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.

This figure I went back and forth on covering as her bootleg is quite well documented. Finally decided to cover it, as she’s quite a unique figure in some respects, especially if you’ve ‘played’ Saya No Uta.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥17,000
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥18,060 (£129.60)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £22.11

The official I bought from Big In Japan

Box

Front:

The first difference that is immediately noticeable is the missing “WING” logo in the top-left of the bootleg box. As this box is dominated by an image of the Saya figure, the poorer print quality on the bootleg shows with the two side-by-side. The print colours are also generally darker on the bootleg box.
Looking through the window of the box, we can see the large hair strands are in different positions between the two. The bootleg’s hair strands have much less of a gradient and a lack of protective plastic.

Right:

Again, the print quality is poor and dark on the bootleg, plus the removed logo. My bootleg box is also in the process of disassembling itself.

Left:

The lighting effects in the background have lost their lustre on the bootleg thanks to the poor colour reproduction. The bootleg’s dress is looking more grey and her hair less shaded.
At the top of this side we can see the round tape the official uses, whilst my bootleg has no tape at all.
Also no logo on the bootleg on this side too.

Back:

Here we have a fair amount of differences. Starting with the tape seal – the bootleggers have used a piece of circular tape with a brand on it, to give it some air of legitimacy (or maybe it came from a brick and mortar shop or something…).
Any text block that has the audacity to mention Goodsmile or Wing has been removed on the bootleg design, with the leftover boxes spread about to not leave large empty gaps. The Nitro+ logo was not spared the purge either.
The poor printing has also given us lots of moiré patterns on the bootleg. Does not look good!

Top:

More of the same here – missing logo and darker colours for the bootleg. Can see more of that bootleg seal here too – it was cut when I got it, as the box was flattened for transport.

Bottom:

It’s large, it’s missing on the bootleg and it is the logo.
The barcode on the bootleg has been replaced with a numerically valid barcode (check digit is correct) but is in the “no man’s land” of the GS1 country assignments, so isn’t related to an actual product.

So if you’re looking to see if a boxed Saya is bootleg, look for the Wing logos. Not finding any? Bootleg.

Blister

This figure comes with two blisters – one with Saya and the base and one for the wings. The wing blister sits in the back of Saya’s blister.

Saya:

Yep, the bootleg’s blister is the usual mangled mess. Both the blisters appear to be identical in shape but not in material.
Both of them have the supporting plastic piece for her hair to keep it in shape during transit, but the official has some sheathes to stop the hair from being scraped.
The bootleg figure looks a little lost in the blister due to the way it sits.

Wings:

Not much difference to be seen here. Bootleg’s blister is a bit yellower. Looking to the wings themselves, the official has some layers of protective plastic that the bootleg lacks, and we can see some extra colour variance in the bootleg wings.

Wings
This figure doesn’t have accessories per se, but we do have the wings to attach. So let’s take a look at those.

Left wing:

The main immediate difference is the aforementioned colouring – the bootleg’s wing has two very different-coloured paints, neither of which matches the official. They have got the two colours in approximately the right places, but the difference between the paints is not subtle at all, especially on the underside.
I’m not against the bootleg’s colouration, but could do with not being so different. Not accurate to what it is supposed to be though.
The bootleg’s finish isn’t as smooth, which can be seen via the distortions in the reflections.

Right wing:

The bootleg’s right wing manages to be a lot less garish than its left. Still not the green it is supposed to be though.

Close-up of a wing part on the right wing:

The change in finish is fairly apparent with the way the light reflects off both. Looking at the edges, the bootleg isn’t as precisely moulded and the ends are maybe a little stubby – definitely better than some bootlegs I’ve seen and not something you’d really notice without close inspection.
However, we do have some speckles on the bootleg, visible in the upper ‘feathers’. The official wings are nice and clean.

Overall, the bootleg wings were moulded closely in line with the official, but the colours make them obviously different.

Base

Back of the base:

These bases are noticeably dissimilar in colour and texture. The bootleg base has less vivid reds and doesn’t have much of a sheen to it. The bootleg’s blood tendril seems to have a dark line drawn up the back of it, instead of shaded like the official.

Side:

From this side the lacklustre paint job on the bootleg’s tendril shows up well. Doesn’t have the impact of the official’s, especially as it lacks any paint blending on the green part.
Looking to the lower part of the tendril, we can see a metal peg on the official, but just an indent in the same spot of the bootleg.

Front:

The bootleg’s green tendril tip stands out from this angle too. Here we can see the official uses pegs on the tendril to attach Saya’s foot whilst the pegs are on Saya’s foot for the bootleg.
Looking to the bottom of the base, the small blood spikes look burned on the bootleg thanks to the tips being painted in black and being poorly moulded so some are shorter than they should be. The official’s look like splashes, thanks to the tips of these parts being painted a lighter colour.

Pegs/holes:

Yep, very different attachment systems here. Metal peg on the official is appreciated, as this means that the figure won’t threaten to sag over time.

Bottom of the base:

The official’s looks like a pool of blood/gore with a tendril growing out of it. The bootleg’s looks like… scorched ground. With some kind of red tree growing out of it. The bootleg has absolutely no subtlety in the colouring and lacks the shine that would make it look liquidy. Whilst the official’s tendril is clearly a separate part, the bootleg one looks more separate as it lacks the close fit to make it sit right.
Looking to the bottom left of the bootleg base, we can see some of the paint has been scraped off some of the blood spikes.

Tendril tip:

Yeah, no hiding the fact the bootleg is two parts. Though the official, I wish the split wasn’t so obvious, but at least we have a gradient fade here.
With the full transparency of the bootleg, we can see how this tip attaches, which is not a pretty look. Looking at the lower picture, we can see seams down both parts of the bootleg tendril, plus the parts don’t fit together well at all.

Bottom:

Official is shiner down here too. The bootleg uses the wrong screws to attach the tendril, so they don’t sit in the provided recess.

Closeup of the tendril attachment:

No removal of the copyright here on the bootleg, showing that copyright on the base isn’t a sure sign of a genuine product.
The bootleg came with tape residue, which has seemingly found a piece of my hair :/.
Looking at the corners of the plug hole for the tendril, the bootleg’s mould looks like it’s had a hard life and the corners have become rounded, assuming there wasn’t a change in the mould between releases (my Saya is a 2nd release).

The bootleg base is easy to tell apart from the official – the upper green section of the tendril is one of the easiest ways of telling a bootleg apart from the official in my opinion.
The base shading is also starkly different if you have photos of the base or see it in person.

Figure spin-around

Gosh, assembling both of these was a small nightmare – the way she rests on the tendril is not fun. Getting the foot pegs in at the same time as resting her on the tendril is not easy. So no points in the assembling department for either.
Looking at the right photo, I didn’t quite get the bootleg’s pegs in. With the pegs being on her foot, it does make it harder to warm up to get her in – it’s easier if the holes are on the side you warm to keep the pegs solid so they can slide into the softened hole easier. Feel free to make up your own innuendos here :P.
Looking at the figures in their entirety, the difference in hair, dress and wing colours are fairly apparent.

Figure close-ups

Let’s take a quick look at Saya’s back before we attach her to the base.

The sculpts of the bodies appear to be the same apart from the attachments on the foot. The finish on the bootleg’s skin is shinier, which can be seen on the upper legs in this photo.
The bootleg’s dress is a lighter shade, and doesn’t sit the same with respect to her hands – the bootlegs ‘fit’ less with the dress, whilst the official’s is orientated so the hands sit neatly in the folds.

Upper back:

The wing holes match up here, though the edges inside the bootleg holes looks a bit rough.
Moving to the straps of the dress, the bootleg’s are much more opaque and the white doesn’t match with the rest of the dress too well. The painting on the bootleg’s leaves isn’t as neat and isn’t of a consistent thickness. The paint also lacks the glossy shininess of the official’s.

Foot:

Holes for the official, pegs for the bootleg to match their respective stands.

OK, let’s get her assembled and look at her face:

Looking at the eyes, the official’s are a deeper green and don’t have the dotted pattern of the bootleg.
Moving to the mouth, the way the bootleg is painted has changed her expression – to me the bootleg looks more disappointed or something, unlike the determination of the official. The red line around the bootleg’s mouth I think is especially bad.
Looking at her hair, the bootleg’s is a flat black whilst the official’s is a smooth gradient of dark greens.

