On my hunt for bootlegs to compare, I found this figure had not just one but two different bootlegs so I had to get both to see what they’re like.

The first bootleg is your “standard” bootleg and is an attempted copy of the figure. The second is a “soft version” featuring a squidgy body. So let’s see if the soft version has anything extra to offer than the original or if its bootlegginess outweighs its extra feature.

For the bootlegs, the soft version was slightly more expensive than the hard one, but due to ordering the hard one boxed and the soft one unboxed the cost was about the same for both. Didn’t really need two bootleg boxes that were likely to be the same.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥15,800
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥15,220 (£112.52)
Price I paid for the bootlegs (inc shipping): £15.64/each

The official I preordered from Nippon Yasan. Before they went to being totally useless.

Box

Front:

The official has a flap, hiding the figure from public view whilst the bootleg does not want to hide its secrets. The bootleg box’s front is a copy of this front flap with the logos removed. And yes, both say “Hermaphroditus”, with a u. Due to being a copy, we can still see the bottom of the figure outline underneath the “illustrated by” text which looks odd underneath the box window.
The bootleg also has a weird green border on the edges of the box – not exactly an attractive addition, but I guess that prevents any print alignment issues being a problem.
The window of the bootleg’s box has been made to compliment the front design, and they’ve actually done a decent job on this to not make it look obviously bootleggy.

Front flap open:

Here, the official box shines – we have the artwork the figure was based upon on the inside of the flap and a very large window showcasing the figure. Originally there was some foam pieces covering the figure’s chest and crotch, but I don’t have those any more.
We notice the official doesn’t start off with her ring of lilies on her head, and the figure itself is in a different orientation in the box.
We also have a different showcasing of accessories – the official just has the penis part up front, albeit hidden in modesty packaging. The bootleg chooses to showcase the penis-hiding cloth, and the other bits are jammed in a hole to the left of the viewing window.

Sides:

The bootleg is a copy of the official here – again, with the logos edited out and a olive-y green border added and a small helping of poorer print quality. I’d say this bootleg box is better than most of the others I’ve looked at – there’s less noise in the detailed sections and the contrast between colours has mostly been preserved, even if the colours aren’t quite the same.
If it wasn’t for the horrible green border, the box sides would be a near-match.
Side-by-side, we can see the bootleg box is fractionally shorter.

Back:

Mmm, more gross border. And logo removal.
Here the boxes differ quite a bit – the background image has weirdly been stretched all the way to the bottom of the box, allowing less viewing of the figure images on the bootleg.
Inside of the information box, the logos have been replaced with some age warnings, as apparently the one above the barcode was not enough. The text above the barcode has been changed, as apparently we can’t acknowledge Ban! on the back of the box too.
On the subject of the barcode, we have a different one – which apparently is for a bromide set related to this franchise. Very strange! Not sure if it is coincidence or if they just happened to have that product to hand when deciding a barcode.
Also missing from the box is the authenticity sticker – no surprises there.

Top:

Here we can see the bootleg box is much bigger than the official but we do have the same overall design. The official has the company logos, plus some of a brown border. The bootleg box sort of has this, but it has been thinned down to match their additional “hide the defects” border.

Bottom:

Both of these boxes have the same flap arrangement, albeit the bootleg one trying to take itself apart due to it being shipped flat. I prefer the official’s brown colouring to the green of the bootleg.

Box inner:


The official box has a separate inner that can be taken out and has a nice, shiny finish to it.
The bootleggers have decided to save themselves cardboard and have printed on the inside of the box. We can also see the rushed glue job on the box windows.

Blister:

Here we can see the size difference in the blisters – the official is taller and thinner and the bootleg’s is shorter and fatter. The accessories included with the bootleg are all in this same blister, mostly jumbled together.
The official also has this accessory tray:

This tray houses the accessories in the shapes they’re needed, as well as accessories the bootlegs don’t have. More on that later.

