This figure is the first one chosen by user vote! This figure was voted for by GerardHaZ and dtindcarea.
Partly surprised this wasn’t one of the bootlegs I chose for myself, as it was one I was curious as to how the bootleg compared to the real thing many moons ago. However, the real thing can be had pretty cheaply, with the postage likely costing more than the figure itself due to the box’s large size.

Whilst writing this blog, I ended up doing some more research on bootlegs for this figure – there appears to be at least three different bootlegs. One version is shown in the MFC gallery, featuring a box claiming the figure was made by Max Factory. There’s a second version which appears to be a run-of-the-mill bootleg, which looks more prize figure than scale, but comes with a box that’s pretty much a match for the official:

Note the unfinished green lines on her top, shiny hair and face plus seam marks as far as the eye can see.

And then there is the version I got. Which… well, you’ll see!

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): ¥8,381
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥8,670 (£48.42)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £24.58

I bought the official version from AmiAmi preowned.

Box

Let’s get the boxes lined up for display…

Ah, hm, OK, time to do some unpacking! Though credit to the seller on this one – it’s probably the least bashed-up bootleg box I’ve got to date!

Size comparison:

The box for this figure is quite chunky, so here’s one photo of them both in the same shot, showing that the bootleg box is actually slightly shorter than the official.

Front:

The box design of the bootleg has been to be made to be close to the official, but without key graphics in some kind of attempt to avoid copyright infringement. The Goodsmile Racing logo is missing from both the top right corner of the box and the window. We’re also missing the copyright line in the bottom left. The blocks of colour at the top of the box are noticeably thinner than the official, and didn’t quite survive the resizing process intact.
The rest of the front is a copy of the original, only poorly printed – the colours have come out much darker and there’s a bunch of artefacting going on, especially noticeable in her hair.
And we can already see these figures aren’t going to be a match…

Sides:

A fairly similar story as to the front, but here we can see the poorly done edit job that has been done to remove the logos – looks like they’ve just grabbed the paintbrush tool and scrawled over the logo in white, leaving an oddly fuzzy edge to what’s supposed to be an ovalish sort of shape.

Back:

Here the bad print job on the bootleg is pretty apparent. The darker areas have lost significant amount of details, and gives the photos an overall odd quality. Again, the Goodsmile Racing logo has been removed, from the lower part of the box. And they were too lazy to draw the gridline back in.
Several chunks of the lower box text have been taken out, where it refers to GSC and being intended for sale in Japan only. To not leave huge white gaps, they’ve rearranged what was left to mostly fill out the space. As this is an edited copy of the original box, the barcode matches with the official one.
My official has an AmiAmi preowned sticker on it – they have their own control codes to keep track of their stock, so if you see a sticker very similar to the one to the bottom right of the official box, it’s just AmiAmi’s way of keeping track of stock. The “[中古]” at the start of the label text is “preowned”, and you can see the figure grade of A and the box grade of B.
OK, not here to talk about AmiAmi’s labelling process, so onto the next side of the box.

Top:

Another missing logo, another mediocre edit job. Not much to really notice up here, other than that hot pink bar at the top.
Oh, and this:

It actually has a round piece of tape – but just the one, whilst the official has three. And it’s the cheapest, thinnest bit of tape you ever did see. If you’ve ever picked off or cut through GSC’s round circle dots, you’d know that this was not it.

Bottom:

Yep, no Goodsmile Racing logo here either. Boxes look pretty similar other than that, albeit with a colour difference.

Let’s have a little look in the box:

Here we have one of the smaller things that the bootleggers will cheap out on – the amount of glue used to adhere the plastic window to the box. The official one is glued down on the outer edge as well as around the window itself, the bootleg only around the window. This has led to the plastic not lying flat, and will catch on the blister as it is pulled out.
The flap design is also slightly different on the bootleg – the triangular parts at the bottom of the box come much closer to the lower flap than they do on the original.

