plus the ones in the front of the blister I think I’m going to need some instructions:

Bootleg actually comes with a copy – slightly lighter but otherwise unedited.
OK, I can’t do Japanese, let’s try the other side:

Aha! With the official instructions I’m in luck… bootleg not so much. We just have a repeat of the Japanese instructions. Not so useful.

OK, let’s get onto the various bits we have!

Extra faces:

The colour differences are immediately apparent, especially the skin colour. The bootleg is much more pinkish in shade. The bootleg colours on the prints are largely darker than their official counterparts, plus there is some misalignment with the print layers. We can especially see this with the dark grey at the top of the eyes. The thin lines have been bulked up on the bootleg giving the whole thing a less delicate appearance.
We also have the “bootleg red” thing going on where the red lining of the lips and the embarrassment lines look more like wounds than what they’re supposed to.

Back of the faces:

Oof, a bit of a moulding disaster in the bootleg faces. Lots of excess plastic and looking a bit deformed in places.

Bottom of the faces:

As is common with bootleg nendos (for some reason), the bootlegs have changed the neck joint. Not entirely sure why they do this, but we have a peg hole on the bottom of the face parts instead of a slot.

Head deconstructed:

Apparently I mixed up the faces when taking these photos. Not sure how I managed that!
With the hair sculpts, we can see that the bootleg is an inferior match of the official. Interestingly, for the official we have a bit of overspray whilst the bootleg is fully painted. The full paint does look more aesthetically pleasing, but I expect the official doesn’t do this to ensure a consistent fit.

Mask:

From the front, the bootleg doesn’t look too dissimilar – a little messy with the red paint, but the black lines aren’t significantly off. If the masks weren’t side by side, the bootleg would look decent.
On the back we have a misshapen peg and some mould marks on the bootleg. The bootleg mask also doesn’t have the same sheen as the official.

Arms & spare joint:

The dark blue paint on the bootleg arms feels kind of… crusty. A lot of the detail has been lost on the cuffs and the paint isn’t as precise.
With the joint, we can see the bootleg lacks the Goodsmile smile – this is why the joint is a good place to check for bootlegginess – it’s usually missing or poorly replicated on bootlegs.

Takoyaki hand:

The bootleg takoyaki hand isn’t too bad barring the incorrect skin colour – the takoyaki itself retains most of the texture but does have a bit of excess plastic that you can see when up close. Also a bit more paint spillage.

Wings:

The paint is somewhat flawed on my official copy, but the bootleg has shaky linework making it not good either. The linework on the back of the wings on the bootleg is especially bad, making it the inferior copy.
Also the pegs for the bootleg wings… Note how awful those look. Yep, those awful pegs will haunt me later.

Sword:

The bootleg sword is fractionally smaller and has a more rounded tip. We also see some difference between the diamonds on the hilt. Not too bad for a bootleg.

Sheathed sword:

The bootleg sheathed sword has a serious bend to it just above the hilt. The gold paint is also a bit more brassy. Again, we have the bootleg peg painted whist the official isn’t.

Fire:

This is another piece where if they weren’t side by side it would be much harder to pick out the bootleg. The bootleg fire is a bit blobbier in places, and doesn’t have as nice a colour transition. Looking from the bottom, we can see there’s less colouring to the bootleg one. The bootleg fire doesn’t curve as much, but doesn’t seem to have any issues standing up.

Rimuru as a slime:

The bootleg slime is noticeably darker and has a lot of flaws on the surface of the plastic. Under less bright lighting this would be less noticeable but as soon as the light catches it the lines show up.
And his face is wonky on the bootleg…
It’s not the worst-looking thing, but does look pretty bad next to the official.

Whew, that was a lot of pieces! Overall, the accessories are a mixed bag – some of the bootleg ones aren’t too bad, others like the wings are noticeably inferior. And we’ll get onto those wings later…

Base

The bootleg base is clear instead of translucent – common downgrade with bootleg bases. We also lack the copyright text of the official.

Stand arm:

Again, the arm is cast in a clearer plastic on the bootleg. We also have some extra plastic on the bootleg where it escaped the mould and wasn’t cleaned off after.
The bootleg stand arm also doesn’t disassemble into two pieces like the official, so you can’t repurpose it for a Nendoroid with a different peg. Or replace the peg part if it breaks.

Spin-around

Hm, looking like a derpier version of the original. The scarf stands out as particularly globby, along with the poor paintwork on the hair. Looking at the sides, we can see where the parts fit poorly on the bootleg.

Accessory test

From the way I did this photoshoot many moons ago, for the close-ups portion I seem to have decided just to do accessory tests. So this will focus on trying out the accessories. We’ve seen most of the detail in the accessories section, so there wouldn’t be much to cover.

Fresh outta the box:

Hm, the bootleg’s head appears to be making a break for it, and the wings are looking somewhat sad.

Let’s get them onto the stands:

Fdunk. Yeah, the bootleg stand isn’t very good, and Rimuru will fall off it easily. So if you see bootleg Rimuru lying slightly backwards in some shots, this is why.

