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!

Asuka – base

Base parts:

The first thing that stands out is that the bootleg base comes with more parts – it comes with a support pole that the official doesn’t have and an extra hole in the flat part of the base to accommodate it.
With the base itself, the bootleg doesn’t have the “Q Posket” logo and the feet peg holes are moved forward seeing as there’s no logo to get in the way. The edging of the base has been replicated, but the plastic is noticeably darker on the bootleg.

Bottom of the base:

The bottom of the official base has Bandai Spirits’s logo and predictably the bootleg has nothing. We can also see the extra peg hole on the bottom of the bootleg base too. These peg stands have been engineered slightly differently than the official’s.

Base in action:

Well, it sort of does something. It doesn’t grip the figure tightly, but will stop her from leaning backwards, should she choose to do so.

Asuka – spin-around

Looking reasonably similar – the extra pole on the bootleg stands out, plus her top is looking a bit like a life jacket. We’re also definitely seeing some extra shininess on the bootleg’s skin.

Asuka – close-ups

Face:

Eesh, those bootleg eyes… The bootleg’s eyes don’t seem to have been installed correctly and her right eye seems to be quite sunken into her head giving her a creepy look. The print isn’t as crisp on the bootleg’s eyes either, making them look more dull.
The bootleg’s hair is a shade or two lighter and has chubbier ends. The face has been done pretty similarly, though the blush doesn’t show up as well on the shiny plastic. Looking at her neck, the bootleg’s collar is much higher up than the official’s and the bow is more lumpy.

Back of the hair:

The bootleg’s hair is noticeably shinier and features some stray red paint.
The interface headset parts (red hair clips) are less shiny on the bootleg, and the painting isn’t as neat. The one on the right also has a bit “munched” off the end of it.

Close-up of the left interface headset part:

The black band noticeably has less refinement on the bootleg – it remains close to the same thickness throughout, instead of thinning out as it should. On the top of the bootleg interface headset part, we have some excess plastic.
Looking towards the bottom/back of the part, the paint on the bootleg doesn’t get to the bottom of it – it appears the interface and her ponytail were made into one piece, instead of the two that appear on the official.
Looking to her hair, the bootleg has a flaw in the plastic next to the interface headset part, plus some visible seaming towards the top of her head.

Side of her hair:

The bootleg hair is a field of seamlines and gaps – we have a big seamline just above her ear and the ends of her hair aren’t attached properly at the bottom. The official only has a bit of seamline visible here – just under her ponytail and by her ear. Whilst we’re looking at the ear, there’s a bit of hair missing on the bootleg – the official has a triangular piece next to her ear, but this is entirely missing on the bootleg.
We can also admire the chonky hair ends of the bootleg here again.

Underside of the bootleg’s hair:

Urgh, such a mess under here – scratches in the paint and no concealment of the joint.

Dress:

The bootleg is very much an assembly fail when it comes to her dress. The upper parts of her dress aren’t inserted into the shirt, making them very chunky, and the collar is popped up, with the bow getting in the way of proper assembly. The shirt itself is also sticking out in places it shouldn’t, completing the odd look of her clothing.
With the clothing itself, the bootleg’s is overly shiny which isn’t a normal feature of Japanese school clothing.

Closer look at the upper clothing joins:

Whilst this isn’t a viewing angle, this shows just why the bootleg’s upper half is such a mess – the upper dress parts haven’t been moulded well at all, so they don’t fit with the shirt parts properly. We’ve also got a shirt part which I assume is supposed to be tucked under the belt to hold it into place.
Does feel like the person assembling it had an impossible challenge and did the best they could with the pieces they had. Which unfortunately led to this mess.

Side of the dress:

Mmm, the bootleg starts off strong with sweaty, shiny skin and some escaped glue on her dress.
The official’s paint is a bit rough on the sleeve, but other than that, looking pretty decent. I don’t think the slight complexity of the top assembly did this figure many favours, as the official is looking slightly odd at the bottom as well… but doesn’t have a patch on the bootleg.
OK… bootleg time… the shirt. The material and texture are poor – it looks like she’s wearing icing rather than a shirt. On top of the icing, we have her “life jacket” – from the side it really does look like a life jacket rather than a dress to me. Here the parts really do not marry up well at all, making them all look very separate from her skirt.
The skirt seam isn’t very well hidden on the bootleg, and we have some plastic flaking off. The dress has been flattened a bit at the front, which doesn’t make it flow quite as well. Stupidly, the intended seams at the top of her skirt at the front are less visible on the bootleg… if only they could do that for the actual seam.

Legs and feet:

The sock paint is overly white on the bootleg and the bands aren’t painted very well either.
The shoes are pretty much on a par with the official’s though the paint isn’t quite the right colour for them. The moulding of the straps hasn’t gone well on the bootleg though, leaving them looking a bit bobbly.