This box also featured a liner for both the official and bootleg:

For scales, sometimes the bootleggers will actually copy the official inlay. For this one, we also get an edit – they have actually drawn in the gridlines (though some are not level with the ones they’re supposed to join up with), but didn’t bother to complete the swooshes, making it look incomplete. This is mostly hidden by the figure in the box though, so by the time you get it out the bootleggers probably don’t care if you notice this.
The bootleg liner is also much lighter and less vivid in colour. The shapes are a match though, so if it wasn’t for the missing logo they would be relatively hard to tell apart.

One more “sneak peak” of the figure, before we take her out of the blister:

The blisters feel very different to the touch. The bootleg blister has little rigidity to it and will scrunch up easily. Even with the extra padding the seller added, the bootleg blister has become partially deformed. The flimsiness of the bootleg blister does actually make it harder to pull out of the box.
The official figure is likely a fair bit older than the bootleg (and has been out of the box more times), yet the official blister stays in shape nicely.

Accessories

None, really. But there are a couple of things I want to add here.
First is the official comes with a little warnings sheet, which the bootleg doesn’t come with:

And the official comes apart like so:

Which allows you to display her without her skirt:

Which means you can treat it as an accessory if you wish to. The bootleg I tried very hard to take apart, but it wasn’t going. I tried just tugging relatively gently before I did the photoshoot, but after the photoshoot I tried heating up her torso a bunch and tugging on it very hard, and it’s definitely glued (didn’t want to do this before the photoshoot just in case I ended up with a very broken figure). The skirt is the same mould as the official, so it sits loosely on her, but there’s no way of taking it off easily.

Base

Top of the bases:

Overall, very similar. The bootleg is more creamy in colour, and misses the patterning in the blocks of colour (most noticeable in the rings to the right of the base).
The green teardrop to the right of the foot pegs is a solid colour on the bootleg, whilst the official one shows the colours underneath. There is also a teardrop towards the top right that is purple on the official and blue on the bootleg (on top of the pink blob).
There are colour differences throughout, but that is probably the main, most easily visible ones.

Bootleg base pegs:

Even before I’ve assembled the figure, there’s seemingly paint transfer on the bootleg pegs. No idea where the green paint has come from – could possibly be stray paint in the factory. I don’t think the figure would have rubbed up against the base, especially for the lower peg.
Also the longer bootleg peg didn’t survive disassembly – I needed to take the figure off the base for another base photo, and the upper part of the peg has started to snap – one more disassembly and it will likely break right through. The official has been taken off its base a few times (usually for cleaning) and the pegs are still holding strong.

Underneath:

Here we can see the distinct difference in plastic colour. Here we have a slightly different mould mark on the underside of where the foot pegs fit in.

Copyright:

For all the removing of the logos on the box, they’ve left the copyright on the base.

Size comparison:

Seem to be identical in size. Can also see where the bootleg is a bit rough on the edge and more stray paint (yellow spot towards the left of the photo).

If they weren’t side-by-side, it would be easy to not recognise the bootleg base as bootleg. However, I wouldn’t recommend mixing them up as the plastic on the foot peg is weaker, and may snap inside your figure.

Figure spin-around

Let’s look at this beauty!

The first thing that sticks out to me is the off colouring of the bootleg’s hair – the middle is starkly an off-green colour for Miku. And her outfit is mostly silver instead of pearly light grey.
With her head pointing down and the lean, it feels like bootleg Miku is captured in the moment of falling over. Though she managed to stay upright for this photoshoot!

Figure close-ups

Face:

That hair… The bootleg’s hair colour is completely off, and shows off an extra seam line. We also have lots of extra bits of plastic that haven’t been cut off.
The bootleg’s crown has been painted in white, which is odd given most of the bootleg’s outfit is silver. For the official, it’s the same pearly white/grey as the rest of her outfit.
The prints on the eyes seem to be the same pattern, but the colours differ, so this part looks fine.
The inner mouth on the bootleg is lighter – probably could do with being less neon, but isn’t too bad. Also her teeth are painted neatly, which is sort of rare for a bootleg.