Back holes:

Looking very similar to the official here as far as the holes go. So that’s good.
The scarf looks kind of terrible to me on the bootleg – bent all over the place, poor seams, bend out of shape and looking a dirty shade.
Looking at his coat, the lines and edges aren’t as clean as the official either. The plastic is also warped at the bottom of the coat, making it look cheap.

Let’s try these back holes out:

Well, the sword is in, but on the bootleg I had to use the stand creatively to get it to work… Notice how one of the bootleg wings is missing- they didn’t stay in very well, and at this point I wasn’t even sure if I’d get two wings to stay in on the bootleg… but after a fair amount of persistence, I did.

Let’s try out a bootleg faceplace swap:

Well, that works at least, even if it does look somewhat scary. Dark red lines really don’t work.

Rimuru holding Rimuru:

…or on further attempts, Rimuru not holding Rimuru. The fit of the right arm and the left hand are so loose that it just drops off when you attempt to pose him with the slime.
The official fits nicely – no issues there, but the bootleg is a waste of time without actually doing something to make the joints fit the holes better. The left hand is particularly loose, so this isn’t the only photo with a missing left hand.

OK, let’s try the mask:

Ahhh… aha, ha. The bootleggers have glued the hair strand in that’s supposed to come out for the mask to slot in. So that’s a waste of an accessory for the bootleg. Best you can do here is balance on his head or something.
Also we can see the bootleg wings doing whatever the frick they feel like. Ugh, they were so annoying.

OK, the yakitori, that works right?

Thankfully yes! Something that works on this stupid piece of junk!

Time for some head replacement:

As is fairly common for some reason, the bootleg heads have been modified to be a simple ball joint and hole instead of following GSC’s “chin” style of head connector. I guess it reduces the moulds needed to make it, but seems strange to me they bother to change this. For this reason, the bootleg’s faceplates aren’t compatible with the official.

Let’s do a face swap anyway, with just the head:

It kind of works, not that there’s much point to doing so. You’re left with significant gappage on the bootleg hair and an empty hole on the bottom, so nothing would attach. A fun, if ultimately pointless experiment.

Conclusion

As far as avoiding this bootleg, it should be relatively easy to do so. If there’s a box, the bootleg’s is distinctly incorrect so easy to see at a glance. Without the box, the poor hair paint stands out. The extra-clear base is also a giveaway. Other than that, looking at the wing and sword connectors can give distinct clues, as well as the head connection.
In terms of a bootleg, I’d regard it as awful – don’t bother with even for cheap. The bits don’t fit together well, the paint is somewhat terrible and he looks kinda cheap.
Some of the small pieces you could potentially get away with as replacements for the original, but the faceplaces and wings would be useless.
Overall, I’m glad he’s resigned to the Box of Bootleg.

For this figure, when I got the bootleg I only owned the standard edition. I took photos with the standard edition then a month or two later I ended up buying the deluxe edition. The standard edition I have is sun-damaged to some extent, which you’ll see on some photos. I ended up retaking a good chunk of the comparison photos with the deluxe figure, but there will be a mix.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): Standard: ¥3,800, Deluxe: ¥4,600
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): £32.00
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $16.94 (£14.05)

The official standard edition I bought from eBay, and the special edition from Suruga-ya. Both ended up around the same cost.

Box

Here we have the bootleg as it arrived:

Yup, padding and everything! That was a surprise. Usually bootleg sellers don’t particularly care what condition the box turns up in, but this one was well-protected for the tumultuous journey from China.

OK, now to discard the extra wrappings on the bootleg and get the deluxe edition box out:

A surprising amount of difference is instantly noticeable – no backdrop on the bootleg and the parts are packed in different positions. The face is in the official box but in a separate blister that’s not visible yet (we’ll see it later). For the official Haruyuki ball it is also in a separate blister for the official, whilst the bootleg has these parts integrated into the one blister. This difference can be explained via the official having two variants and the bootleg only one, so makes sense just to make one blister.
And yes, the Haruyuki ball was backwards in the bootleg box when I received it.
Looking at the top-left of the boxes, the bootleg doesn’t have the Wave logo or the Sunrise authenticity sticker.
They did bootleg the special edition sticker, but the print isn’t as dark.

Sides:

No particularly notable differences here. The bootleg has worse print quality, but otherwise thse match up.

Back:

Some more logo removal here at the bottom – Wave, copyrights, the head joint advertisement and the Beach Queens logo. The bootleg has the neck joint so there wasn’t any need to remove that, but guess they felt a bit overenthusiastic when removing the logo-age.
Again, poor print quality so Kuroyukihime looks a bit sunburnt and grainy on the bootleg box.

Top:

The Beach Queens logo has been removed, and the Accel World logo is bluer.

Bottom:
Standard edition:

Deluxe edition:

The bootleg has removed the Wave logo – no surprises there. However, more surprisingly to me, they have replaced the barcode with a made-up one (63/635 aren’t valid GS1 country codes. China is 690-699, which is why many of these fake barcodes start with a 6).
With the officials, looks like Wave produced the same outer boxes for both editions, but put a barcode sticker on the deluxe to give it its own barcode.
Looking to the top edge, we see the official box has overprint to ensure that the image on the front goes to the bottom of the fold whilst the bootleg doesn’t.

