The normal colour versions of the school uniform Q Poskets fairly quickly got bootlegs, so I decided to order a set to compare them to my official ones.
This article will look at the girls – Rei Ayanami and Asuka Langley. Shinji and Kaworu will be covered in a later article.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): n/a
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥2,030 each (£14.50 each)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $5.60 each (£3.95 each)

The officials I bought from Mandarake (unopened).

Bag

These bootlegs didn’t have the option of a box, and arrived in sealed bags:

The officials come in very similar bags – only the bags are in a box!

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: Evangelion Q Poskets – The Girls (Bandai)” →

For the Asuka Langley and Rei Ayanami Parform figures there were two different bootlegs – a double-set on one stand and fully-articulated clones. This article will be covering the double-set which represents a massive saving on the officials, but is it really worth it?

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥5,980 each
Price I paid for the officials (inc shipping):

• Official Rei: ¥7,242 (£51.55)
• Official Asuka: ¥8,079 (£57.51)
• Total: ¥15,311 (£109.06)

Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $11.98 (£9.75)

For the officials, Rei I bought from Ninoma and Asuka from Nippon Yasan.

Box

As this double-set came with one box for the two figures, the pictures here will be a bit different than normal.

Front:

For the bootleg, we have various aspects of the Parform boxes copied over from the official boxes put onto a space-themed blue background design. Probably stolen from somewhere, but isn’t an image I’m familiar with. Feel free to comment if it is familiar to you!
In the top-left of the bootleg box we have Phat’s description of the Parform series in good ol’ “decorative English”. Top-right we have the Evangelion logo. Underneath the box window we have the character’s names (Souryuu Asuka Langley and Ayanami Rei respectively) and the sculptor credit… for the original figures. And, amusingly, copyright Khara. Not sure if the original sculptor would want credit for this bootleg, but we’ll get into that later.
From the window in the box, we can see that we just get the figures and Asuka’s doll unlike the original Parfoms where we have extra hands and faces.

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: “Parfom” Asuka Langley & Rei Ayanami (Phat)” →

Last and potentially least, we’re now up to the last noodle stopper of this set – Yui from Sword Art Online. And one thing that didn’t pass my notice is that Kirito even gets the shaft when it comes to bootlegs – there isn’t a bootleg of his noodle stopper.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): n/a
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥2,114 (£15.01)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £3.33

The official I pre-ordered from AmiAmi.

Accessory

Yui comes with one pair of parts to attach – her wings:

The official ones have a blueish hue to them, and the bootleg’s are more of a plainer colour. Probably slightly less clarity on the bootleg ones, but nothing hugely significant.
The pegs on the bootleg ones has some excess plastic, affecting the fit.

Figure spin-around

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: FuRyu Yui Noodle Stopper” →

This is a bootleg I almost bought a few years ago when trying to find this figure for a reasonable price. In the end, I found it for a price I was willing to pay, and forgot about the bootleg.
So did I buy the right thing? How disappointed would I have been if I did buy the bootleg?

Is she Death by Embracing or Death by Embarrassment?

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥10,286
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥10,430 (£73.11)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $30.88 (£24.93)

The official I bought secondhand via Solaris Japan.

This blog is a long one – if you want to skip sections, the sections are as follows:

• Box
• Blister
• Base
• Kuroyukihime (3 parts)
• Black Lotus
• Black Lotus & Kuroyukihime (2 parts)
• Conclusion

Box

Front:

The official box we can see the figure, and the bootleg box, it seems not. We have an interesting collection of shapes and minifigs.

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: Max Factory “Death by Embracing”” →

Time for another noodle stopper – this time Sinon in her swimsuit. Hoping for a day at the beach instead of a day in your noodles. Let’s see if we’d let either of these anywhere near a pot of noodles.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): n/a
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥2,160 (£15.11)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £3.00

The official I pre-ordered from AmiAmi

Figure spin-around

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: FuRyu Sinon Noodle Stopper” →