Headset:

Before we look at the headset she’s wearing… that hair seam on the top of the bootleg’s head is distracting me. Not only is it gapping, we seem to have some glue or something in there that’s given it a yellow line.
OK… headset… The paint is much messier and less precise – the purple paint at the top of the headset doesn’t follow the lines it is supposed to, the part that joins the ring to the earphone hasn’t been painted, and we’re missing some grey shading and the grey dot on the earphone itself.
The headphone on the official has a translucent-y back, but the bootleg just has a paint blob, giving more detail to the official. The bootleg headset is finished off with some purple paint thrust at the back of the mic, leaving it only vaguely in the right spot.
From this angle, we can also see how the bootleg’s skin and hair is shiny.

Top of her head:

The main seam line is definitely rougher on the bootleg, and we have that mint-green hair going on. The rings around her hair have some very visible seam lines on the bootleg, which aren’t very apparent on the official. The paint shading on the bootleg has a lot more variation in colour, which isn’t bad in of itself, but it goes a few shades too light, which really doesn’t help the off colouring.

Hair ends:

For this part, the official has more colour depth, and has a matte finish. The bootleg is shiny and has a fair amount of excess plastic, especially on a couple of the hair tips. The hair is also more bunched up on the bootleg and less liable to keep its shape due to the plastic used.
If we look just above the bootleg’s hand, we can see where the moulding has gotten quite dodgy, where the “stray” strand connects to the main strand.

Hair strands from another angle:

For this part, the lack of shading on the bootleg hair is very apparent. We also get to see very easily where the joins are in the hair. With the official, the joins do show in places, but it isn’t too bad imo. We can also see where the back hair strand has been scrunched in on the bootleg, instead of flowing free as it should.

Chest:

And here we have the super-silver outfit! Where the top is a pearly white on the official, we have silver on the bootleg. The moulding here is awful on the bootleg – all the edges have lost their shape, and the details have gone wonky and misshapen. The worst parts for this are the triangle window on her chest and the black part at the bottom of her top.
The painted details on the bootleg’s top are mostly correct, though we are missing the black lines through the centre. Probably a good thing though, given the messiness of the paint in general on this figure.
The transfer/stamp for the logo on the bootleg is terrible, and is barely legible as a result. Certainly not the finest reproduction here.
Next noticeable element is her tie – the painting on the top part of it has been done OK, but the tie itself is opaque on the bootleg instead of the translucent of the official, as well as having a poor moulding job.
Then comes the “vest”. Not sure what to call this, but I’m going to stick with vest for this review. The design has many lines – the bane of many bootlegs, and indeed here we have the sloppy paint job as can be expected of a bootleg. The sheer parts have been painted on the bootleg, so it doesn’t look super-odd.
Lastly, we have her skin – the lack of contrast between the sheer parts of the vest and her skin on the bootleg show how bootleg Miku is more tanned than she should be – Miku is usually portrayed as being very pale.

Side:

Here we can really admire that terrible logo and poor green linework on the bootleg. We also might have a clue here why the moulding on the top is so bad – it looks like they’ve reproduced it as the moulds join in different places – the official we can see a mould line on the strap (next to the purple part) whilst the bootleg’s join is on the cup.
The seamline on the body is also in a slightly different place – if you look just above the skirt on the official, you’ll see the mould line close to the green line on the vest, whilst it is a lot further away on the bootleg.

Back:

Viewing her from the back, the hair on the bootleg looks super-weird due to the difference in colour between the hair on the back of her head and her pigtails. The hair tufts at the bottom of her hair are also pointing upwards a bit more.
With her hand, it is pointing more upwards on the bootleg than it should be, and the bootleg’s nails aren’t painted well. We’re also missing the green detail at the top of her sleeve.
The back of bootleg’s outfit is interesting – the top bit has been painted silver, but the lower detail has been inexplicably painted white. What they painted white and what was painted silver on this bootleg figure seems very inconsistent.
For the lower detail (fastener?) we’re missing the glossy part in the middle of it, and it is thinner and taller than it should be, giving it a more oval appearance.
The green linework here isn’t as blobby on the bootleg as it is on the front and sides. Still not great though.