Flap:

Yep, the bootleggers removed this mention of Wave too

Insides:

The window glue looks pretty nasty on the bootleg. We also lack the purple liner the official boxes have.

Telling these boxes apart is pretty easy – the lack of Wave and Beach Queens logos is a dead giveaway for the bootleg. The lack of backdrop and different positioning for the accessories are also clear differences if familiar with what it should look like.

Blister:
Standard:

Deluxe:

In the deluxe version, we can see where the face is taped to the corner of the blister in its own blister.
In both photos, we can see the official figures come with two base pieces and the bootleg only came with the one.

Accessories

Haruyuki front:

The bootleg ball is darker in colour, and the print quality isn’t as good. They’ve also coloured the insides of his ears, which is an interesting choice.
The casting of the ears on the bootleg is poor, and his left ear is bent forward, making it look an odd shape in this photo.

Bottom:

Both have a bumhole: check. Looking at the bootleg trotters, the inner paint is escaping the outline.

Side:

Both have pretty ugly seams. The halves of the bootleg don’t match in colour.

Back:

They both have a squiggly tail, but again, the bootleg’s has some poor casting leaving the final product lumpy.
Looking at the light reflections the bootleg is a rougher finish compared to the official.
From this angle we can see the ears are all pointy-shaped, but the bootleg’s are dirty, not as pointy and have excess plastic still attached.

Is this ball a replacement for the official? Sort of. It’s not the worst thing ever, but giving it a close look, the flaws do show.

Bonus face:

The “embarrassed” lines on the bootleg are much more distinct versus the official. And we have the good ol’ sweaty bootleg finish. The skin colours are noticeably different between the two when side-by-side.
Looking at the ears, the bootleg’s lack paint detail and are dirty, probably with paint.

Top of the face:

From this angle, the difference in skin colour is very apparent. The bootleg hasn’t been cast as well, so the straight edges look a bit munched-up.

Base

The Beach Queens are relatively boring in this regard and all come with a hexagon of sand. Still, a better base than other hexagonal bases that I could mention.

Unpacking the bases:

The official ones come separately bagged whilst the bootleg was just shoved into the blister.
The white strip with the official bases is a double-sided sticky strip to attach the bases together, if you so wish to.

With the bootleg they seem to have done a switcharoo with the bagging:

Yeah, the figure was bagged, but not the base.

Top:

They are noticeably a different shade when side by side. In person, the difference between the bases is more apparent as the top layer of the base is thinner and a bit bald in spots which shows up from certain angles.

Photo showing some of the balder spots:

It doesn’t look too bad on its own, but next to the official, the defects do show up.

Bottom:

Interestingly, they’ve kept the copyrights on the base piece. We’ve also got some extra artefacts from the moulding process.

The base isn’t the greatest indicator of a bootleg, though if you have a clear photo of the bottom you can count the number of injection points – official has two and bootleg has 6.
Overall the bootleg is at a big disadvantage – half the base is missing! So if an unboxed version of her only comes with one base piece, I’d be suspicious.

Let’s see what having only half the base looks like:

Yeah, she doesn’t look right only sitting on one base piece…

Figure Spin-around

Looking at the figure’s skin tone, we can see the bootleg is a much more reddish tone, whilst the official has a more yellowy base. The hair is noticeably worse and the bikini top is looking a little odd.

Figure close-ups

Face:

Mmm, starting off strong… The bootleg hair, so blobby. The stray hairs are like chunky noodles or something, and no fine points on the lower hair either.
Looking at the face itself, the print on the bootleg is actually mostly decent, but the mouth is done in that overly orangey-red that bootlegs like to use. The face sculpt itself has lost some definition, which makes the mouth and nose look odd. Under her chin we can see some excess plastic.

Top of the head:

Oof, the bootleg seams are rough up here. The bootleg fringe won’t peg fully into the back of the hair, leaving an unsightly gap. We can also see the hair parts don’t stick out correctly either.

Side of the head:

Wow, these hair pieces were NOT put together well on the bootleg. This shows why the hairpiece won’t assemble correctly on the bootleg – the added hair strands stick out, preventing it from pushing back.

Chest and stomach:

The whole terribleness of the bootleg bikini top is on full display here – the original has a nice frilly edge whilst the bootleg has… grey slop. Even from further away, it’s noticeably awful and was one of the first things I noticed when unboxing it. As well as the poor grey paint, the jewel detail isn’t painted on the bootleg either.
Moving to the stomach, the bootleg has some shading but not as distinctive as the official. The casting seems to be fine around the torso area.

Decapitated:

Urgh, I think the bootleg’s bikini is fusing with it… Not a good look. We also have a lot of paint transfer from the hair on he shoulders and arms.

Back:

An attempt was made to paint the strings on the bikini top. It’s not even connected to the main string, which makes it look like some strange symbol on her back.
We do actually have some frill on the bootleg bikini bottoms, which is a surprise seeing as how the top turned out so badly.

Bikini bottoms:

Up close, the painting on the official is a bit messy, but the bootleg takes the cake. Looks like they entirely forgot about the trim on this side, and just quickly slopped the dark purple paint across here.
We can see the bootleg bikini ties also lie flatter against her legs vs the official.