Bow:

The bootleggers have gone for the same black as they’ve used for her hair whilst the official’s is blue.
The bootleg’s bow has also become squished during manufacture and has bits of excess plastic around the edges of it. Just generally looking blobby there.

Dress:

For the painted parts, the bootleg looks more opaque, and the part over the stomach looks more see-through. There is some extra shading on the bootleg, but it kind of looks like staining rather than shading on the lower part of her dress to me.
The sculpted seam down the middle of the dress is more apparent at the top on the bootleg.

Closeup of the bottom of the dress:

The shading on the official follows the creases, whilst the bootleg has a couple of seemingly random areas shaded.

Under the dress:

The bootleg’s panties are more of a blue-white than the official’s

Shoulder:

The bootleg’s dress isn’t joined very well, and we see two seamlines instead of one. The bootleg has a paint transfer on this shoulder on my copy, possibly from the hair.
The official’s skin has a much nicer appearance to me than the bootleg, thanks to the finish.

Side of the hair:

Yap, no shading on the bootleg’s hair around here either. The seam on the bootleg is also more noticeable thanks to the parts not attaching together neatly.
Looking at the hair tips on the front half of her hair, the bootleg has some excess plastic.

Back of the hair:

Oh, oh, I think I see a bit of shading… on the top of the bootleg’s head. And nowhere else. The official has subtle shading throughout.
Here we have quite a bit of excess plastic on the bootleg hair points as well.

Top of the head:

Oh look, here’s the bootleg’s excuse for shading. And it manages to be terrible by being mostly on the front and not really continuing to the back hairpiece.

Left hair tips:

The hair back here doesn’t take the same paths – the bootleg’s hair strands hide behind her wings, plus the back hair bends much further away from her body.
Looking at the tips, the bootleg uses a different shade of green and the transition from tip colour to the main hair colour is much harsher on the bootleg.

Rogue back strand:

Here we can really see the harshness of the bootleg colour transition – the lighter green only extends up a fraction of the hair strand.
The bootleg’s hair strand has got squished at the tip, leaving it with more of a bend than the official’s.

Closeup of the right wing:

The wings both curve in the same way, and look similar to each other in shape. Under the official’s wing we can see a hair strand that has gone AWOL on the bootleg.

Closeup of the left wing:

The wings look similar in shape on this side too, though the very tip of the bootleg wing does look like it curls in a bit more. Some of the darker ‘feathers’ in the middle look like they curl differently at the ends.
However, in colouration, the bootleg certainly stands out.

Back of the wings:

The figure stays on the tendril by pinning it between the wings. Would honestly be easier if it had a peg here instead of… this. The bootleg’s right wing didn’t quite go in all the way, not sure if it will or if it’ll need some hole-scraping to go in fully. Both wings match the colour of their respective tendril tip.

Hand:

The official’s fingernails are much more neatly painted, and there is some shading towards the fingertips.
Yet another bootleg that’s dipped its fingers into the nail polish bottle.

Legs:

The official’s legs are a nicer colour to me, whilst the bootleg’s legs look yellowy or dirty in spots.

Front of the feet:

The bootleg’s toes aren’t as roughly painted as the hands, but the paint doesn’t match the dainty pink of the official. The bootleg paint is also matte instead of glossy.
Looking to the base, the bootleg’s tendril isn’t fully into the hole which makes it look odd.

Side of the feet:

Here we can see where the bootleg refused to go all the way into the base, but I did eventually get the official’s foot in. Looking at the left foot, the official has shading that the bootleg doesn’t, and the bootleg’s foot has a tiny bit of excess plastic.

Conclusion

Due to the differences, this bootleg is decently easy to spot. With the box, the missing logos is a big clue, along with the invalid barcode.
Looking to the figure itself, the hair shading and wing shading are starkly different between the two, though it does look like the bootleggers based their colouring on the overly-contrasted promotional photos. So if you wanted the more contrasting wings from the promotional shot, these have that colouring.
With the base, the tendril tip itself is the biggest clue with the bootleg’s tip not being blended at all to the main body of the tendril. The bootleg’s base is also not painted well, leaving it looking like odd-coloured ground.
Looking at the bootleg as a separate product, it’s not a train wreck – I can see someone being happy with the bootleg, especially for the price. However, if you’re expecting the finish and polish of the original, the bootleg definitely falls short. The bootleg’s face is off, the hair shading is poor and the dress isn’t as nice. The base is also a letdown with the parts not being assembled properly, the lack of transition on the tendril and the black-tipped “blood”.

This figure I purchased for my collection as I love the purple-blue colouring of her hair. When a bootleg popped up for this one, I just had to get it to see how it compared.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): n/a
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥1,663 (£12.61)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $7.56 (£5.79)

The official I proxied from Otamart via From Japan

I don’t keep the boxes for my prize figures, so don’t have a box to compare. Due to this, I also bought the bootleg boxless. So straight onto the box contents!

Base

Top:

The official base is octagonal whilst the bootleg has opted for a hexagonal base. So a noticeable shape change here. The official is also translucent whilst the bootleg is fully opaque. The bootleg’s base is also a shade of brown instead of grey.
Looking at the holes, the bootleg’s are positioned very differently. So how is this one going to stand…?

Bottom:

The official base has the usual copyright and manufacturing information, whilst the bootleg is entirely plain. Not even the usual injection moulding marks to see here.

The base makes it easy to tell if the figure is bootleg or not – different shape, colour and hole positioning.

Hair

This figure doesn’t come with any accessories, however to get her to fit in the box her pigtails are separate. So let’s take a look at those.

Left pigtail:

You can see all the shapes are there for the bootleg, but some of the hair curls differently – especially at the bottom.
In terms of colouring, the light blue is lighter on the bootleg but the darker colours are darker. We’ve got more light purple tint in the upper half of the hair than the official.
Looking at the hair tips, the bootleg’s hair is more rounded at the ends.

Right pigtail:

We have some variation in the curls on this side, but not as great as the left hand side. We also have similar colour variations as to the left side.

Figure spin-around

Let’s get those pigtails attached and see how she looks overall.

First thing I notice is the bootleg’s right pigtail going off into space! Vroom! Due to the differences in her neck and pigtail sculpt, it sticks out a lot more than it should.
Looking to the dress, the bootleg’s is noticeably darker and shinier.
With the bootleg, her foot can go in either hole – I ended up doing two photoshoots with her, and I think she looks better standing in the other hole, but these photos came out nicer. So I went with the dodgy base position.

When I had them on the stands, they appear to be difference sizes, but comparing them side-by-side, I don’t think there’s any notable difference in height:

Figure close-ups

Let’s see how the details hold up when we look up close.
Face:

The bootleg’s hair on the head… oof. It’s very thick and pearlescent, not really matching the pigtails. Plus we have a bunch of mould defects in the middle. The bootleg also doesn’t have the purple tips of the official, though there are some purple accents in the paint. If we look to the left side of the bootleg’s hair, she seems to have had a haircut as we’re missing some hair strands.
Moving to her face, the bootleg isn’t Miku-pale – seems a running theme with Miku bootlegs.
The bootleg eye print isn’t as good a quality as the official either, missing out on some of the dotted shading and the grey parts have been done in white. The white layer hasn’t been done as thickly on the bootleg, so the eye details show through.
Looking to her mouth, the pink paint didn’t go right on the bootleg, almost looking like she’s gormlessly sticking her tongue out. Was rather amused by this when editing this image.

Mark on her face:

This bit has been replicated on the bootleg. Looks like it’s at a very slightly different angle and we’ve lost a little detail – nothing particularly noticeable.
Looking at her hair, the bootleg’s has some rough spots and globs of paint.

Back of her head:

The bootleg has a bit of purple shading back here that the official doesn’t. The mould back here looks the same on both, however the bootleg pigtails aren’t fitting in the holes as well as the official’s.

Closeup of those pigtail joins:

The official’s go in pretty easily – one thing I like about it, didn’t have to do much fiddling to get them in, which is nice as not all prize figures fit together well. Bootleg though, yeah, they weren’t too happy.
Looking at the scrunchies, the bootleg’s has mould lines going around them and are a bit lumpier than their official counterpart.