Skirt:

Yeesh. Where to start with this one? Colours? Completely off. Apart for maybe the green lines at the edge of the skirt. For some reason the circular “button” details here are a different green on the bootleg, whilst it’s a matching “Miku green” on the official (and glossy).
The centre of the upper part of the bootleg skirt is easily the worst part of this – the paint is awful, the green border is missing and the moulding is terrible. If I had to display this bootleg, honestly it’d be tempting to snip off this skirt due to it being so poor (and it doesn’t come off like it should). The lower lines are very roughly done, and incorrect. The upper lines are too thin and the joining lines do not match the official at all – there are 3 where there should be 2 and none joining this part to the skirt hem. And talking about the hem, the green paint here has been applied very haphazardly.
Again, the logo here has been poorly reproduced, but at least the main part of the logo is legible.
The silver paint has been oversprayed on one side, but not enough on the other side. Well, it evens out to a proper paint job…?

Side of the skirt:

Here we can really admire that overspray on the bootleg, and we also have a seam line not present on the official. The official has some overpainting in parts, but it’s nothing compared to the sheer messiness of the bootleg in the respective areas.

Back of the skirt:

Here, the green linework on the bootleg is actually close to prize-figure levels of messy. Instead of “wouldn’t pass prize figure QC” levels of messy. The dark green paint and the black paint is a fail here on the bootleg – very poorly done. Official is looking neat and tidy though!

Left arm:

And we’re back to the closer shade of paint to the official here… In terms of raw colour, this isn’t actually a bad match for the official, so it’s a bit strange why they made certain parts of her clothing silver. Though that’s about the only positive for the bootleg’s paint in this area.
So, missing paint details on the bootleg: Green part at the top of her sleeve, green button on the cuff, lack of shading on the sleeve and the black rings on the glove. The bootleggers obviously noticed a shade change between her sleeve and her glove, but this has been replicated by the glove being a different colour instead of replicating the shading that it is supposed to be. The glove paint on the bootleg didn’t make it all the way up the gloves, leaving her with mutant hands.
Lastly for the paint, it looks like bootleg Miku dipped her fingers in the nail polish instead of y’know… painting her nails. Does look quite funny from certain angles.
Again, the seams are very visible on the bootleg. Official, you can see a bit of a seam on her hand if you look closely.

Hand:

Here we can appreciate the details that went into the official – with the shading and the small details being painted neatly.
And then we have mutant-hand Miku dabbing in the nail polish.
The cuff on the bootleg’s glove has also been moulded poorly, and feels like the button is more on top of her wrist rather than to the side.

Top of the boots:

For the purple/grey detail, the bootleg has lost the middle grey bit. Probably not a bad thing for the bootleg, given the poor paint overall. Again, the green paint is messy and we also have the grey paint on the main part of the boot bleeding into the white.

Legs:

We’ve got some attempt here of matching the shiny finish of the official’s outfit here, but it doesn’t live up the the pearly finish of the official. The pearly finish was one of the things that attracted me to getting this particular Miku.
Paint is also messy here on the bootleg – most apparent in in the green areas from these angles.
From the back, we also get a lovely seam line to look at on the bootleg.
For the official, we have a couple of zippers swinging out from the boot, on the bootleg these have been flattened up against the boot.

Closer shot of one of the feet showing the worst of the paint here:

Paint slop and scrapage. What more could you ask for? Oh yeah, the seam line.

Back of the legs:

The bootleg has some very bad overspray on her right leg, very much covering the white area of the boot. We can also see how she’s not posed right, which is why she leans funny when assembled.
Her panties are a darker grey than the official’s – not that you’ll be seeing them much seeing as the skirt isn’t removable. We’re also missing most of the green linework – only the top band has been painted here.
At the top of the boots we have yet more messy paint and the purple line details are missing.