Closer look at the tie:

Yep, bootleg is looking noodlier. We’ve also got a large chunk of plastic? Paint? It’s also been mounted at a more gravity-defying angle. The knot has also nearly been lost.

Hands:

Shudder… the bootleg is looking decidedly mutant. Both bootleg hands the fingers have partially fused together, and the nail polish has been painted poorly. The right hand (lower photo) is especially ugly to look at for me. Yuck.

Legs:

Fortunately the feet aren’t as bad as the hands, but we still have some toe fusion going on, making the bootleg’s toes smaller. Again, the nail polish is poorly applied here on the bootleg.

Feet from the other side:

Ngl, the bootleg’s left foot is freaking me out a bit. No points for the bootleg feet.

Underneath:

Not really anything extra here to observe, but we can see how the fingers are closed together on the bootleg. We can also see the way the light shines off of the bootleg skin.

Time for some face swapping. Let’s start by taking off the hair:

Not too much difference here, apart from the poor fitting of the bootleg parts.

Hair:

The back of the official plugs manages to be a bit rougher than the bootleg’s.
Interestingly on the bootleg, we can see the injection hole for the official, but they made a different injection hole to use instead on the middle plug part.

Bootleg and official with bootleg angry face:

The bootleg face works with both figures, however due to the skin colour difference, it’s noticeably not a match on the official.

Conclusion

So there we have it, a comparison using three Kuroyukihimes:

Comparing the thee from the front:

The leftmost is my normal edition, and comparing it to the DX one in the middle, I’m fairly sure the normal edition one I have has had sun damage. She has removable hair like the DX, so you could use the spare parts to “upgrade” her to the DX… but should you? My vote is no – the face won’t look right if that’s what you want. The ball is passable if you want that, but you’d have to be displaying it at a bit of a distance so the weirdnesses with it doesn’t show.
In terms of telling them apart, the bikini and the hair are massive clues. If in shot, the mutated hands are also a sign of the bootleg.

Would I recommend this bootleg as a bootleg? No. The bikini paint and hair are horrible. Even at a distance, she’s gonna look a little weird, and she’s probably going to be doing some weird hand-hovering due to the misshapen hands. If you want to use the sand base, you’re also shorted here – you don’t get two pieces (or at least I didn’t) – so if all the bootlegs are like this you’d have to buy two, which pretty much negates any saving from buying bootleg. When the officials come up for sale, they’re not that expensive. As of time of writing, they aren’t super-available but I found both for around the ¥3-4k mark. So can’t really justify getting the bootleg – I’d say getting the standard edition is better than getting the bootleg.

In conclusion, the bootleg is reasonably easy to tell apart – from both the box, the figure and the parts. And I wouldn’t recommend wasting your money on it.

For this one, we have two bootlegs to compare! We have one that is intended as a copy, and another that’s a variant.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥11,000
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥12,480 (£98.06)
Price I paid for the bootleg copy (inc shipping): £16.00
Price I paid for the bootleg variant (inc shipping): £12.08

The official I preordered from Big in Japan.

Box

Front:

Wow, three very different boxes here! The official goes for a compact box, and the variant also goes for the compact design but with a different window configuration. And the copy… wat. A massive box, with the figure really oddly angled within it. This box came flattened, so wasn’t sure which orientation the blister was designed to fit in it, but neither orientations looked good.
With the variant, we see the text “Summer Dome Sister”… but what the heck is this? Some people are probably shouting the answer at the screen right now, but I had to research it. Turns out it is Kasugano Sora from Yosuga no Sora. I don’t play VNs, so wasn’t a series I was familiar with (nor have I seen/read the related anime/manga). I have seen a couple of her figures floating around before… and that’s the extent of my familiarity. So yeah, they’ve taken Rurudo’s character and modified the head so it has a resemblance to Kasugano Sora, which we’ll see when she’s out the box.
If we look at the top right of the variant box, we also see a white version alongside the red – this white version does exist but I opted for the red version to add some variation to this comparison.
Going back to the copy bootleg – the front of the box borrows the artwork of the official box, albeit blurry and stretched. Thankfully they didn’t try to stretch it up to the full height of the box.

Sides:

For the copy box, they’ve duplicated the sides of the official box, then attempted to extend the artwork to fill the rest of the space. Mostly works, but you can definitely see where the edits are.
For the variant box, they have created their own art, inspired by the right-hand side of the official box. We have the border, inset closeups and an overview of the figure. On the right side of the box we have the white variant, and the red on the left.

Back:

Lots of differences here! The copied figure uses the artwork from the official box, but has a generic-y stretched-out warning box replacing the information panel.
The variant box has two variant figures pictured, plus the “Summer dome sister” title. No comparison to be made here.

Top:

The copy box does its best to duplicate the official box, but the designer of this box neglected to notice where the flaps would go so those now obscure most of the top window. Guess they didn’t test the design prior going to print! Or didn’t care enough to fix it…
Variant box wants us to know what’s in the box. No window to be seen here to actually see what’s in the box.

Bottom:

Plain, plain, and warning text!
The variant box has its warning text down here, and a “Made in China”. Well, at least that part of the box is accurate. At least there’s some Sad Onions – Ashens would be proud.