Hair:

The bootleg’s hair is more all over the place, as previously observed. However, looking at it on its own, it’s not that bad. The fringe doesn’t match the pigtails, so without them side-by-side, this might still look slightly odd. Both the bootleg and the official can exhibit air bubbles in the cast – if you look at the pale blue areas on both you may spot some bubbles.

Chest:

Now we get to see some of the serious downgrades on the bootleg. Starting with her collar, the green paint has been roughly applied on the bootleg, missing out on the finer details of the official. The casting on the bootleg’s collar is a bit rougher and it has a shinier appearance.
Moving to the skin, the bootleg definitely has a shininess problem. None of the skin parts on the bootleg fit correctly with the dress, leaving gaps around the edges of her dress. The diamond cutout in her dress hasn’t been painted thickly enough either, letting the dress colour show through.
Lastly, looking at the dress, the bootleg’s is too shiny and has a mould defect above the cutout.

Shoulder:

Oof, those bootleg parts really do NOT fit together well.
The top of the bootleg’s glove is really rough, missing the edging entirely. The glove seam isn’t great on the official, but the bootleg really manages to make a hash of it.

Glove detail:

Now that moulding is just painfully bad on the bootleg. The diamond area has totally lost shape, revealing the shape of the body’s plastic underneath.
The official is fine for a prize figure – we have a tiny bit of gap but nothing hideous. Thankfully.

Back of the bow:

Looking at the collar, the bootleg’s green trim is painted too thickly here too. The collar has also lost its shape and doesn’t stand up as much as it should, giving her a bit of an elongated neck.
Moving to the ties, the bootleg’s are shiny instead of matte, we have too much green (again), there’s excess plastic on the edges and the collar doesn’t hide where it attaches, looking like someone lost a game of “pin the tail on the Miku”.
Again, the body doesn’t attach properly on the bootleg back here, revealing one of the pegs that attaches the parts together.

Back of the dress:

OK, let’s start with the good: the green bow is painted nicely on both.
Oh dear… this bootleg… she seems to have pink icing instead of a back. This bit fits horribly.

Close-up of the back action:

Just. No. This bit just doesn’t fit at all. Nothing to salvage here.

Let’s distract ourselves with a good joke:

Bootleg must’ve enjoyed the joke – her sides seem to be splitting!
Green paint is kind of dodgy on both here. Not sure what happened with the seam design on the official here, does look odd with the plastic seam running over the sculpted one.
The bootleg is a total fail here though – just has a large gap between the dress parts with a darker grey bit in between. If this was done nicely, it could’ve looked better than the official with two parallel seams, but no.

Hand:

The casting on the hand seems to have gone fine, but the fingers aren’t as spread as they are on the official’s. The difference in finish of the dresses is quite apparent here – with the photography lights clearly shining off of the bootleg.
Those dress seams aren’t looking very good on the bootleg down here either.
The trim is a bit of a mess on both. The bootleg’s trim paint is a bit of a thicker line than the official’s.
The dress’s overall shape is a little different at the bottom, with the back of the dress folded inwards a bit more on the bootleg.

Skirt trim:

For me personally, this is the worst part of the official – the green paint wasn’t very neatly applied, leaving both the official and bootleg trims looking messy.

Back of the boot tops:

The boot tops are less defined on the bootleg, and her right boot has a dent.
Skin colours are also notably different on the legs.

Front of leg:

The vertical line manages to be decent on both, but the bootleg’s sole is a bit lacking in the paint department.
Again, the top of the boot is better defined on the official.

Foot pegs:

Big difference: The bootleg has only one peg, whilst the official has two. So there is potential for the bootleg to develop leaning issues thanks to a lack of support. This is also why you can peg the bootleg in both holes – as one foot lacks a peg. And no, the bootleg didn’t come with a stand piece or anything for the second hole.
The bootleg’s one peg is green, whilst the official’s have been painted the same black as the rest of her boots.

Conclusion

Yeah, the bootleg isn’t worth your money. Due to the poor fit of the parts, she can look pretty defective from certain angles. I know quite a few people aren’t a fan of the charcoal dress – I rather like the contrast it gives and I think an all-shiny-black might look overly ‘heavy’. Though I think it can probably be agreed the extra shiny on the grey dress doesn’t enhance the figure.
As for telling them apart, the bases is the easiest at a glance. Looking up close, the hair on the head is notably different, and there’s the shininess on the dress and skin. Plus the parts just not fitting right at all, making the bootleg look a mess.
With assembly, the bootleg’s poorly cast pigtail pegs don’t fit into the holes well, and the bootleg leaves an ugly hole on its base – not sure what they were thinking here! With the two pegs, the official is nice and sturdy, and the bootleg noticeably less so with its one peg.

And if you’re curious as to how she looks without her pigtails:

This can work from the front angle, if you want a shorthair Miku, though it has a specific set of view angles it works with, thanks to the peg holes.
This shot was also done with the bootleg in the outer hole – I think this was the intended hole to use on the bootleg as she sits more centrally to the base.

This figure was voted for by CLOD_LILYY. An excellent choice.
This figure’s bootleg does crop up now and then, so does make a solid choice to have a look at.
I own the second release – so there will be some differences between the box due to this. They will be pointed out in the text below the images.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥9,000
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥11,037 (£72.59)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $20.65 (£15.83)

The official I bought from The Store I Shall No Longer Mention.

Box

Front:

The bootleg has two things missing – the Phat! logo and the authenticity sticker. The bootleg box looks like it got dragged around a warehouse floor a bit with the amount of dust scrapes on it, especially to the left. The red text is a deeper shade of red on the bootleg, so other than the logo it is a close copy.

Left:

This side is a direct copy, again with the darker writing. One point of note is the official box is sealed with round tape – one of which you can see slapped to the side of my official box (yeah… sometimes I do that) but the bootleg has no tape on the sides.

Right:

This side is also a copy, including the window. Nothing much to tell these sides apart.

Back:

The back of my box has some large differences at the bottom as I have the second release – this box back is actually an edit of the first release. Here is a photo of the first release by Raithos.
The edits they’ve made are interesting. They’ve removed the QR code that should be in the upper right box as well as the barcode, but the thing that gets me the most is they’ve removed the Goodsmile partner support web address… but not the other web addresses in the bottom right. Who cares for consistency in removing the branding?

Top:

Senketsu is giving us a stare from both boxes, and we have the same window. The bootleg box has the Phat! logo removed from this side too.
We can also see the bootleg uses a small piece of normal tape instead of the three round pieces the official has.

Bottom:

Here we have another second release vs first release difference – the barcode for the second release is down here instead of on the back. If I had a first release, the bottoms would be pretty much indistinguishable.

Into the box:

Again, not too much to see here – they’ve got the inner very close to the real thing… except the box flaps. We have a straight cut at the top of the bootleg edge flaps instead of a curve – looking at videos, it looks like this is a bootlegger change rather than a release version change.

Liner:

The bootleg liner is a slightly different shade of orange. It also feels less premium and less shiny than its official counterpart.

In terms of telling the boxes apart, the easiest method is to look for the Phat! logo. Can you find one? Very likely official. Can’t find one? Definitely bootleg. It is also interesting to see there is actually a box variant for this figure, and is something to take into account when bootleg-checking – a difference in the bottom text area isn’t always due to a bootlegger buggering about with it, companies can update their information box layouts between releases. Not the first time we’ve seen this, but probably one of the more striking variants in this regard.

Blister

My official won’t be packed as it was originally, but the bootleg hasn’t made any attempt to ensure Ryuko’s face is on show. The plastic sheeting also extends partly over the scissor blade.
This bootleg blister manages to be better than most other bootleg blisters I’ve looked at – it has mostly retained its shape and the accessories are mostly held in there – the hilt of the decapitation blade has slipped a bit though.
The most notable difference looking at her in the blister is the foot pegs – here you can see the official’s are white and the bootleg’s are blue-grey. This can be a very easy way of telling a boxed bootleg apart from the official, especially if someone crops their photo to hide the fact the logo is missing.

Base

Top:

The bootleg base is lighter than its official counterpart and looks smoother due to the less defined moulding and difference in finish.

Bottom:

The official base’s bottom is a brighter white than the bootleg’s. There is some copyright text on the upper right flat area, though it is hard to see in this photo. If we look to the bootleg, you may see the scratch pattern where they’ve scratched the copyright off of the mould, though a little evidence of where the text is remains. So it does feel like this cast was done from a stolen mould.