Foot:

Finally down to the bottom of the figure! Paint is messy here, but at least we have all the details. Here we can see the stand for her foot isn’t quite the same shape as the other, also contributing to her standing funny. I didn’t quiiite get her to the bottom of the stand pegs for the detail shots, but in the spin-around, you can see how much she faces the floor when properly on the peg (I had to redo one of the base shots – usually I’ll do base and accessory shots first, but I realised one of my base shots was done incorrectly after I did the spin-around shots. Which lead to the bootleg’s foot peg nearly shearing off).

Conclusion

This bootleg is straight-up bad. Even in the box, you can tell there’s something not quite right, thanks to the hair, and potentially the logo on her top if you’re looking closely. The overall quality and appearance is poor – her pose has been messed up, some parts are poorly moulded and the paint is messy. Also only certain parts of her clothing have been changed to a silver colour, which looks kind of odd as some of her outfit is still white/grey.
In terms of differentiating this one from the official… the outer box is clearly missing logos (especially the one on the plastic), and the figure having different coloured hair and outfit make it stand out as not the real thing. There does seem to be a bootleg out there that is closer to the real thing, so to watch out for that one, look for the shiny hair and poor paint.
Would I think someone who buys bootlegs would be happy with this one? No, not really. Definitely wouldn’t recommend this version of the figure – it’s like a bootleg of a bootleg. The official one comes up reasonably often secondhand, so I’d recommend getting that and eating it on the shipping. One of the other bootlegs may have been worth it for a “prize tier” version of her, but this one is not.

I promised another Q Posket blog, and here it is! The figure I bought at the same time as Catwoman was Harley Quinn.

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) – prize figures do not have an MSRP
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥2,439 (£14.71)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $4.49 (£3.47)

The official figure I bought unopened from Mandarake.

Accessory

This figure comes with Harley’s hammer, so let’s look at that first.

Top:

First thing that is immediately noticeable is the bootleg hammer is smaller – it is smaller in all dimensions, but the shorter handle is the most noticeable.
The bootleg has lighter coloured silver paint and a free dent on the head of the hammer. The shaft on the bootleg is a darker shade of brown and has a bit of excess plastic still attached.

Bottom:

The underside on both can be told by the inserted plastic piece which leaves a seam on this side of the hammer head. Other than the seam, there aren’t any notable flaws on the official. For the bootleg though, the head of the hammer is very rough in places and my copy has a slop of paint in the middle of the flat surface. We’ve also got a couple of marks from the moulding process. Well, at least the bootleggers had the foresight to face these towards the back.

Edge:

This time we have a defect on the official – part of the paint has been scraped off of the hammer, probably in transit. The paint is a lot smoother though than the bootleg, which has a bunch of knobbly marks from manufacture.

Base

Top:

The official has the Q Posket logo and the bootleg has… nothing! The edging on the bootleg is much deeper on the bootleg, which is a bit of a trend reversal for moulding on bootleg figures. Can’t say it’s an improvement though. The bootleg base is also shinier than its official counterpart.
The bootleg base also has a very strange feature – a second hole. I have no idea why this is here, and it isn’t used for this figure, even in bootlegger’s photos of it. I do wonder if this is a previously bootlegged base that just happened to work for this figure or if it was an unintentional mistake when “designing” the base for production. If you’re wondering if the hammer can stand in the hole – the answer is no. Hole is far too big and top-heavy for that to work. Maybe if you stuffed some tack in it?
Both stands have pegs for her feet – both figures work fine on their respective bases.

Bottom:

The official has a copyright mark, but interestingly only for Banpresto and not DC on this one.
Here you can clearly see the one peg hole on the official and the two on the bootleg. The bootleg also has a number “2” marking. I know Bandai has used numeral markings like this on trading figures to ensure parts stay grouped properly (all parts of a trading figure may have small numbers on them to denote what they belong to). This makes me wonder if this is a bootleg of an older Q Posket base, but these two were my first Q Poskets so I don’t have any of the older ones to compare.

These two bases would be hard to mix up. No Q Posket? Not a Q Posket.