Overall, the boxes are easy to tell apart, if you know what the official looks like. The bootleg’s box is actually a decent rework of the box, so I wouldn’t say it would be immediately obvious to someone not familiar with this figure, however the image on the back is kind of a big clue if you see the cut off border. If you’re aware of bootlegs, the lack of company logos is a dead giveaway though.

“Box”

For the bootleg without the box, this is how she came:

Yeah, not exactly an attractive display.

If we open up the containing bag, we get these bags:

Well, at least the parts aren’t going to be rubbing up against each other too much.

Bagged the way she is, maybe she’d pass for a lewd prize figure?

Accessories

Accessories… this figure has a selection of them! One of the design features of this figure is you have a variety of ways to display her, with varying levels of lewd.
The official gives you an instruction sheet to help you put the bits together:

Whilst I think you could get by without the instructions, it does help with showing you how to do the vines and noting that the penis is magnetic. This instruction sheet shows some of the things the bootlegs don’t have, so wouldn’t make sense for them to include it anyway.

Vines:

Due to the way the official ones are packed, these are pretty much in the shape you need them in. No such luck with the bootleg ones – prepare for a fight to try and get these into place should you subject yourself to the bootleg.
The soft bootleg’s vines are especially awful – these are more like fish tank decorations than figure accessories. The colouring and the plastic texture is all wrong.

Tip of the crotch vine:

Only the official has a magnet on this vine piece, rendering the other two useless. This vine is supposed to be usable to cover her crotch if you don’t have the penis attached – both of the bootlegs fail at this.

Hard vine tip:

Again, lacks a magnet, but this one has the hole for one. This vine is less problematic without a magnet, but still means there will be difficulties when trying to get the bootlegs to look good with the vines.

Robe front:

The robe parts of these figures are three very different colours. The official has a slight amount of translucency, and a brown tint to it. The hard bootleg is pretty much a solid colour and very white. The soft bootleg has decided to go with no colour whatsoever and is fairly see-through. All three attach with a ball at the top, but with varying degrees of how well that happens.
Due to the clearness of the soft bootleg’s robe, we can see the magnet inside it from the front.

Robe back:

Looking closely, we can see some degradation in the sculpt between the robes – the hard one is slightly off, and the soft one a bit more.

Robe bottom:

The official and hard version features two plugged holes, and the soft version features one unplugged hole – there is a reason this one is different, which we will see later.

Penis ‘robe’:

This part can be used to cover the penis if you want her to have one, but not have it fully on show. These parts match the colour of their robe counterparts, though the hard one comes with a bit of free dirt. Due to the plastic used and the poor packaging of the bootlegs, the bootleg ones are somewhat bent. This could be remedied by heating, bending and cooling the part to set it into place… but we ain’t got time for that.
The sculpt of this part is fairly similar for all three. The hard one I think is a bit thicker at the edges than the official.

Penis robe top:

Reminds me of the fin of the orca in “Free Willy” (willy, heh). As we can see, the bootleg ones are of varying degrees of bent. The hard version has a very prominent seam line across the top, and the soft one isn’t quite as bad.

Penis robe bottom:

Due to the colouring, the official is a little hard to capture. The hard one has no such issues, and you can see the chunky thickness of the edges. The soft one seems to have been moulded badly and the folds are filled with plastic.

Penis robe magnet:

Each one uses a different shaped magnet – the official’s is oblong, the hard more square and the soft one has decided to be completely different and gone for a round one.

Sheathed penises:

Yep, these fit, so we should be able to demo these… The hard bootleg gives the ultimate privacy and nothing is visible through its white plastic. However, the soft version offers no such privacy and is very visible through the “fabric”. So I guess the choices for the soft ver is lewd or, erm, still kinda lewd.

OK, with that preview, let’s get onto the accessory you’ve all been waiting for! OK, OK, maybe not all… but here it is anyway!