Removed cover:

This base has a removable part to add a knee support. The area under this stand piece is the same, albeit a less bright white on the bootleg.

Base piece:

The base pieces match the colours and paint styles of their respective bases. The knee support on the bootleg is a much cloudier plastic however.
In terms of shape, the bootleg is a lot flatter on top than the official, where moulding detail has been lost.

Underneath the base piece:

Both are numbered “2”, and are the same layout. We have some differences in the divots around the edge (notable on the top lug) and the hexagonal shape has been lost in the round peg parts on the bootleg.
Looking at the circular mould markings, it looks like the plastic was injected in the four corners for the official, but two in the middle for the bootleg.

Attaching attempt:

The bootleg’s peg wasn’t glued in so can fall out when assembling. Not a big deal as it pegs in securely, but is a difference between the two.

Base piece installed:

Both work just fine and match their respective bases.

Bootleg stand on official base:

Does indeed fit, but doesn’t match in colour.

Overall the bootleg base manages to be pretty close to the official’s but the colour and lack of texture give it away. You can also see where they’ve scratched the copyright out on the bottom if you look carefully.

Accessories

This figure comes with an extra hand, a normal scissor blade, a scissor blade in decapitation mode and a set of instructions.
Let’s start with the instructions:

Shock horror, the bootleg actually came with a copy of the instructions! The bootleg’s have had the Phat! logo removed, but other than that they’re a photocopy.
Only one downside… some of the instructions tell you what you’re missing on the bootleg due to a couple of parts being fused together. We’ll come to this later.

When doing the photoshoot, I couldn’t remember which was the default hand, so will cover both here.
Flat hand:

The blue-black parts of the glove on the bootleg are more black than they should be. The upper layers of paint on both sides of the bootleg hand is too thin, showing bits of the undercoat through. The paint is also less precisely applied, which is most notable on the top of the glove.
The underside fares better, but is a darker red than it should be on the bootleg.

Gripping hand:

The top of the bootleg hand is painted even worse than the last hand, missing much of the linework parts and the “V” part not extending down as far as it should. Plus it seems some of the black paint got smeared into the red paint, leaving the colour inconsistent.
Again, the palm isn’t so bad, though we are missing some red paint on the inner thumb.

Scissor blade:

The colours of these are notably different – the official is a much darker red and has a shiny finish.
Looking at the underside, we can see a mould defect at the top of the bootleg’s blade.
Both of these blades detach at the same point, and did indeed both pull apart.

Top of the decapitation blade:

These two are closer in colour, but the bootleg lacks the fully glossy finish of the official.

Hilt:

Here the bootleg hilt is darker. We’ve also got a curvier shape going on near the top – almost wondering if this was a prototype design where they wanted it to slide into her hand, instead of having the closed-fist they went with. Does look like the official one might actually be the retooled part – with the mould looking less precise on the left side, and smoothed out on the right.

Separated parts:

We can tell the left is the official, as the instructions show how to take the blade apart and you just can’t do that with the bootleg part. This indeed gets problematic later.

Figure spin-around

Here she is, out of the box but without her blades:

The main notable difference at a glance is the skin colour – the official is much more yellow than the bootleg. There’s also less shine on some parts of the bootleg too.
That mark on the bootleg’s bum also shows up fairly well.

Overall, the two are fairly similar – if you weren’t aware that she has a yellowy skin tone, it would be possible to mix these two up at a glance. Let’s look up close and see how she fares in the details.

Before we go do that, here’s a bonus top shot:

Figure close-ups

Before we start looking up close, I did have some assembly issues with the bootleg:

The leg wasn’t initially near the hole it needed to go in. With a bit of heating and persuasion, it went in. I seem to recall having a small amount of difficulty getting the official’s pegs in, but they weren’t this far off.

Face:

The official isn’t the happiest of chaps, but the bootleg is downright angry. Also looks like the bootleg’s face has been shifted down by quite a bit. The eye prints match up between the two, but the paint is lacking on the bootleg’s lips.
Moving to her hair, the red paint on the bootleg is squiggly and a bit all over the place. The hair is also a darker colour and lacking the shading of the official.
Moving to the Senketsu’s eye (the red/yellow part), this piece seems to be joined incorrectly on the bootleg, letting her head overlap more and pointing it upwards. The paints aren’t as vivid on the bootleg, and the sculpt seems to not be as clean.

Fins:

The casting isn’t as neat on the bootlegs, leaving them a bit wonky and smaller. The colour also differs slightly.

Top of the hair:

Here we can see where the bootleg really lacks in the shading department – just plain up here, with some seam marks. The official is much neater and the blue tones really add to the hair.

Underside of the hair:

Oof, the bootleg paint is really rough under here. They gave it a good go, but ultimately it ended up being a lumpy, sloppy mess.

Back of Senketsu:

Ignoring the hair, the biggest difference back here are the red fins – the official captures the light in such a way to give it depth, but the bootleg is just a very apparent flat red. Looks like they may have remodelled this part to make assembly easier at the sacrifice of appearance.
Looking at the sticking-up parts, the red wash on the bootleg isn’t quite as good.
Lastly, the silver paint at the bottom attaching the strap is a bit sloppy on the bootleg.

Back collar:

The dark paint here is almost a little sparkly on the bootleg. Interesting choice.
The red paint for the inset line has been painted decently well on the bootleg, but the paint isn’t as thick and vivid as the official’s.
Looking at the bottom corners of the collar, one is is pointer on the bootleg and the other side has got completely chomped off.

Midriff:

Oh boy, if I thought the paint was messy on my official, the bootleg’s gonna one-up it. The grey paint is too thin and we don’t have the points that the joining clips should have.
The bootleg strap is also poorly attached – it doesn’t connect properly at the bottom and we can see glue leak out in the middle of the strap.

Sideboob:

Not sure if the official’s clip paint is messier than the bootleg’s. The sculpt suggests the shape should be more like the official’s, but the official paint doesn’t quite get to the edges of this sculpted area.
Both bodies would look pretty similar, if it wasn’t for the skin colour.
If we look at the arms, we will see the bootleg’s right arm (upper in photo) isn’t quite attached at the same angle as the official’s.

Skirt:

And the bootleg paint is getting really ropey here – the clip is just a suggestion, the red band at the top of the skirt is inconsistent and too thin, and the grey skirt tips are dabbed on. We’ve also got some stray red paint on the bootleg’s body, just above the skirt clip.
The hands are at different angles here, but they can be rotated as they’re pegged in.

Close-up of the skirt:

The skirt paint colours are different – the bootleg is a bit of a darker, blacker colour. The bootleg sculpt is also not as sharp, resulting in less wrinkles. We’ve also got some grey paint slop from the skirt edge.
Looking at the tips on the skirt, we can see some mould marks on the edges of the bootleg that aren’t present on the official.

Bum:

The bootleg’s skirt edge paint is bad here, but the panties aren’t too badly painted though she does a little mutant towards the front due to the panty paint not reaching to the edges. We also have this massive line on my bootleg’s arse – probably not a feature of all copies of the bootlegs, but shows how inconsistent they can be. We’ve also got some yellow spatter near the bootleg’s panties for some reason… quite unpleasant to look at.

Right arm:

The finish on the bootleg does spoil the look – makes it look greasy instead of clean. The red paint bands on the square parts is also lacking on the bootleg – not enough paint and not as vivid of a red.
The bootleg’s arm is also angled slightly differently.

Top of the arm:

This hand doesn’t match the bootleg’s arm well in terms of colour – looks like a different blue.
Again, the finish really doesn’t help on the bootleg. The shading is a bit off, but close enough to be passable.

Top of the left leg:

Sloppy. Yeah, that bootleg is definitely suffering from paint issues here, especially the horizontal band on the boot. The boot’s edge and main part have a bigger gap on the bootleg.

Outside of the left leg:

The person painting this bootleg didn’t have the steadiest of hands, and we have some quite waggly linework going on, and some of the paint dripped before it dried.
Looking at the boot material itself, we have the same lacklustre finish on the boots too.

Back of the left boot:

Mmm, did I paint this bootleg? Sure looks like it.
Here we can see a paint flaw on the official where they’ve painted half the line, stopped then did the rest.