Figure spin-around

First thing to note – no, your eyes don’t deceive you – the bootleg has indeed been scaled down. This is why the hammer is smaller than the official – so it would fit this scaled down version of Harley. After the Catwoman Q Posket, it was a surprise to find this one was scaled down, especially for the tiny bit more it cost.
Also looks like the bootleggers only had some version of the figure to work off of – for the figure’s support they’ve gone for an inverted-L shaped post that pegs into the back of the figure, whilst Banpresto has gone for supporting her by the head. For me, the different support options have pros and cons – the hair stand type means you don’t have a hole in the figure, but the figure can be more unstable (though this is mostly alleviated by the foot pegs). The L-shaped stands tend to be better for stability and you can see more of the figure from the back, but you do have a hole in the figure to make the stand work.

Figure close-ups

Before I could photograph the figures I had to repair the bootleg:

She wasn’t packaged very well from the seller – not uncommon for figures from China – so her hair snapped in transit. A tiny bit of superglue and time to dry, and she’s ready to go.

Face:

Bootleg Harley’s been a bit heavy on the rouge, and has quite orange cheeks. She also has the appearance of being sweaty, thanks to the shiny plastic. The bootleg has fuller lips – I think the thinner lips suit her more, but they aren’t bad in of themselves.
The colours in the official’s eyes make the highlights more subtle than the highly contrasting lines in the bootleg’s iris. We’ve also got some actual shine on the official’s eyes that the bootleg lacks.
Most of the moulding is pretty much identical on the bootleg, but some has been lost on the strands of blue hair from her ponytail.
Overall, the paint on the bootleg’s face has actually been applied well, though giving her cheeks less highlight would improve it. If you’re familiar with these figures, the lack of shiny eyes would give away pretty quickly you’re looking at a bootleg.

Back of her head:

Again, the bootleg has a shinier finish back here. Neither figure has a perfect hairline back here, and both leak some of the hair colour over to the other half. The official has the blue extending slightly into the red, and the bootleg is mostly the opposite.

Neck:

Didn’t quite get the bootleg in focus here, sorry!
Honestly, I think both collars here could use some work, though at least for the official her neck hasn’t turned into full collar. The official I find a bit rough-looking and lumpy. The bootleg avoids that, but the finish makes it a bit like she’s wearing a jelly mould or something.
We can also see where the bootleggers haven’t tidied up the seam down here. Also the neck has a pointless recess for some reason, not sure what that’s about.

Chest:

OK, let’s start with the good – I like the ring on the official’s collar. The bootleg’s isn’t as nice but does the job.
Now onto the bodice – my official has a bunch of stray blue paint, and honestly, the painting feels rushed here. From a distance it doesn’t look too bad, but that stray red paint above the laces should really not be there. The difference in the body colour and the “skin” on the bodice looks OK at a distance, but if you’re holding the figure it does take on an odd appearance as it isn’t an exact match.
So let’s take a bit that looks a bit “eh”, and bootleg it… The black paint is a bit more of a mess, and that stupid red line is still there. The blue and red badly overlap on her right hand side, and the blue isn’t staying within the lines on her left. They’ve also used a white instead of an off-white making the bodice even more strange when looked at closely.

Legs:

Just above the bootleg’s belt we start off with a dot of stray red paint.
The official’s paint on the belt is a neater job that the bootleg, but the bootleg isn’t too far off. Both have minor paint flaws on the hot pants, and personally I prefer the way the bootleg’s holster straps were painted.
The tops of her stockings are rougher on the bootleg and we have stray red paint down the front the bootleg’s blue stocking. The ankle bands are much more neatly painted on the official, but we have paint spillage on both of the bootleg’s and official’s right foot.
The moulding is pretty bad on the sole of the bootleg’s right shoe – looks a bit like her sole’s falling apart.

Feet:

The official wins hands down here – the paint is much neater and thicker on the official, keeping the contrast between the colours.