Backing paper:

Only the official has this – adds a bit of class to the box, especially versus the plain white of the other two.

As far as the boxes go, well, wow, there’s no confusing which one is which! I do like the comedically large one for the copy – not sure what went on there. The variant box is decent enough – it does have an over-reliance on the same photos, and slighty janky editing, but overall wouldn’t look overly odd in a shop.

Blisters

When editing these blister photos I came to the conclusion that I likely had the blister backwards in the copy’s box. However you’ll see how neither way around showcases the figure well.
Front (maybe):

For the official, she’s mostly facing outwards so we can get a good look at her face. The variant is slightly turned away so her face isn’t as visible, however we do have an extra – a white cloth piece which we’ll look at later.
And the copy… sigh. Looking at some random part of the blister.

Back:

…or is this the front for the copy? As we can see, the copy bootleg isn’t looking this way either.
Not too much to say for the other ones – yep, here’s some hair.

Base

Only one base to look at here, for Kasugano Sora. Apparently she’s too special to sit directly on the hard surface.


It’s very thin with a very shorthaired fur on top. It is mostly oval-shaped, but the cut hasn’t been done precisely so it is a bit unevenly shaped. Which is possibly the cause of the wonky stitching around some parts of the edge.
Functional, but not fancy. Not the worst fur base I’ve reviewed, but nothing to write home about.

Spin-around

Well, the red one certainly stands out here, with her contrasting colour and “base”. The copy bootleg looks like a prize version of the official when next to it. The shiny skin and less detail on the bows stand out to me.

No accessories to look at, so straight onto looking at the figures!

Figure close-ups

Face:

Comparing the official to its knockoff – let’s start with the bows. The bootleg bows miss the line detail, lumpy in the cast and the holes are missing from her left bow. Moving to the hair, the shading is much more clumped on the bootleg, and the hair doesn’t curl in quite the same places. The bootleg finish is also rough and shiny. The eye decals on the bootleg, the orange seems to have been printed in an off-white colour instead. Looking at the dress, the bow on the bootleg appears to be melting into the dress and we also miss the blue collar detail. Some shading has been added to the bootleg’s dress, but it doesn’t look particularly good. The face and shoulders look sweaty and have a more yellowy skin tone.
Moving to the Sora bootleg, the hair has been retooled significantly at the front so her hair doesn’t go beyond chin height and has a thicker fringe. We also have an ahoge added. No white bows in her hair – instead we have some larger red bows. For her face, we have completely new eye decals, and a smaller mouth. Moving down to the dress, again, the collar detail is lost and it looks like she’s slopped something down her front rather than shading. Blergh. Her skin is less shiny than the knockoff, but still has some shine to it. The skin tone I’d say is better than the knockoff.

Closer look at that ahoge:

Yeah, minimal sculpting and casting effort expended here. Looks like she’s got a tube of clay coming out of her hair or something.

Hair bows:

Bit of a sad showing here, in my opinion. The official bows, the cast is a bit blobby in places, and the stripes are only so-so painted – which isn’t a surprise from Union Creative.
Moving to the knockoff though, and we’re really in terrible territory. Bits of flashing, and entirely lacking paint detail.
Moving to the Sora bootleg, we can see where the bow has transferred onto the ahoge a bit. I like the look of these bows in shape, and they don’t have excess plastic, but there is a lack of shading and there’s a carved, unpainted detail at the bottom that makes it look like there’s some paint detail missing. We do have a little bit of seamline showing through, but it isn’t as noticeable as most bootleg seams.

Back of the head:

Nothing subtle about the “shading” back here on the knockoff. The strands on this one also look very spaghetti. The official has some quite subtle shading – would be nice to have something in between these two. Maybe an additional dark tone to go near the parting.
Moving to the Sora bootleg, the fact they were sculpting hair combed to pigtails seems to have gone by the wayside, and they’ve enthusiastically added various lines, which makes her head reminiscent of a walnut to me, especially with the lack of shading. The pigtails themselves have a lot of excess material.

Side of the head:

The hair shading is far better on the official on this side than either of the others. At least UC nailed that. The hair seamlines on the bootlegs both look poor. For the official and knockoff her ear sticks out of her hair, whilst none shows with Sora. The lower pigtails on Sora also looks a little odd in my opinion – like she was being a bit lazy when combing her hair.

Dress:

Wow, getting a lot of shine off of the knockoff! All three have buttons, but they’ve very hard to see on the knockoff copy. The knockoff’s dress has a very plasticky look, The Sora one looks better in this regard, but the shading is awful in my opinion – looks like the dress has been burned or dirtied. No points for the bootlegs here.

Side of the dress:

Mmm, the finish really isn’t looking good on that knockoff version. Is her dress actually some kind of icing..? The casting detail isn’t as sharp on the knockoff, and we have a noticeable seam running down the dress.
The Sora bootleg seems to keep slightly better casting, but the frills around the edge of the dress are definitely a victim of poor casting. Whilst she doesn’t have the dress seam, she has a very noticeable one down her arm instead.
Looking at their hands, the official has a subtle nail polish, the knockoff has none and Sora has quite a shiny colour.

