Month: June 2020

Official vs Bootleg: FREEing Red Pyramid Thing (figma)

Time for something horror-themed… in more ways than one. When I bought the bootleg to feature in this series I wasn’t intentionally hunting for it, but the photos I saw of the bootleg made me buy it. So let’s see what horrors I manage to uncover.

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥4,444
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥4,000 (£28.13)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $16.20 (£12.58)

I bought the official figure secondhand whilst visiting Japan.

Box

This bootleg came with the box, which was interestingly folded around the inner plastic. Not entirely sure why they did that, seeing as it doesn’t take up less space to do so. I guess they didn’t want to take the time to shove the blister into the box.

Front:

https://i.ibb.co/XW4DCTq/box-front.jpg

The bootleg box from the front is a straight-up photocopy of the original. The colouring is a bit off, but hard to tell anything’s amiss from the box front if you don’t have the original next to it. Ignoring the figure, the main difference here is we don’t have a backing card for the figure – in the official box we have a sheet of red card, in the bootleg, nothing.
The bootleg box also looks like it had a trip around the warehouse floor with its fine layer of dirt before it made its way to me.

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Medusa vs. Medusa: Sega & Banpresto

Time for something slightly different… a “bonus” blog, comparing two Medusa (aka Rider) prize figures. For a Fate character, Medusa’s been a bit shafted in the figure department – most of her figures are from 2010 or earlier. Then after an 8-year drought, a figure was released! Aaaand it was a mediocre bunny by Funnyknights. Then a few figures of her Fate/Grand Order appearance, which I’m personally not fond of.
Then we get… two prize figures! I’ll take what I can get! There were some debates of which people favoured, but me being me, I went for both.

This blog is intended as a one-off – mostly to compare these two figures and an excuse to use some new photography lights I’ve recently purchased.

Pricing

Due to the weird shipping situation, I’m going to quote prices without shipping for this blog.
Price I paid for Sega SPM Rider: ¥1,800
Price I paid for Banpresto EXQ Rider: ¥800

The Banpresto figure was opened, so I got it cheaper than the current market value (~¥1,500). Sega’s can now be had for around ¥1,200 plus shipping – I was rather overeager to get it, so ended up paying a bit more to not risk missing out. Wasn’t sure how popular she was going to be, seeing as it had been a long time since a F/SN Medusa figure had been released.

Promo shots

This is the main images we had to go on, prior to the actual release:
https://i.ibb.co/bg82hQp/promo-shots.png

Much was left up to the imagination, how would the flowing hair work? What kind of stands would they have? What would the final paint finish be like?

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Official vs Bootleg: FREEing Shiro (Cat ver; S-Style)

This figure was intended to be the first entry of Official vs Bootleg… and here we are at OvB number 9! This bootleg was released several months before the official product was released, so I was super-curious how it turned out.

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥3,685
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥4,210 (£29.45)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $14.58 (£10.42)

I pre-ordered the official figure.

For this one, I did not get the box with the bootleg, so we’ll be skipping that portion – though the bootleg box is very different from the official from the photos I’ve seen. And like a good portion of S-Style bootleg boxes, it has a window whilst the official ones do not, which is a massive clue to it not being an official S-Style figure.
This figure also does not have any accessories, so it’s straight onto the base.

Base

Side-by-side:

Yep, don’t think we can get much more different. Like the other official S-Style figures, the official base is a cog shape. For Shiro, her base is a darkish blue and does not have any pegs as she can stand on her own. The bootleg however… is a roundish fluffy thing that likes to shed feathers. Being cheaply made, its final shape cannot really be called circular, as it contains many irregularities.

Bottom:

For the official, we have the standard copyright notice and a central support to keep the base sturdy. The bootleg has been sewn to a piece of fabric, so there is some finishing work going on here. And no, they haven’t put any copyright info down here.

And here’s a picture for an exact size comparison:

Bootleg base is a decent bit bigger than the official. If the bootleg base was done more professionally, I think it could be preferable to the plastic discs these figures come with – they don’t tend to be well-liked. I think they’re OK, and I do like interlocking them when I’m displaying S-Style figures in a group, but I do agree some of them are a bit too gaudy-coloured.

Personally I display this figure with no base, so no actual points to award here really. As far as telling which is which, I’m not sure you could mix these two up. If the bootleg base wasn’t as poorly produced, I think it could be a contender for this figure as it is more interesting than a cog that doesn’t fit with the figure’s aesthetic.
Due to the fact the bootleg base sheds and isn’t a proper shape, I’d recommend buying something separately if you want her on a fluffy base.

Figure spin-around

https://i.ibb.co/k5mmv9Q/spin-front.jpg

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: FREEing Shiro (Cat ver; S-Style)” →