Side of penis:

Three very different colourations on these too. The official’s head colouring is much more blended into the penis than the hard one, and we have a vein detail not present on the others – it is pretty subtle, but it is there on the shaft.
The end of the hard bootleg’s penis is a bit of an odd, peachy colour and seemingly a bit smaller. The skin colour is OK, but not a match for the official.
And then there’s the soft bootleg version… which looks like the blood has left it, barring a bit at the bottom. Erm, she’s not supposed to be dead! I think this penis might be staying erect from rigor mortis rather than arousal. It’s not great to look at, and the colouring is all wrong.
All three have an odd-looking divot in the ball facing the camera – this part is where the ball touches the leg, so doesn’t show when on display.

Top of penis:

The official looks decent, the bootlegs… not so much. The odd colourations are even more obvious from this angle, in my opinion. The soft ver also comes with some bonus dirt.

Bottom of penis:

Here we can see the bumpy bit where the urethra runs through, which is present on all three. The official we have some shading on the balls, which is a nice touch the others don’t have.
The hard version has a seamline through the balls – not the best look, but not going to be that visible when she’s on display.
The soft version… reminds me of a tampon. From the poor colouring and the shape, it just keeps reminding me of a tampon. Not the best look for a penis!

Lastly, here are two accessories exclusive to the official:

The lily circlet is an accessory on the official, and attached on the bootlegs. The official also comes with two different hairpieces – the one attached by default covers up her nipples, and this one allows the nipples to be seen. The bootlegs only have the default nipple-covering option that is attached to them and not supposed to be removable.

The accessories for the bootlegs are easily inferior to the official ones, even before trying them out. The hard bootleg’s robe parts are passable in colour, but the soft bootleg’s just look silly. The vines on the bootleg versions are not very good, and liable to cause issues when assembling.

Base

Top:

The three bases also are very differently coloured – the official’s has a brown wash mostly focused on the recessed parts, and then a dark-coloured wash focusing on the edges of the raised parts. We also have a pair of metal pegs.
The hard bootleg’s base is a paler colour, with some dark wash in the middle section. Interesting take on the original, and I think works OK. We have the same peg arrangement here, but the pegs are plastic.
The soft one is a completely different colour. Not sure how they chose this brown, but it doesn’t look very good. We have two plastic foot pegs in the same locations as the others, but we also have a third very chunky, ugly-looking peg towards the back.

Bottom:

Two white bases, one brown.
For the official and hard bootleg, we have two protrusions – these should contain magnets to help hold her robe in place. The soft one does not have this – instead we get the ugly peg that goes into her robe.
Didn’t actually test if the magnets are present in the hard bootleg base or robe – became sort of a moot point when assembling these.
Here’s the soft bootleg’s foot showing the hole arrangement that corresponds with its pegs:

The bases are easy to tell apart, especially the brown monstrosity for the soft version. Official base is easily better than the other two.

Figure spin-around

Now for the big reveal! How do they look like, standing together?

Leaning Tower of Drunk. Some people had issues with their official Hermaphroditos not standing up correctly, however I didn’t have that issue with mine.
However, the bootlegs both definitely had standing issues with the hard ver being the worst. She really won’t stand up straight without some serious work in trying to get her legs into a somewhat sensible position. The soft ver stance is OK from some angles, but from the side we can see she can lean badly. For this one, I won’t be surprised if the ability to stand varies drastically from bootleg to bootleg.

Figure close-ups

Time to look at these interesting specimens close up. Yes, it was an absolute pain to do this, and yes the bootlegs kept falling over.

Face:

Sensual, confused, and plastered… Showed this photo to my husband and he thinks the soft version is going to murder him. Better not tell him that she’s in the Box of Bootleg, right next to where he exercises.
Neither of the bootleg faces look good in my opinion – they don’t capture the look the official was going for and just look bizarre.
The official’s fringe has been painted thickly so that the hair isn’t translucent there, the bootlegs have decided to go for thinner paint, so we can see through to their foreheads.
The gradients on the hair tips is also different – the official goes to a turquoise-y colour, hard to a yellow-green and the soft ver forgoes green hues entirely and is blue-purple-blue.
In terms of the eye colours, the hard version is pretty close, but the soft version is completely off and has very red eyes, which is probably not helping the potentially murdery vibes.
A lot of the poor expression comes down to the lips – the official’s mouth is quite small and neatly painted. The middle one only seems to have a bottom lip painted and her mouth slightly agape. Soft version has a thick line of lipstick all the way around, in a darker colour, which coupled with the wider mouth opening completely ruins her look as a figure.