Knee support for the left leg:

Yep, both admirably doing their duty. The official one looks nicer to me as the bluey hue matches the base better and the transparency makes it less of an eyesore.
We’ve got some red paint spatter on the bootleg’s boot, for good measure.

Left foot peg:

Here we can see the official’s is unpainted, whilst the bootleg’s has been painted blue-black for some reason, and is a bit dodgily moulded.

Outside of the right leg:

Here the difference in finish is the most apparent – definitely getting more shine off of the official. The shading isn’t too bad on the bootleg, though the finer detail paint is such a mess.

Right foot:

Yeah, that red paint on the bootleg didn’t quite make it did it? Didn’t quite drip its way to its destination.

Now we’ve looked at Ryuko, time to look at her holding her accessories. For holding the scissor blade, she has the flat hand and for holding the decapitation blade she has a fist hand.

Let’s try out the scissor blade first:

This accessory works fine for both – the bootleg does hold hers at a slightly different way due to the arm angle, but this can be adjusted somewhat as the hand peg can rotate.
As most of the blade is hidden from her main viewing angles, the bootleg’s one looks generally fine.

Let’s try the decapitation blade:

Yeah, this one isn’t holding the same, though in terms of angle from the from, it sits OK. Not sure what would happen with the bootleg’s blade over time with the lack of support.

Closer look at the problem:

The official blade fits in nicely and easily with its three parts, the bootleg one not so much.
With the two narrow areas, it does look like they maybe hoped that would be where she would grip it, but that turned out not to be the case.
The bootleg blade does hold, but it is unstable. Also can’t be used as a replacement blade due to the missing joint.
From this angle, you can see where it looks like they’ve redesigned the middle bit to make it fit the model properly. Wonder if the hands were initially intended to be closer together, with the handhold areas on the bootleg.

Conclusion

Telling the bootleg apart from the official isn’t too hard if you’re aware of what the official looks like. I can definitely see someone not realising they’ve bought a bootleg with this one – the box looks good and the bootleg looks OK from a distance, but close up you can see the paint mess and have potential marks on this one.
For telling these apart, the lack of “Phat!” logos on the box is a big clue, plus the painted pegs. The pale base lacking texture may also give clues she’s not official. Lastly, a close look at the red paintwork will likely reveal the shoddy nature of the production.

What’s most interesting about this bootleg is the decapitation blade – it seems like they may’ve pinched a pre-mass-production mould. This would also fit with the fact the decapitation blade is two pieces in the box, instead of separated into three, which would be the norm if part of it is separated off. With the design of the accessories, it feels like they intended to have her not have closed hands initially, but probably realised the number of issues that would bring with her dropping her blade. Also possibly different arm positions to bring her arms closer together. This is all speculation, I could be entirely wrong, but does feel like there may be something to it.

This figure was a relatively popular pick, with three votes. The people who voted for her were NAYANMORI, ELISE_GRIMWALD and TAIGAPAWS. So I hope you’ll enjoy this article!

This Miku is one of the few in my collection – I was drawn to the relatively unique theming of this figure and the strong green/orange colours. So let’s see what the bootleggers have done to this figure and if it can come close to the original.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥3,800
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): AUD$60 (£34.58)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $15.14 (£11.60)

The official I bought from another collector.

Box

Front:

What’s this? A bootleg box that isn’t obliterated? Rare!
The front of the box is a copy of the original. The colours on the bootleg are a bit different, most notable difference is the background colour.

Sides:

Again, these sides are 1:1 copies, though the colours haven’t been calibrated correctly so the orange parts are darker and the black/grey areas are more browny in tone.
The print quality is a bit more fuzzy/blurred on the bootleg, but not as bad compared to other boxes I’ve looked at.

Back:

Yep, this side is also a duplicate. The mediocre printing shows up a bit more here as this side is largely product photos.
The barcode is the same – the sticker on my official is because the previous owner bought her preowned from AmiAmi.

Top:

The difference in colour is most apparent here as it is dominated by the background pattern. We can see the official was sealed by a piece of round tape whilst the bootleg was sealed with normal tape.

Bottom:

Nothing really to see here – both have the same flap pattern.

Inner:

The bootleg’s inner is a paler colour, plus the card is cheaper and doesn’t have the shiny finish like the official. This part probably is the most different bit out of all the packaging.

The bootleg box is very similar to the official, with no edits made. The print quality and colours may give the game away in person, but most of the box flaws would not necessarily be apparent in a poor-quality photograph. So the box isn’t necessarily a conclusive way of determining if you’re looking at a bootleg.

Blister

Blisters out of the box:

The bootleg’s blister is much more yellowy, and has started buckling. The official one has remained rigid, despite being pulled in and out of the box multiple times.
Looking at the bootleg’s hair, we can already start to see figure defects without getting her out of the box, and we can see the lamp she carries is missing? Oh, no, wait… it’s located at the bottom of the blister on the other side…

Figure blister:

Even without the back blister, that bootleg blister is looking very yellow. We can also see the hair is a mess and the lamps are pointed at funny angles.
From the back we can see the figure more clearly thanks to less protective plastic and where that lamp got to – bootleg blisters are often flimsy, so accessories relocating themselves on “new” figures can be a bad sign.
We can also see the hair shading is a lot less distinct.

Back blister:

Yes, this is how the bootleg stand came packed!

Let’s put the bootleg stand into its blister properly:

The full blister for the stand was included with the bootleg, but for some reason it was packed incorrectly, which is probably largely why it got damaged in transit.
The stand blister is a copy of the official, but again, yellowed plastic.

Base

One of the nice features about this figure is the base – no plain disc here!

Front:

Here are the bases… plus one of the bits that broke off the bootleg whilst it was in transit. The other fence piece I couldn’t find, no idea where that went.
The bases look overall similar, but the ‘metal’ fence parts on the bootleg are made from a more brittle plastic and are black instead of grey.
The bootleg’s stonework also has an ugly yellow tinge to it.

Left side of the fence:

Here we can see where the railings have a blacker and shinier finish on the bootleg with the way the light shines off the tip of the railings.
Looking at the railing curls on the left, we can see bits of excess plastic on the bootleg fence that aren’t present on the official. We’ve also got some excess plastic fuzz on the top of the wall too.
Looking at the brickwork, most of the detail seems to have survived, but the dull paintwork hides the finer details.

Top of the left brick wall:

I don’t think the top survived as well as the side – the cracks on the top two parts are nearly all missing on the bootleg.
If it wasn’t for the weird greenish colour, the dirt effect on the bootleg bricks would actually look pretty decent.

Top of the right fence:

This side also suffers from excess plastic on the outermost curls.

Right wall:

Most of the detail survived on the bootleg, but the paint is sloppy in places – notably the dark grey bricks have a fair amount of green spillover onto them.

Paving:

They’ve managed to match the darker brick patterns on the bootleg however the edges are sloppy here too. If they didn’t go for such a greenish colour, this would look fairly decent. But they didn’t. So it doesn’t.

Pegs:

If you’re yet to notice the horrible nubs on the bootleg base, here there are close up. Really not sure what happened here – was it that hard to correct the mould so the pegs weren’t mere lumps on the base? Both the official pegs are much taller than the ones on the bootleg base and are normal peg shapes. Have we got another non-functional base on our hands? More on that later!

Back of the bases:

Not too much extra to see here, but the paint on the top of the bootleg base has run down onto the edges. The official’s are neatly painted in grey.
Can also get a good look at where the two of the spikes sheared off on the bootleg fence.

Bottom:

The bootleg has copied the mould exactly for the bottom so we still have all the copyright information. However, the bottom of the base doesn’t fit into the upper portion correctly leaving larger gaps, and we have a variety of scratches and paint slop here. And that shade of sickly green.

The bootleg base is a valiant effort that manages to come close, yet is so far away. The cheaper plastic for the fence definitely lets it down as it can be broken easily. Bending the bootleg fence panel felt a lot more liable to breaking than the official one does, though I did manage to not destroy it more than it was in transit.
The off colours of the bootleg base ruins its appearance – just looks disgusting with the green tinge.
One visible difference that can’t be hidden with poor lighting is the nubs – not sure why the bootleggers didn’t manage to get proper peg shapes here, but as it stands it’s a difference that would be fairly clear if the base is photographed separately without relying on colour.