Closer look at where dress meets arm:

The official’s dress looks like it is resting on her body, as a dress should. I think the knockoff’s is trying to melt into her. Sora’s looks like it is risen up a bit lower down, but not really in a noticeably bad way. Some of the edges are more visible, giving it a look of Play-Doh modelled around her neck.

Bottom of the dress:

Here we can see where the official hugs her leg on the left of the photo, but the other bootlegs don’t achieve this. The bootlegs manage to look OK from this angle (apologies for the poor focus on Sora).

Hair strands:

As we go from left to right, the hair strands bend more towards the floor. Almost looks like an animation of her hair settling down XD. The cast also gets less and less distinct.

Hand:

Subtle, none and shiny – same as the other hand we looked at. The colouring on the Sora bootleg is a bit inconsistent, and the thumb nail polish has been done really badly. We can see where both of the bootleg casts lost detail here, which makes the hands look deformed.

Back:

The Sora bootleg has managed to hide the removal of the wings so it isn’t noticeable on her back, and has retained the shoulder blade shapes.
The knockoff has the wings replicated, but the join isn’t quite as good and the wing angles are different.

Looking closer at the wing attachments:

The official’s meet up neatly with the body and the knockoff ones have some roughness around them preventing the join looking as neat.

Wing close-ups:

The knockoff copy suffers from significant paint bleed from the black to the purple, and the pointy parts of the wings are less pointy. There is some lost curvature too – on the left wing’s tip and the right wing’s lower right point.

Knickers!

Only the official has the copyright on her dress. The bootlegs did copy the cast of the panties, but didn’t shade them. From this angle, it’s the Sora bootleg giving the most reflection. Both bootlegs also have visible seaming along the legs – Sora more so than the knockoff. The deformities of the bootleg hands is also on full display here.

Legs:

The official’s legs are nicely shaded, with the same delicate nail polish on her toes. The knockoff’s legs are as shiny as the rest of her, and we have a lump of plastic coming off one of her toes and a visible seamline on her other foot. And no nail polish. For the Sora bootleg, the nail polish is messily painted and her legs are slightly shiny – not as bad as the knockoff.

Feet:

Mmm, yep, only decent nail job is the official. All three have some shading on the feet/legs – the official is the neatest shading job.

Conclusion

Mixing up either of these bootleg figures with the official is not going to happen. Any cursory investigation would reveal neither are the “real deal”. The boxes are extremely different – one matches the design, but not the “form factor”, the other matches the “form factor” but not the design. For the figures themselves, the knockoff very much looks like a prize figure version of the official, and the Sora one… is a different character. Though if you’ve seen it floating around, now you know what figure it is mostly based on.
The fur base was a nice addition to the Sora bootleg. I don’t tend to use a base with sitting figures, but I know some people don’t like having baseless figures, so it would’ve been nice for UC to have included something like this for people who want it.

This figure was an instant PO for me – there isn’t many lewd males out there, so this was a rare opportunity in the male figure department. Even if he is dressed up somewhat feminine. So yeah, this blog is very much NSFW. Lewdness and toys will be on full show.

Show NFSW

This figure was voted for DTINDCAREA, so I hope you enjoy this blog. I’ve enjoyed your comments :).
This figure is part of a popular trio of racing figures, with a special base that unite all three.
Let’s see if this bootleg is part of a trio of abominations.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥12,071
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥14,887 (£106.51)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $21.19 (£16.24)

The official I bought from MyKombini (who obtained it from Amazon!)

Box

Front:

The bootleg box is a copy of the official on the front, only lacking the Type-Moon authenticity sticker. Mmm, shiny. Oh, and also lacking in print quality – the figure photo is a bit grainy and the colours washed out.
Looking at the print next to the diagonal line cuts, some are a bit off on the bootleg, but thanks to the pattern it isn’t particularly noticeable without them next to each other.

Sides:

The print quality isn’t good on the sides of the bootleg box either, but all the design elements have made it. The window cuts are a close match.

Back:

Yep, more poor-quality copy.

Top:

Ditto. This really isn’t the most exciting bootleg box!

Bottom:

Aha, some differences! The information box has been completely reworked and just replaced with warning information and a random model number (C146 – theories of this choice in the comments!).
They’ve tried to fill up the extraneous space with similar elements to the rest of the box, but the spacing is all over the place with the red chevrons. If you look to the bottom-right you can see where they didn’t complete the grey diagonal line where the old information box ended.
A half-arsed effort, but enough to fool someone not looking for a bootleg.
My official also has a second shiny down here, and an Amazon stock control label. So I guess mine was actually preordered via Amazon XD.

Box liner:

The bootleg’s is a deeper red, and doesn’t have a premium finish. Mine’s also creased up from being folded in transport.

For this box, I’d recommend a photo of the information box – this will tell you if it is the bootleg box. The rest is very similar to the real thing, albeit lacking in authenticity stickers. So definitely be wary if there is no shiny.

Base

Top:

The official is a much more yellowy gold than the bootleg, and has more shine to it. The paintwork on the bootleg is noticeably shoddier – the lines don’t line up properly at the top and at the bottom they’ve got bits of blobbed paint. Looking to the horse and Saber, the black doesn’t fill out the raised area.