Foot pegs:

As per usual, the official pegs are not painted, but the bootleg’s are, making them harder to peg into the base. Though with the painted pegs, it does show less if Asuka’s foot pegs aren’t quite into the base.

Rei – base

OK, now onto Rei Ayanami. Her bootleg also features extra stand pieces:

The bootleg base features a bonus hole and a lack of logo. We’ve also got the overly dark black colouring present too.

Bottom:

Has the same design differences as Asuka’s – with the lack of logo and differing peg holders.

Let’s see how this extra stand performs:

Oh. The stand doesn’t even touch Rei – this thing was definitely not made for this figure, and doesn’t actually serve any kind of purpose. Bonus plastic yay?

Rei – spin-around

Bootleg Rei is looking like a more shiny version of her official self.

Rei – close-ups

Face:

Mmm, shiny – the bootleg’s hair definitely has a noticeable shine to it. The bootleg’s hair tips have managed to retain most of their pointiness – a rarity.
The eyes are a lot less scary too but have the same low quality print as Asuka’s. The white shine and the red parts of her eyes are less distinct on the bootleg.
The face skin is a few shades darker on the bootleg, which isn’t right for Rei.
Looking to her bow, the bootleg’s is a bit blobby, but better than the Asuka bootleg’s.

Hair:

From this angle, the shininess is very apparent on the bootleg. The main head seam is a bit messier on the bootleg, but both it is very noticeable. Not too much difference apart from the finish.

Ribbon:

The ribbon isn’t massively different from the official – looks a little sadder and a little redder. Meanwhile I’m being distracted by the bootleg’s shirt that’s looking more like icing.

Neck peg:

I had some troubles with assembling the bootleg – the distorted, misshapen peg it has shows why.
The top of the bootleg’s dress is a lot better than Asuka’s and doesn’t have the “life jacket” look. The shirt is still too thick and looks like icing, but at least this one was able to be assembled correctly.

Arms and lower dress:

The bootleg’s arms are noticeably shiny and have a fair amount of excess plastic. The shirt sleeves also have excess to go with their thickness.
The skirt is mostly a decent copy, but again, lacks finishing at the bottom of it.

Side:

Here we have some seaming on the official – on her fingers and her sleeve. Whilst the bootleg seemingly lacks the finger seam, it makes up for it with webbing between her fingers ><.
The bootleg’s arm poses don’t match the official, but doesn’t massively change the figure.
The shape of the bootleg’s dress pieces is better than bootleg Asuka’s, but some of the detail has been lost from the official – most notably around her shoulder.

Back:

The backs is a pretty close copy, but looks cheaper from the shiny finish and slightly strange white plastic. The sculpting at the top of her dress is less distinct on the bootleg.

Feet:

Again, we have bonus shiny on the bootleg. The shoes themselves are overly white, and we’ve lost a chunk of the detail that forms the sole.

Back of the shoes:

Shiny legs! What a surprise!
The tabs for pulling on her shoes on the bootleg have gone a bit funny-shaped and aren’t distinct parts from the main figure.

Foot pegs:

This time we have black painted pegs on the bootleg and unpainted skin-coloured pegs on the official.

Conclusion

Telling these apart, the stand is the easiest place to look – none of these Evangelion Q Poskets should have a separate support stand piece and the “Q Posket” logo should be present on the front of the base. The overall finish of the figures themselves is mostly in line with prize figures on average, but less quality than a Q Posket should be. The shiny finish is probably the easiest trait to see when looking at the bootleg in the real.
The Rei bootleg is relatively decent, but the Asuka one looks quite derpy with the poorly fitting top pieces and poorly assembled eyes.
With the bootlegs, you’re likely to have some assembly issues – at least a couple of the heads wouldn’t go on easily, and they wouldn’t peg into the base as nicely. So they’re a bit frustrating to get displayed.
The officials have dropped a tiny bit from the prices I paid (especially if you don’t mind an opened box), so buying the officials isn’t necessarily that much more than the bootlegs.
Asuka bootleg is an easy “no” with her larger defects, Rei I could see someone being happy with… but confused about her extra stand piece.

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.

Left of the box:

Here we are treated to a view of Asuka. The text at the top of the box has been lifted from the official box, plus the Evangelion logo in the bottom left. We have Asuka’s name, just to confirm it is Asuka too.
Interestingly, the photo on the side of the bootleg box is of the bootleg, instead of being stolen art from the official. We can tell this easily by the lack of ball joints at her hips.
Looking at the background, we have more stars and shininess plus a border that runs off of the bottom of the box. If the box was made to accommodate this border then the blister may have actually fit in it – the top of the box you may notice is not closed, and that’s because I can’t. The middle of the blister is too tall and won’t actually fit.