Accessory

This figure comes with one accessory – her lamp.
Front:

The loop at the top of the lamp is smaller on the bootleg, plus it has been roughly moulded.
Moving to the body of the lamp, the top of it melds more into the top part on the bootleg. The bootleg also lacks any shading in the glass. Looking at the painted black detail, the paint is a bit thin on the bootleg.
Looking at the bottom tip, the official has a shiny finish, and the bootleg mould has gone horribly wrong, and the spike is quite deformed. The halves of the bottom don’t fit together well either on the bootleg, leaving a gap.

Close-up of the top:

Here we can see the ring part also has a different finish on the official. Looking to the bootleg, we can see how the black line on the glass isn’t painted as well.
With the lamp glass, the finish is more polished on the official – we can see the photography lights and the window reflected, whilst the bootleg’s reflections are nowhere near as clear. We’ve also got some moulding defects in the bootleg, leaving hair lines going across the lamp’s surface.

Close-up of the spike:

The bootleg’s spike is fatter than its official counterpart. Both we can see a bit of the seam on this side on the upper half of the spike part. The difference in finish is quite noticeable here.

Overall, the bootleg lamp doesn’t look awful, but it does lack the small details of the official.

Figure spin-around

Attempt no. 1:

Didn’t even have to stage this shot… this genuinely happened when I was about to take the first photo for the spin-around. Those nubs are indeed kind of useless – you can get her to stay upright with them, but if she imbalances or gets knocked she’ll roll over and fall off. Yeah, not good.

Spin-around, for realsies:

The first notable thing is the bootleg’s hair – it’s a mess. It can be partly sorted out, but the curls won’t ever match the official’s as the inner parts are too short. I did sort the hair and lamp posts out on the bootleg after doing the photoshoot, but it still looked silly, just less so. We’ve also got more tan and shiny skin on the bootleg.
Looking at the bootleg’s lamp it doesn’t sit correctly in her hand – the loop is smaller than it should be which means it won’t fit properly. This also means it can’t use this as a direct replacement if you’ve lost/broken the official.
The bootleg’s hair and lamp glass are also noticeably plainer.

Figure close-ups

Face:

Looking at the bootleg’s hair, it’s slightly paler and has some rough edges – most noticeable to her left. The finish also has a slight difference, which can be seen how the lights reflect off of it.
The hair curl on the bootleg is tighter and the plastic is more see-through. The edges are also looking a little rough, with the tip of it not even pointy.
Looking at her face, the bootleg is a fair bit more tan. The bootleg eye prints are a bit darker and the print layers aren’t properly aligned so the black and yellow have been shifted to her right. The lines that should be under her eyelashes are very off from their intended positions, making them look odd and out of place.
The mouth on the bootleg has an extra downward flick at one end, making her expression less happy than the small, cute, innocent smile of the official. Also looks like the bootleg’s been eating warehouse dirt. Lovely.

Top of the hair:

Yep, the bootleg’s hair isn’t as smooth and shiny up here either. We’ve got some dirt included towards her fringe too.
Looking at the back half of her head we can see a litany of seams on the bootleg, whilst we can only see a bit of these seams on the official. The bootleg headband also has a seam, and there’s a seam in the hair just above it.

Back of the hair:

First thing of note is that the bootleg misses out on the darker blue shading here, though the ponytails do seem to include the darker paint.
The dents in the hair from it being pulled into ponytails are not as distinct on the bootleg, leaving it a little unclear what’s going on.
Looking at the headset pieces at the bottom of this photo the official has a slightly shiny finish whilst the bootleg’s are matte.

Root of a ponytail:

Here we can see the official tries to match up the hair colours of the two parts, but the bootleg doesn’t.
The hair grip itself is shiny on the official but not so on the bootleg. And yet another visible seam.

Right hair curl:

Here we can see how the official hair has two curls that go down to nearly the same length as each other, and the colour fade goes around roughly half a curl.
The bootleg’s inner curl is a LOT shorter… and isn’t in the main curl! The lamp post isn’t in there either – though it is possible to get both in if you want to. Still doesn’t look good. The shading also doesn’t even make it past the top of the lamp.

Closer look at the right lamp:

The sculpting at the top of the bootleg lamp has gone a bit blobby and misshapen. We’ve also lost the shiny finish on the metal parts. The filigree-style details are thicker and more uneven than the official’s.
Looking at the lamp glass there isn’t any shading on the bootleg and it is a lot more see-through. I find the official lamp much more pleasing with its orange shading, giving the appearance it is lit.

Left hair curl:

The official’s hair curls are also a similar length on this side. Meanwhile the bootleg’s inner hair curl is off… somewhere. Not sure where. Trying to hide in embarrassment I think.
This side also shares flaws with the other side – lamp post and inner curl not inside the outer curl, shading ending far too early, roughness in the sculpt.

Left lamp:

Showing off all the flaws from the other side plus the filigree paint is only half there and the lamp is at the wrong angle.

Side of an earpiece:

In lieu of earrings, we have something that looks like an earring attached to the bottom of the earpiece.
The official earpiece is one smooth block but the bootleg we can see where the parts went together. The “earring” itself on the bootleg isn’t painted fully and poorly cast.

Top of the earpiece:

Didn’t get a good shot of the official here, but hopefully still obvious enough the triangles here are neatly painted. The bootleg has a lot more slop and doesn’t look very good. Also seem to be missing a piece that should cover the area above the triangles to the band on the bootleg.
The bootleg they’ve seemingly redone the sculpt – the three parts should be in a triangular recess, not recessed in of themselves.

Lamp:

The official’s fits over her hand so it looks like she can hold it. The bootleg you can get it to rest on her fingers, but it isn’t a particularly secure fit.

Choker:

The official’s choker has been painted neatly at the top of the neck, with two circular details in the middle. The bootleg aims for this, but is very messy and doesn’t have the shiny finish.
Looking at the top of the dress, the grid pattern has lost a lot of its shape on the bootleg and also has excess plastic. The green line on the top of the bootleg dress is also a lot thinner and not as neatly painted as the official.

Bottom half of the dress:

The finish on the black parts is significantly different – the official gives a good view of my hands in the reflection, whilst the bootleg just shows off the lights.
The green paint is quite messy on the bootleg, not matching up with the sculpt and overlapping in places.
The details attached to the bottom of the dress show the same defects as the part up above, no surprises there.

Full front of the dress:

Drink in all the defects on the bootleg all at once.

Side of the dress:

The bootleg’s dress has an obvious seam that the official does not, along with the rose on her back. The rose itself is a much darker red on the bootleg and not as shiny.
We’ve also go one of the lamp posts visible on the bootleg due to the way it curves.

Side of the rose:

Yep, that seam on the bootleg rose continues around here. The leaves on the bootleg are sadder in shape and less vivid. They also seem to lack any shading, unlike the official.

Rose top:

The bootleg’s rose is very much looking like Play-Doh due to the colour and rough paint texture. Official might not be the most roselike-rose, but does a better job than the bootleg.
Again, we can see the bootleg’s leaves don’t go out as far and lack shading.

Back of the legs:

We’ve got the same differences in paint as the dress, again the bootleg’s green paint is messily painted. The trapeze-shaped bits on the bootleg have been painted smaller. And the right one looks more square than trapezoid.

Feet n’ panties:

Yep, they’ve both been painted under the skirt. Paint is looking a bit rough on the bootleg.

Ring connecting the lamp “post” parts together:

Bootleg was hard to photograph here, thanks to the messed-up hair.
The paint is a bit messed up on the official unfortunately, other than that, it looks decent.
The bootleg’s ring has become misshapen and the paint is a mess, plus we seemingly have a random hole on the bottom post part. The inside of the ring has been painted brown instead of black too.

String tie on the post:

The bootleg’s paint is definitely messy here, and having issues getting over the mould line.

Post weight:

Bootleg clearly didn’t know what was supposed to be going on here – we have the hole filled in and the end of the post? thread? doesn’t go into the hole that isn’t there. Something went quite wrong with the moulding of the bootleg weight, with the top edge curves not matching each other. Definite sloppy part here.