Closeup of the horse’s legs:

Yeah, the paintwork and mould have flaws here. The black has some lumps in it, and we’ve got a ridge around one of the horse’s legs.

Closeup of the tail:

Bubbles and lines everywhere – very untidy.

Peg:

The bootleg peg is more short and squat than the official’s. Lacks the nice rounding too.

Bottom of the base:

Not too much to see here. There is a copyright just visible at the top of the official’s base which isn’t present on the bootleg. The official base is more of a blue-white in colour. The peg attachment is slightly different.

Telling the bootleg and official bases apart is reasonably easy – a different colour, and poor paintwork give this one away.

Accessories

In terms of accessories, this figure comes with two flags and an alternate arm.
Let’s take a look at the standing flag first:

Wow, that’s some difference in colouring – the official flag is a yellow gold whilst the bootleg is more of a white gold. Looking at the paint across the middle, the bootleg pattern feels like a rough approximation of the official one – in colour as well as shapes. We seem to have a cream paint here, instead of white.

Flip it around:

For shading, the official is more subtle than the bootleg. The pattern on the flag looks very messy on the bootleg – inconsistent edging and the cream part is sloppily painted.

Folded side of the flag:

The black paint on the body of the flag is barely visible on the bootleg – not sure where it wandered off to. Looking at the edges of the flag, the bootleg flag is rough and has a bunch of excess plastic. The cream paint is also highlighting the issues at the bottom.

Hilt:

An attempt was made to place the black dot on the bootleg… Instead of a dot, we have a black squiggle randomly placed on the hilt.
Looking at the edges of the hilt, we can see the bootleg isn’t cast as well, the paint isn’t as smooth and lacks shading. The gold and silver paint are at least in the right places, but the black paint on the handle is lacking at both the top and bottom.

Bottom of the flag:

Bootleg one is looking all chipped and nasty. And I haven’t even displayed the figure yet!

Front of the silver flag:

The official flag has shading along the top and the bottom that the bootleg lacks. The colours are notably different – a lot less contrast between the silvers and the black parts are darker under the hexagons for the bootleg.
Looking at the hilt, the black paint is sloppy on the bootleg, plus the dot hasn’t been filled in.

Back:

The lack of shading and messy black paint continues around here, plus we have splotches of black and red paint. And a tiny yellow dot at the bottom-middle, if you can spot it.
The upper hilt paint looks dull and lifeless on the bootleg – no glossy paint here.

Flag-holding arm:


The first thing that’s apparent is the lack of shiny gloss on the bootleg. The bootleg’s sleeve has most of the shading of the official, but less distinct. The black paint is sloppier, but not as bad as other areas. What definitely is sloppier is the nail polish – another bootleg that’s dipped her fingers in the polish bottle. It is also not as nicer shade as the official’s polish in my opinion.
Looking at the skin, the official has more shading, but it looks kind of odd next to the bootleg. A bit too orange tan. Bootleg has plasticky shininess though.

Resting arm:


This arm has the same issues as the previous, but we’ve also got some sloppy glue near the pegs. Looking at the pegs themselves, the casting isn’t as good on the bootleg.

Blister

Let’s see what she looked like in the blister before I got her out.

The blister for the bootleg was taped up in transit to keep it as small as possible for shipping. So now it’s a distorted mess. The blister plastic is noticeably lower quality for the bootleg.
The blister layout is the same, but there isn’t any protective plastic sheets/bags for the accessories.

Spin-around

This figure has multiple display options, so let’s just start with a spin of Rin on her own:





In terms of sculpt, they’re pretty similar. The bootleg has a couple of notable differences in this regard – the head is leaning forward more and her feet are pointed downwards more.
There are some notable differences in the paint though – a lack of gloss on the bootleg and she has very purple hot pants. The bootleg looks more tan – her skin is darker on average, despite the official’s orange tan.

With the flags:


The bootleg doesn’t sit with the silver flag as well, with it poking off the base if you attempt to pose it the same as the official figure.

Yeah… the bootleg just doesn’t hold this flag properly at all. Her arm is at the wrong angle so it can’t grasp the top of the flag’s hilt. Also the arm that should be resting on the base very obviously doesn’t.

With both flags:




Yeah… best I can say for the bootleg is she looks like she’s drunk and falling over. All her limbs seem to have bending/attachment issues, causing her pose to be massively off.

Close-ups

“Action feature” the bootleg doesn’t have:

The head detaches on the official, allowing easier replacement of the arm if desired. The bootleg’s head is glued on. You can also use this to admire the lovely paint job on the official’s jacket:

Face:

Taking a close-up you can definitely notice the different angles of the head. The bootleg’s hair isn’t as nicely shaded, leaving dark shading where there should be lighter areas.
Looking at the hair, the bootleg’s hair ties are a light purple instead of dark, there seems to be a bit of stray glue and the long strands have a noticeable seam running down them.