Lilies:

The official ones are sculpted and painted well – we have the detail on the leaves, and the stems look really good.
Now to the hard bootleg… we’ve lost the leaf detail, and gained some raggedy edges. The stems are not great, but you can see what they’re supposed to be. We have some shading in a similar colour to the official, but not as well placed.
And the soft version, oh boy. I think she’s killed her lilies. The colour on the shading is off, so it looks like they’re spattered with dirt or blood or something. The stems have lost nearly all of their definition as well as the leaves. Not a great final product.

Top of her head:

All of them have a visible seam across the middle, though the official’s is there for a reason – as her front hairpiece can be switched.
Looking at the seam where one of the back hair strands joins, the official’s is a lot more smoothed out than the other two. We can also see the quality of the vine connecting the lilies is pretty poor on the bootlegs, especially when compared to the official.

Left hair tips:

This part differs quite significantly between all three – the official’s loops around her leg and curves quite a bit downwards.
The hard version is very flat and doesn’t curve down much at all. The shading has some similarities with the official, but is more vibrant and quicker to change shades.
The soft version is the least similar – it takes a different curving route, and doesn’t have the green-yellow at the tips. We also have one strand of the bunch pointing upwards.
Both of the bootlegs have noticeable seam marks – the hard version has a seam running along the hair strand near the camera, whilst the soft version has a horizontal seam towards the tips.

Back of her hair:

The official and hard versions don’t look too dissimilar, though we can definitely tell some detail has been lost in the hair strands. We have a nicer finish on the official, but the colours are pretty similar.
Aaand soft version is doing its own thing again – the upper blue isn’t quite the same, he lighter parts are quite different and we don’t have the pearly finish.

Midriff:

The body colours is where these differ the most – the official is much more tan than the other two, and the soft version is the palest of the three. We have slightly more paint detail on the official (shading underneath her chest), but all three feature some paint highlighting her curves. The soft version’s paint makes it look more like she’s sore than shaded though. Her skin also reflects the light strangely, due to the rubbery material used for her body.
Looking at the hard version’s crotch, we can see a seamline. Is she wearing a skin-coloured swimsuit…?
With the hair, we have one strand that comes in front of her body, the bootlegs both have this bit go behind.

Looking closely at the soft bootleg’s stomach:

Lots of dirt on the rubbery material. Could likely clean this off, but shows how well this material can hold onto dirt. Pretty disgusting to get this figure out of the packet and it already looks like this.

Crotch:

The official’s has some quite accurate sculpting… the bootlegs, not so much.
I did try to get a picture of the hard version’s crotch, but due to her legs it wasn’t very possible, but it is sort of like the soft one, only with a little bit more definition.
On the soft version, we have her seamline just above her labia, making her body look quite strange.

Legs:

Aka the really hard bit to get right.
This photo also shows why the crotch photo was difficult for the hard version – her legs are much closer together, whilst the soft version’s has more of a gap.
The hard version’s leg vine wrap doesn’t press into the skin like the others, and is connected incorrectly, so her leg is halfway up in the air. With the imbalance, she also leans to her left, increasing the angle she stands at.
With the soft version, we don’t have much in the way of matte finish, making her look shinier than the other two. We also have two leg vines as this is where the squidgy rubber-coated torso connects to the hard plastic of her lower legs. This join is really rather noticeable in person as the texture and and the colours don’t match.

Feet:

Apologies for the poor focus on the official’s feet. So you’ll just have to trust me when I say her toenails are neatly painted in a subtle nail polish colour – similar to the hard bootleg’s right foot. We’ve also some skin shading that emphasises her toes.
Moving to the hard bootleg, we have some decently sculpted feet too, but she’s used different nail polish on each foot. Kind of strange. The paint is neat enough it looks fine from a short distance.
Soft version doesn’t have any nail polish, leaving her with weird-looking nails. The feet have also been poorly cast, leaving them looking kind of blocky and slightly webbed.