Conclusion

Telling these apart with just the box to go on would produce some distinct difficulties, as the bootleg isn’t a half-bad copy. Once the figure is out the box, oh boy. The base is a sickly colour with inferior plastic for the railings. With the figure itself, the hair is an absolute mess and the paintwork is not good. Looking at any of the finer details will reveal paint mistakes and defects in the plastic/moulding. If the details didn’t give it away, then the fact she won’t stand on her base properly seals the deal.
Her hair can be sorted to some extent, but she still looks somewhat defective. The upper lamps aren’t properly visible and the one she carries doesn’t fit on her hand properly. Should imagine owners of this bootleg are probably annoyed at her propensity to fall over.
With her lamp ring not being big enough, this figure isn’t a good parts donor either.
For all its faults, this bootleg does look passable at a distance, but definitely won’t be gracing my shelves. The official one periodically comes up at a good price, so I’d definitely recommend saving up and waiting for that one.

This figure was voted for by DTINDCAREA. With Aquamarine going bankrupt there won’t be any re-releases of this figure, so the aftermarket is the only choice for obtaining this figure. So how does this bootleg stack up to the official, and what does it look like so we can avoid it?

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥13,000
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥13,087 (£91.93)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $22.95 (£17.59)

The official I bought from Nippon Yasan (send out my last two orders, you cretins).

Box

My figure is the 2018 release – looking at the box pictures on MFC the bootleg box is actually emulating the older releases.
Looking through my photos, I think I have her backwards in the box – it’s a weird box, hard to tell what is supposed to be the front and what’s the back, and I’ve assumed the authenticity sticker should go on the front. I think this may actually be wrong, so I’ll refer to the sides by more descriptive names…

Front & back:

The artwork on the box is a direct copy – we have all the logos and text the official has. The Japanese text for “Sword Art Online” has a black outline on the bootleg, but this is in line with the older releases, and was changed for the 2018 box.
The bootleg box doesn’t have the authenticity sticker, but you won’t get this on units officially distributed outside of Japan – if you don’t have one of those, you may want to check the sides of a box for an importer’s sticker (e.g. Ultra Tokyo Connection, HEO).
The bootleg box does have a smaller border above the window – that’s not a feature of the older release. The box cardboard is also more of a yellowy-white and cheaper.
Looking at the colours, Sinon’s hair stands out as being incorrect on the bootleg an has come out a neony green instead of more of a blue colour. Looking closely at Sinon’s clothes on the bootleg box we can also see a bit of the murky ‘fuzz’ that happens with cheap printing.

Windowed side:

Another copied side. The colour difference here is more obvious, with the “SINON” underneath the figure photo. Looking at box photos on MFC, the colours on the older boxes may be between these two.

Product information side:

As the back of the box is a giant window, the product information is on the side of the box.
Again, the bootleg box is a copy of the older releases – with the 2018 release they moved the barcode to the this side of the box, so if you see the barcode located in the bottom right, you know you have a 2018 release on your hands.
Looking at the product shots, the bootleg box images are fuzzier than they should be, but the rest of the box is pretty much as the original it copied.

Top:

Another copy, nothing particularly to differentiate it up here.

Bottom:

I don’t have a reference for the bottom of the older box, but assume the bootleg is a direct copy. The 2018 release varies significantly – the pattern doesn’t go all the way to the middle and we no longer have any text here.

Box lid:

The official’s box cardboard is brown on the inside, whilst the bootleg’s is white. Checking videos of older releases, it does appear that one is also brown on the inside too.
We’ve also got an interesting dotted pattern for the glue on the bootleg.

Box liner:

Here’s where added confusing for me came in for which way around the figure goes in the box – and now I’m thinking they may have switched the box orientation between the 2018 and the older releases! The official liner is a higher quality of cardboard and finish – we can see the way we get a nice clean reflection of the photography light at the bottom. The bootleg’s shine is much more diffuse due to the more matte finish and the card has a yellowy tint to it.
Looking at the liners, the circle part is on opposite sides, meaning the liners go in the opposite way around in their respective boxes.

These boxes are very similar, and not necessarily the best way of telling the bootleg from its official. Telling the 2018 version from the bootleg box is fairly easy if you have a picture of the side/bottom due to the relocated barcode, and we also have the redone text shading. However, the bootleg box is pretty much a direct copy of the older releases, and the only real tells are the top border and the inner box colour being different. If in person, the fuzzy print quality may be apparent, but a poor-quality photo of the box may hide this tell.

Blister

Let’s have a quick look at the blister before we unpack her.

As usual for bootleg blisters, this one is in an atrocious state. When these figures are shipped singly, they crush down the blisters and fold the box around the blister to minimise shipping costs. Even if this wasn’t done, the blister would likely be sagging in places anyway due to the thinner plastic used, but maybe not this level of destroyed.
We have a less clear view of the bootleg, and we’re seeing a large difference in the hair colour. The bullets were also not held in – the official has some cling plastic to hold them in (if new) – my cling plastic is a lot more visible than it should be here as it has lost some of its cling thanks to being restuck.

Base

Top:

The official’s base is much more textured. The bootleg one features scratches fresh out of the box.

Bottom:

The official has the copyright going across the middle. The bootleg just has some tape residue, left from where it was stuck into the blister.

Side:

The muted quality of the texture extends to the side of the base.

Overall, the bootleg base is very similar to its official counterpart, but can act as an easy way to tell an official apart from a bootleg as it misses out on the copyright on the bottom.

Accessories

Instructions:

Official has these, bootleg doesn’t. Win for the official here. Though the instructions don’t fully apply to the bootleg, as we’ll find out later.

Bullets:

The bootleg bullets have been painted in a singular colour and are a bit misshapen from poor casting. The official bullets have some shading at the bottom and a different colour at the tip.

Rifle:

(I’m not the most familiar with guns, so if I use the wrong terminology, I apologise)
The bootleg’s barrel is noticeably shorter than the official’s and has a lack of shading.
The lack of shading also extends to the scope – some paint has been blobbed on in the middle, unlike the official’s where the body is much more of a grey/black and the ends are silver.
Looking at the gun stock, the bootleg’s is a much different shade of brown, and the metallic bit at the top is poorly fitted and poorly shaded.
The stand has also been attached at a different angle, which will become problematic later. As this is a static scale, there’s no hinge on the stand to fix its angle.

Closeup of the scope:

As well as the poor painting on the bootleg, we have a much more obvious seam. The cap on the end looks a little misshapen too.
The bootleg scope also seems to be pointed downwards slightly – not going to be doing much good aiming like that.

Closeup of the stock:

That texture is yuck on the bootleg… lots of unevenness on the upper part. The bootleg lacks the shading of the official and the parts all have less pleasing finishes.

Tip of the rifle:

The bootleg’s paint actually has some added shading here, but that’s somewhat marred by the poor cast leaving the edges messy and the extra seam across the middle of the side. Next to this extra seam line we also have some extra plastic that hasn’t been smoothed down from cutting it off its runner.

Overall, the bootleg accessories are inferior to their official counterparts, with the gun having some notable flaws. The bullets likely wouldn’t stand out on display, but up close we can see they’re not as good as the official ones.

Figure spin-around

This spin-around was done without accessories – I’ll cover the why later.
From the front, we can see a litany of poor paint choices – the hair being particularly notable, followed by the dead-looking stomach area and the darker green of her trousers and jacket.
In terms of pose, the bootleg seems to be a fairly close match, though her left knee isn’t pointing outwards as much as it should.

With accessories:

The official holds hers just fine, but the bootleg’s won’t plug in properly, so it just sort of sits there incorrectly. You can get it to balance like this, but any slight knock and she’ll drop it.

Figure close-ups

Continuing on with the sniper rifle fit, here is a closeup with the hair:

The bootleg’s head doesn’t come out and the hair fouls against the stand, stopping it from plugging in. Even if you shove it under there, the differing position of the stand doesn’t match with the hair.
The official’s head comes out, allowing you to slot the rifle in the provided support hole on her scarf, then put the head in on top so the stand goes under the hair. Not sure I’ve got it done quite right here, but it does show the difficulty that would be encountered when trying to do the bootleg.

The official with the official then the bootleg rifle:

The sniper rifle peg is fine and correctly placed for the bootleg, it’s the figure’s head mostly responsible for producing the fit issues on the bootleg.
For using the bootleg sniper on the real, you might need to do some bending of the stand legs, but it does fit. Doesn’t look good though.

Talking about fit issues, here’s getting the bootleg onto the stand:

This is as far as it got with just some shoving. She really doesn’t fit well onto her stand.