Closer look at the face:

The bootleg’s eyes aren’t as nice of a design – the pupil lacks the proper shading, and the white shine looks like she’s put Tippex in her eye.
The bootleg’s lips are a bright pink colour, which looks a bit odd. Her ear is also shiny, showing off the cheaply done paint job. Not even entirely sure if the bootleg’s ear is actually painted…

Back of the hair:

The bootleg is definitely looking inferior back here – shiny finish, seaming and a less well blended additional strand. The finish looks particularly uneven across her scalp – can seem some mottling. The paint colours don’t gel together, cheapening the look too.

Closer look at the blending:

Mmm, yeah…

Hair tie:

The bootleg’s hair looks like it’s been jammed in here rather than arranged. We can also see the “bootleg purple” colouring on the tie itself, plus the lack of finish. The official’s is shiny and has also seemingly attracted some dust – sorry about that.

Hair tie on her left:

The bootleg isn’t as bad on this side, but it’s still not great.

Chest:

The bootleg’s top appears to be shinier than the jacket, whilst the official maintains the same shininess throughout.
Looking at the jacket, the lacking paintwork makes the bootleg’s jacket look somewhat deformed around the collar as there’s a lack of distinction between the parts. Towards the bottom there’s also a bunch of black paint splatter. Guess the bootleg’s been working in the pit! The silver emblem isn’t as shiny as its official counterpart, but manages to look OK.
Moving to the top, the bootleg’s paint is messy – the purple paint doesn’t follow the lines and the silver dot details under her boobs aren’t placed correctly.

Right arm join:

The official can be somewhat of a pain to assemble, but the bootleg is worse – as you can see, couldn’t quite get the arm in, which isn’t helped by the fact I can’t take her head off to apply pressure to her shoulder.
Also got some black paint splatter on this side of the bootleg.

Left arm:

Here the darkness and dullness of the bootleg’s clothes is on full show. And a lack of subtleness in the edging of the jacket arm. We’re missing one strand out the back on the bootleg (unless it has wandered off elsewhere…)

Left hand:

The bracelet is duller on the bootleg, and a slightly different shape. Here, it isn’t sitting right, showing off the join between the hand and the arm.
The bootleg’s fingers look anaemic, and the polish is not improved in close-up.

Different angle:

Here the cheapness of the bootleg bracelet really shows up. We can also see a seam on the side of the bootleg’s hand, and how it doesn’t rest correctly against the base.
There’s also some free dirt on the bootleg’s arm.

Flag-holding:

Is the bootleg trying to sensually stroke the flag or hold it…?
Again, we have more dirt on the bootleg’s arm and poorly painted nails.

Just to show it’s the figure that’s the issue:

The official figure can hold the bootleg flag just fine.

Shorts/stomach:

A valiant attempt was made with the bootleg’s belt, but it missed the mark. We have the pink shading replicated, but the fine silver details didn’t get painted particularly accurately. The belt loops the bootleggers decided to not match with the shorts and painted them black instead. Not sure why they didn’t stick with the purple tbh.
The bootleg’s belly button is less indented that the official, but looks OK.

Upper view:

Here we can see the belt loops didn’t even get painted all the way up to the top on the bootleg. There’s also a strange notch out of the belt here.

Side of the shorts:

Bootleg shorts are definitely less shiny than their official counterpart. We’ve got a visible seam that runs down the side of the bootleg shorts.

Arse:

Yeah, definitely liking the official more here – the shading makes the shorts look odd on the bootleg. The back also has shading details on the official. The bootleg shorts also have an uneven texture plus a paintbrush hair embedded in the paint. Ooh, and some free dirt on the belt.
Looking at the bottom of the top, we can see the bootleg’s join is a bit iffy, and there’s some gapping as a result.
The bottom edge of the jacket manages to look better on the bootleg with the rounding off of the mould. So bootleg manages to have half a point?

Legs from the front:

The bootleg paint actually manages to be reasonable here – the silver zip paint manages to stay in lane. The red paint doesn’t quite get to the toe cap on one side, but isn’t too far off.
The shiny finish is missing, which is a major negative though.
The bootleg has also closed her legs a bit more, so her right foot isn’t sticking out as much.

Close-up on the toe paint:

Silver didn’t quite get to the end of one of the zips on the bootleg. Red paint is a bit sloppier on both sides.

Side of the boots:

The bootleg has managed to replicate the shading fairly close to the official. But yeah… no shine, and the boots are noticeably darker.

Tops of the boots:

The bootleggers have actually painted the zip in here – that’s a surprise. The shading is a bit off, but it’s so indistinct it isn’t causing as much issues as the hair.

Conclusion

As far as telling the official from the bootleg, the box makes it difficult to easily pick out the bootleg, though the official boxes should all have the Type Moon shiny. The side of the box with the safety information can act as a dead giveaway, so that’d be the side to check first.
Once out of the box though… it’s instant disappointment. Poor colour choices, lack of shiny outfit and painting mistakes. The dull colours on the base and accessories also give away the bootleg.
As far as the quality of this bootleg vs other bootlegs, it’s not bad. It’s displayable without it looking hideous, though if the buyer wanted the shiny outfit, they’d be disappointed. Some creativeness and possibly heat would be needed to get her to sit properly and look OK on the base. Straight out of the box, she doesn’t sit right and doesn’t hold her accessories properly.