Left arm:

Here we have another vine hiding the arm join. The official’s looks nice, the hard version OK but has gotten a bit loose, and the soft version… last place again. Just looks like some kind of gelatinous thing she’s wrapped around her arm. Also the soft version’s arm skin tone doesn’t match her body in the slightest.

Closer look at the soft version’s arm:

Does NOT match. There’s something really wrong with soft version.
The body wasn’t designed to join at the shoulder, so the wreath isn’t doing a lot to hide that. The hand hasn’t been sanded down, leaving seam lines aplenty.
With her hand on her chest, it makes it very clear that the arm is a lot more yellow-toned than the main part of her body.

Bum:

In shape, the official and hard versions look very similar, but the hard version misses out on some shading to emphasise the shapes. Soft version ends up looking different largely due to the the material used, and looks kind of lumpy to me, not helped by the shadow caused by the hair in this photo (the other two currently don’t have their hair attached – more on that later). Some of the depth of the sculpt has been lost – if we look at her butt crack, it doesn’t go as deep, and the fold between her bum and her leg isn’t as great.
Looking at the apples, the official’s is easily the shiniest of the three, and we have the more subtle paint shading on it.
Looking at the hands, the official’s nail polish matches with her feet, the hard ver has gone with the darker tone and the soft has gone with none. Again. And the soft version’s arm is yellow and nonmatching with her body again.

Close-ups of the apple:

For the official, I think some concessions were made when sculpting the hand, making it look a bit deformed to me. The hard bootleg carries on this trait, but her hand is pointed outwards more for some reason. The soft bootleg turns the mutant hand up to 11, and just looks awful from the side.
Looking at the tops of the apple, the official has a much daintier stem, and I love the golden finish of the apple, with the red shading at the top. The hard bootleg has made a passable attempt, but that stem does not look like an apple stem. We’ve also got some seam line action.
The soft version has gone for a fully golden apple, which might be a good choice considering how bad the rest of it is. Still, we’ve got bad seamlines and a stem that doesn’t look like an apple stem. Hey, waitamin, is this actually a bomb…?

Now let’s remove the heads, and get some closeups of bits obscured by the hair.
Chest:

Turns out the soft bootleg’s head doesn’t actually come off, so just shoved her hair out the way a bit.
The official’s nipples have a distinct sculpted shape, and we have a shiny finish to draw attention to the nipple.
The bootleg nipples have lost the shape of the official’s, but look fine to me. I think the shape of the soft version is slightly different, which hasn’t helped with her hand, which doesn’t clasp her boob as it should.
Personally, shiny nipples don’t add anything for me (checked mine, not shiny), so I don’t mind the hard version’s nipples. Soft version a little weird-looking to me though.

Right shoulder:

The official has a wreath part to hide the join here, whilst the bootlegs have… nothing. The official arm comes apart, then this vine piece comes out so that you can use the longer vine piece. For the bootlegs, the arm parts are glued together so they don’t come apart. The soft version has a particularly rough join, not helped by the two material types.

Left hand:

The official fingernails are the nice pearly pink colour as the rest of her nails, with her hand pressing lightly into her breast. The hard version is pretty similar – her fingernail polish isn’t quite as neat and is slightly darker. She has some excess bits of plastic though, that could do with cleaning up. And the soft version is still the pallid blob we saw before floating above her breast. Instead of nail polish, we’ve got some dirt?

OK, time to play with the vines. For the vines, they peg under the foot, like so:

Now to wrap them around her arm…

The official is pretty easy to get into place, with the magnet holding it. The hard bootleg was an absolute nightmare that wouldn’t stay where it was put, and wanted to keep the shape it had from being folded in the box. The soft version’s vine was a bit easier in that regard, but doesn’t hold an attractive “pose”. Just sort of… hangs about.
Assembly for the bootlegs was also harder due to the arms being glued.