After some heating, swearing and shoving we’re now mostly connected:

About as good as I’m going to get. Not terrible, but way too much faff to get to this stage. Especially when the official takes mere seconds to assemble.

To complete looking at the accessories, here are the bullets in Sinon’s hand:

Both hold in fine, so no further issues with this accessory.
Looking at her gloves, the bootleg’s seems to lack a finish and the edges aren’t quite as neat, though this doesn’t really show from a distance.
The bootleg’s cuff is a funny shade of pinky-white – not sure why this is. We also get to see the start of the poor paintwork on her sleeves too.

Back to our regular programming. Here’s Sinon’s face:

Oof, let’s start with that hair. The official’s has a nice greeny-blue colour to it, with a white undertone. The hairclips weren’t painted well on the official in my opinion – wish there was more distinction here.
Moving to the bootleg… we have a horrible yellow undertone for the hair. Not sure why. The paint is uneven in a lot of spots, scratched and dirty. The moulding is poor, leaving gaps and hair going in directions it shouldn’t. The hair “shading” doesn’t make much sense whatsoever. Just… no. No.
Moving to her face, the bootleg’s is shrouded in darkness due to the misplaced hair. Her eye prints are actually reasonably decent under there.. if you can see them!
The skin shade on the bootleg isn’t too far off on her face, but it does have a a shine to it, which we can see by her nose. The mouth is a bit more thickly painted, but looks fine to me.
Moving down to her scarf, the bootleg is looking rough. The bootleg’s white paint isn’t white and is rough and lumpy. The dark blue detailing doesn’t follow the sculpt in several places, making it look a mess.

Let’s move onto the top of her head and see how bad the hair gets up there:

Oooh yeah, not looking good up here either. The official has some seaming going on, but nothing too notable.
For the bootleg – oh boy. Seams aplenty, all splitting apart. The middle of the hair has a lot of yellow, making the hair paint look unfinished instead of shaded. The added bit of hair at the back almost looks like she’s had a painted banana stuffed in her hair.

Side of her hair:

The hair horror show doesn’t stop here, with the back of her hair not painted on the fringe adding to the unfinished look. The hair-banana also sticks out on this side too. Lots of scratches and slop to be seen.

Back of the hair:

Not as awful-looking back here, but definitely no match with the official. Apparently hair-banana isn’t painted underneath, revealing its yellow nature. Again, the yellow undercoat of the hair isn’t doing anything for it, leaving certain parts of the hair an odd colour. It’d honestly look better if they doused all the hair in turquoise and didn’t try to shade it at all…
Looking at the scarf, the bootleg’s paint isn’t following the line again.

Peg hole for the rifle:

The hole on the bootleg has slightly dodgy edges, but succeeds at being a peg hole. The paint line that should butt up to this hole is quite messy on the bootleg though.

Scarf joins:

The official joins look nice, and like the scarf is going underneath itself. The bootleg… not so much – the pieces don’t fit together so we’re seeing into spaces that shouldn’t exist, ruining the effect. The part of the scarf going around the bootleg’s neck also doesn’t match the colour of the other parts, further implying there’s more than one scarf going on here.
Again, the bootleg’s paint is sloppy and we have bits of grey paint smeared to the right of the photo.

Scarf fluttering in the wind:

The bootleg scarf manages to mostly look like the official one in shape, which is an achievement for a bootleg. The paint is still dodgy though.

Scarf end:

Here we get a good look at the poor line painting on the bootleg’s scarf and another paint mishap. The edge nearest the camera we can see is a bit fat and flattened on the bootleg too.

Chest:

Here’s where the painting starts to get really rough – the black lines and cups are painted thinly and messily. The gold fares a bit better, but the zip is looking a mess. The zip’s moulding is also messy.
The edging on the bootleg’s jacket doesn’t go around the edges, leaving green visible where it shouldn’t be. Special credit goes to the black line on the right side, which misses its target entirely.
We also get to see the first bit of the bootleg’s overly pale skin – she’s looking pretty dead here, as the skin seems to not have any red tone to it at all. Looking at the gridded bits over her chest, the bootleg’s are a bit lumpy around the edges.

Stomach:

Here’s where the bootleg’s body starts to look really rough. Again, the black paint is poorly done with lots of smudges and splatters. The top has no finish, so lacks the texture difference of the official. This coupled with the skin’s overly pallid colour, it’s a bit hard to see where the top ends and the skin starts.
Looking at the parts that are supposed to be skin on the bootleg, the whole thing doesn’t fit together well, leaving noticeable gaps in the body which have been emphasised by black overspray.
Moving to the belt, the bootleg’s buckle and gem are the wrong colours, plus the holes in the buckle have incorrectly been painted silver. The belt also lacks a shiny finish.
Moving to the shorts, half the bootleg’s shorts haven’t been painted, leaving her with shorts that appear to be cloaking… this could get embarassing!
All in all, a pretty terrible looking package from the bootleg.

Close-up on the jewel:

I remember this one being touted as the easy way of telling the bootleg from the official… and I have to agree. The green gem is definitely not a match for the official’s blue, plus it is more opaque.

Right hip:

Yeah, you wanted to see that hideous skin again on the bootleg, didn’t you? The painting is nice and neat on the official, not so much on the bootleg.

Pouch:

The official’s has much nicer colours and finish. We’ve also got way too much sweaty, pallid skin on the bootleg too. Has that back panel of the top even been painted on the bootleg?

Pistol:

The bootleg’s pistol is a lighter silver, and the holes on the extended magazine aren’t as deep.

Left arm:

Yet more rough painting on the bootleg – the line has been smeared a lot into the white paint and the dots aren’t quite where they should be. And another look at that really oddly painted cuff. Nope, I don’t know either!

Right arm:

Do you like you paint all messed up? As that’s what you’re getting with this bootleg! Again, they’ve decided to do this cuff a pinky colour, so it must’ve been some kind of choice made by the bootleggers.
The bootleg’s glove paint is also a bit too thin on this side.

Palm of the right hand:

The bootleg’s nails aren’t painted, and the fingers are more bent over. Not a match for the official, here. The details in the palm have also been entirely lost.

Right leg:

Here you can really see where the greens differ – the bootleg’s is much darker. The linework here on the bootleg is actually acceptable, plus the dots aren’t too far off. We do lack the darker shading in the wrinkles of her clothes though and have some black paint slop on her lower leg.
The inner side of the bootleg’s left boot is strangely grey though.

Left leg:

From this angle, the poor texture on the green parts of the bootleg shows up. Again, the linework is actually acceptable for the most part on the bootleg and we don’t have the shading.

Boots:

The boots are probably the best part of the bootleg, and actually look very close to the official’s. They have been painted in a darker black from this angle, which isn’t entirely a bad thing. Not canon though. Looking at the top of her right boot, some of the finer wrinkles have been lost, but not something you’d notice unless looking up close.

Back of the stand:

On both figures this part is attached to Sinon’s foot. So no difference in assembly for this one.
The bootleg’s matches the outer shape, but there looks to be some difference in the internal structure at the bottom. We’ve also got a much more yellowy toned plastic.
Looking up at the shoe, the bootleg’s sole and upper both have a shiny finish, whilst the official’s sole has a matte finish and the upper is slightly shiny.

Conclusion

Well… that was a thing! From the outside, the bootleg could pass for the real thing – the box is a copy, though slightly flawed in places. One big thing to note is the 2018 release the box got somewhat of a redesign, and shouldn’t be regarded as a bootleg if found.
The inside though, oh boy. This bootleg is one ugly mofo that cannot be assembled right. Can’t get the bootleg to hold her gun properly, not that I really want to as the hair and skin make this one poor-looking bootleg. If you can jam her onto the base.
Telling this one apart isn’t too hard – the sniper rifle has a number of flaws and mispaints, and the figure has weird hair, a barely visible face, poor painting and an odd-looking shape around her waist.
I honestly couldn’t recommend this bootleg to anyone. The flaws are too great and stand out from a distance. No getting away from the hair, and the strange body shapes from the poor assembly. Some of the white bits painted pinkish is also somewhat offputting – can almost get away with on the cuffs being her jacket inner, but the scarf just looks a bit silly.
If you can’t get the official, just skip this. Get another Sinon instead.