Top of the cape:

My official one has a bit of stray blue paint – not so great. The shade of red is better on the official imo, but there really isn’t a lot in it. The bootleg’s cape isn’t free of flaws either – and there’s a small “nibble” on the edge of the cape.

Underside of the cape:

Yep, both blue down here. We can see the edge of the bootleg cape is a bit rough and the bottom is a bit shinier. Again, nothing major.

Conclusion

Looking at just the figures, they would be a bit hard to tell apart without them next to each other. However, if you’re familiar with the official figure, then the lack of shiny eyes would be a clue, along with the slightly shiny face.
With the base, it acts as a dead giveaway – the bootleg lacks the “Q Posket” branding, and has an extra hole for no apparent reason. Also the figure has a different stand type, so that would be an easy difference to pick up on.
Could this bootleg be recommended to someone who buys bootlegs? I’d say yes, as she’d still look cute on a shelf. She currently goes for ¥1,200 on Mandarake, which isn’t super-expensive, but the bootleg is stupidly cheap. Does come with a free plastic-y scent though which the official doesn’t have.
If you’re wondering why there was no headswap in this blog – that’s because I can’t. The head pegs don’t work either way around, so I’m afraid there’s no silly headswap pics. Would’ve looked funny with the different scales, oh well.

oday’s blog features Q Posket Catwoman. As this is a small figure without any box or accessories, there will be a “bonus” blog next week featuring another Q Posket bootleg I ordered at the same time.

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) – prize figures do not have an MSRP
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥2,393 (£13.00)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $3.77 (£2.93)

The official I bought unopened from Mandarake.

I ordered this bootleg as I was curious what I would get for the princely sum of £3. These small figures are usually sold without boxes in multilistings, so I decided to grab two and see how they turned out.

Base

Top:

The bases from the top are very similar, with the holes and the logos in the same place. The writing is thicker on the bootleg, and came pre-dusty. The “Q” looks copied, then for the “posket” the bootleggers have seemingly picked a font they thought was similar enough. It isn’t very similar though – the characters are thicker and lack serifs (the sticky-out bits at the ends of letters).
The leaf pattern around the edges matches with the official, which is a mild surprise given the half-arsed font match on the top of the base.

Bottom:

As is typical, the official has copyright markings and the bootleg has nothing. The construction also slightly differs between the two – the peg holders on the official are one solid piece with the base but on the bootleg we have a part inserted to form the bottom of the pegholders.

Overall, the bases are very similar. There are two tells here – no copyright on the base, and the incorrect font on the top of the base. So if you see these displayed at a con unboxed, the easiest trick of inverting it to look for copyright notices holds strong (n.b. if there is no copyright for a Q Posket on the bottom, this is a surefire tell of a bootleg, however the inverse doesn’t 100% prove it is official, as in some cases bootleggers will do their best to duplicate everything).

Figure spin-around

Not too dissimilar with each other. The main things that stick out for me is the more transparent goggles on the bootleg and much more skin visible as you rotate the figure. We’ve also got variations in the finishes, where the bootleg is duller in some spots but shinier in others.
Oh, and the zipper. For some reason on my official, this now has a tendency to point straight out. It is flexible though, so it can be pushed down more into the intended position.

Figure close-ups

Face:

The masked part of the bootleg’s head is less shiny than the official, which can be seen via the window reflected on her forehead.
Going to skip the goggle lenses for a sec – on the bottom of her goggles is a bit of silver plastic sticking out… resisting urge to go snip it. The silvery parts of her goggles are quite rough-edged when looked at up close. The official holds up well, even getting this up close and personal with it.
OK, back to those lenses. The tint is much better on the official and looks more in line with how Catwoman should be. The yellow on the bootleg isn’t strong enough and doesn’t give off the luminous yellow/orange vibe that Catwoman’s goggles should have.
Comparing the eyes on the figures, her left eye is markedly different and the iris & pupil are up much higher on the bootleg than the official’s. The lower parts of her eye are also off on their own journey, leaving some skin in her eye area and the lashes in the incorrect position. When not looked at up close, the defects in the eyes aren’t too distracting though.
Underneath her left eye, we also have some paint damage which is definitely visible at a distance and looks quite offputting. Catwoman isn’t usually in the habit of having her face marred, so it looks quite odd.
The lipstick is pretty solid for a bootleg, though we do have some stray lippy going just above her lips. Official Catwoman has gone for a matte lipstick, whilst the bootleg has gone for a glossy look.