Lower part of vine:

Again, the official’s vine holds more shape than the bootlegs. With the official vine, it was a bit of a pain to get in place, needing heating to get the vine peg fully into place.
The bootlegs end up the best of a bad job, and sort of go where they go and everything isn’t shaped quite right so she stands properly on top of the vine. The tolerances are pretty tight on the official, which leaves the bootlegs not working well.

Crotch vine:

As predicted, the bootlegs were an absolute fail – without the magnet the bootleg vines won’t stay in place, and you’d have to provide your own adhesive/magnet.
All the points to the bootleg for this vine. The others are just decorative items.

Fastening the robe:

The official fastens up well, and has a fabric-y feel to it. The hard bootleg one also fastens, but not quite as tightly. However, the paint is a bit thick, giving it a rough appearance. The soft bootleg’s robe is a fail. It doesn’t fasten tightly, and therefore has a habit of becoming undone. Also doesn’t look like anything with its strange clear plastic.

Robe back:

I like the translucent nature of the official’s robe so you can see she’s in there.
The hard bootleg’s also has the thick white paint on the back, and a lack of tidying of the plastic at the bottom of it. I think a white sheet could’ve worked, if it was done better than this one.
The soft bootleg I think is stepping out of a gelatinous blob. It really doesn’t look good. We can also see the extra base peg that helps hold it in place straight through it. Looking at the top of it, the flopping down part is bent upwards.

Penis time!

The official’s penis easily sticks to her body, thanks to the magnets. The skin tones match, so as long as you’re not looking at where they connect, it looks like part of her body.
The hard version bootleg’s one would NOT stick. Just kept falling off. Felt like there was a bit of attraction there, but not enough to hold it. So in the robe it fell.
The soft version’s penis at least stays up, but doesn’t look like it belongs. How do you get a penis that simultaneously erect but looking like it has no blood in it? Guessing she’s using an implant?

Underside:

The official fits nicer than the soft version. Also the soft version needs to pay more attention to her foreskin when cleaning.

Let’s give covering the penis a go:

Not sure I’ve got the official fully set up right here, but the sheath part matches the rest of the robe well.
The hard bootleg, we can sort of use the robe part to almost get the penis somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of her crotch. The robe parts don’t match very well at all.
The soft version isn’t strong enough to hold the penis and the robe part together, and the whole thing dropped off and nestled itself in her robe. The robe part does match the robe, not that any of it looks good enough for it to matter.

Side view:

Yeah, only the official one looks good. The other two don’t attach right, and just look awful. The bootleg deprives you of penis. So that’s a big fail in my book.

Official alternate hair part:

I do like this hair piece, so this is a large negative to the bootlegs that don’t even include it. If you like to see the nipples on your figures, the official is the way to go.

Conclusion

Overall, there’s no contest with which is the better figure – the official! With more parts, better construction, better painting and just you know… generally better it is the easy winner. I don’t think either bootleg could act as a substitute for the official as there are too many flaws and issues, especially with standing up straight.
Neither can act as easy donor parts figures as the colours and quality of all the parts differs too much. Some of the parts might act as workable replacements, if you’re willing to put some time and effort in.
Telling the figures apart is easy – especially with what they did accessory-wise. If her wreath is glued to her head, it isn’t the official. If her face looks scary… not the official. If the vines look like trash. Yep. Not the official.
Out of the two, I’d say the hard version is nicer overall than the soft version. Whilst you can squidge the body due to the rubbery material, it has a lot more flaws and colouring issues that very much ruin her appearance. Feels like all the budget went into making her rubbery and everything else was skimped out on. Definitely wouldn’t recommend.

Bonus

After I completed the photos for this review, I decided to investigate the soft bootleg’s head, as parts of it were relatively loose and her head didn’t detach from her neck. The wreath and hair were glued, but not very well.
Turns out her face comes off:

Scary. Turns out the inside of her mouth is an orange blob behind the face. The orange lump is well-attached to the rest of it, so this is as far as I got.
If you want to see her chest not obscured by the hair:

Well, there she is. Not sure what’s scarier – her original face or this orange blank-face.