Neck & chest area:

OK, I think the obvious place to start here is… what’s happened with her chest?! The bootleg has been very much incorrectly assembled, and the chest area has been placed kind of on top of the jacket instead of recessed into it. To complete the mutant look, we have some yellowy skin paint slopped thickly over it. From the front, it’s harder to spot the error, but some angles look hilariously bad as it sticks over her collar.
Her collar has curled over more on the bootleg, and her zipper is in a flat, fixed position. The zipper pull on the bootleg can’t be moved without breaking it.
The zipper itself has lost a chunk of the moulding detail on the bootleg and doesn’t look as nice as the official, however the paint is correctly placed on both the official and bootleg.
Lastly, we have some glue slop on her jacket over her boobs, probably from attempting to glue the chest part in completely the wrong place.

Butt:

Here we have more matte on the official and shiny on the bootleg. The official isn’t free of flaws, and we see some hairline markings in the plastic. However, the bootleg suffers much worse in this regard and has what looks like quite a scratched-up posterior when looked at up close. What is more visible to the naked eye though is the scratched paint that’s missing from her right buttcheek. That doesn’t look so good.
I think bootleg Catwoman got her catsuit from AliExpress, whilst the official Catwoman got hers from a much more quality store.

Feet:

Pretty similar here, and the paint on her buckles is neat on both the bootleg and the official. The official we do have a little bit of flesh colour poking out – let’s take a closer look at that.

Pegs:

Honestly, this is one part where the bootleg I think is slightly better – having the black pegs means that the flesh colour can’t stick out by mistake. On the official, it’s supposed to let you know when you’ve shoved the pegs in fully, but it’s a bit awkward (at least on mine) which leaves a bit of a line visible on my official. It’s not a huge deal to me though.

OK, let’s pop her head off:

This figure starts of as three separate parts – head, body and base, which is typical for Q Poskets so her head is removable.
The bootleg’s collar has been painted not very well at all – the black paint isn’t dedicated to be either on the outward facing side or all the way over the top, as per the official. We’re missing some of the black paint on the bottom of the collar on the bootleg too, which ruins the look of the collar. Whoever was doing silver paint did a good job, though. Credit to silver paint guy.
For the official, the skin parts are just the colour of the plastic, the bootleg it’s all painted, which probably wasn’t the best idea but possibly cheaper than getting the right colour of plastic.
Overall, the paint on the bootleg here does nothing to alleviate the incorrect assembly.

Bottom of the head:

Bootleggers missed this copyright marking. Here there isn’t much difference between the two – some extra black paint slop on the bootleg. The band is a lighter silver on the bootleg, but this isn’t too noticeable unless you have both of them together.

Whilst we have them headless, let’s do a headswap:

Yep, you can do this. Not entirely sure why you’d want to though, as the face and body of the bootleg are pretty flawed.
Also this is similar how I had the official displayed before I got the bootleg… initially I thought my official base was defective, but then I realised she’s supposed to be looking sideways when both sets of peg holes on the bases turned out to be the same, d’oh! So I have the bootleg to thank for that!

Conclusion

All in all, I’d say you get your £3’s worth out of the bootleg. It’s definitely flawed but… £3. That’s less than 4 American bucks. You can currently get the official version of this figure much cheaper than I bought it (is ¥600 at time of writing on Mandarake), so I’d recommend just buying the official currently for anyone vaguely interested in it.
Telling them apart is pretty easy, thanks to the manufacturing mistake with the chest, and the more transparent goggles. And if you’re still not sure, turning the figure over will reveal a lack of copyright on the base of the bootleg. So a pretty easy one to avoid if seen in the wild.