Right side:

Fairly predictably, we have Rei on this side. Again, the text and logo has been copied from the official box, with Ayanami’s name added in blue. The photo of the figure is also of the Rei in the box rather than the original Parfom figure.

Top:

The window on the bootleg has roughly copied the shape of the official’s, but not the print on it. We have the Evangelion logo again, and an added border.

Bottom:

The warning text has been duplicated onto the bootleg box and converted to black so it is readable against the background image.
The bootleg’s barcode is related to some ball chain hangars for the series Classroom of the Elite, which is not a series I’m familiar with. They’re not currently added to MFC, so here’s a picture:

Yeah, not quite this bootleg, is it?

OK, now for the entertaining side…
Back:

The originals have gone with Japanese, for their Japanese audience… but the bootleg has gone for “English” for their more international audience. As the image isn’t the easiest to read, here’s transcriptions of the boxes, left to right:

parfom the red one is a beautiful doll which have a lovely children, and the arm can be rotated till you like it, and the head same as, parfom will bring you a happiest moment soon.

parfom the white one is a beautiful doll which’s arm can be rotated till you like it, and the head same as , parfom will bring a happiest moment soon.

parfom the double one are beautiful dolls which’s arm can be rotated till you like it,and the had same as , you can let them face to face and back to back ,when be inserted the base,parfom will bring you a happiest moment soon
(this last one I’ve taken out the hyphens but left the rest as-is).

Classy. Much laughter was had reading that for the first time – a good example of not-English.

One last view before we move on from the box:

Shiny blue. I like the nice abstract design of the inside of the box, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with the figures themselves.

Blister:

The bootleg blister did its job and protected the figures in transit. Somewhat squished from the journey though.

Base

Unboxing for the figure to get to the base, I found this li’l fella:

Not sure where this card offcut came from – doesn’t match any part of the box.

Underside of the base:

2016 MADE IN CHINA. Heh, I wouldn’t have guessed the latter. Not sure why they chose 2016, as the Parfom figures came out in 2018. Guess it could be a typo or just a random choice.

Side of the base:

I got a little overeager to assemble this one and then suspected I made a mistake, so I don’t have a proper photo of the top of the base. Pushing Asuka on the pegs didn’t feel great, hence stopping at this point.
The shape of the base is actually a bit more interesting than your average bootleg disc with the stepped pattern. Adds a little to the figure.

About 5 seconds later:

The act of trying to get Asuka on the base broke her pegs – they were every bit as flimsy as they looked and felt. I did manage to get Rei on her peg without breaking it, but that was also relatively short-lived – I did this photoshoot in two halves and it broke off between the sessions.
Asuka’s pegs are more likely to break due to trying to get two pegs in at the same time, possibly into holes that are not as parallel as the pegs. However, the most likely outcome is that all three pegs will break during assembly or shortly after.
Looking at the top of the base, it appears like they’ve tried to polish it, albeit not very well leaving a lined pattern across the top when the light hits it.
Whilst this base could possibly get a pass in the looks department, it isn’t very functional. Had to supply my own white tack to get this review done.

Let’s admire the assembled figure, before I broke Rei’s peg:

Yeah, don’t think this will be winning any construction awards.

Accessory

This figure set comes with one accessory – Asuka’s doll. As the Parfom also comes with this, I will compare the two.

Front:

The bootleg’s face is instantly noticeable as darker and glossier. Next we have some very sloppy hair and hood paint – significant chunks of it are missing. The facial features are all a bit thicker on the bootleg.
Looking to the coat, we have some overage, but looking OK for the most part. The shade of red is a bit duller, but I think is fine. The “Asuka” on both has come out fine but is a bit lower on the bootleg.

Back:

The hair mould is a bit sloppy on the bootleg, but at least everything is painted on this side.
The paint isn’t up to par with the official, but not noticeably awful. There is some specks of dirt on the bootleg though.

Hole:

For the official, you could peg this onto her arm if you want. For the bootleg, you could supply your own stand? Not too much different here, hole in the bootleg is painted as is typical of bootlegs. But seeing as you’re not going to attach this to anything it doesn’t really matter.
Looking at the various edges on the bootleg, we can see they’re all a bit rough in terms of moulding.

Asuka (aka the red one) spin-around

Let’s compare them to their Parfom counterparts! Starting with Asuka.

We can see she is smaller and less articulated than her official counterpart. Yep, apparently the Parfom figures weren’t small enough so they’ve been scaled down further. In my opinion, the lack of ball hips is nice, but her knees and ankles look a bit odd. Not too bad for an edited copy.

Asuka (aka the red one) close-ups

Face:

First thing I’m noticing is the bootleg’s face is glossier and dirtier. The bootleg’s eye prints aren’t as good as the official’s, especially the white which didn’t apply very thickly at all. The face also cannot be swapped on the bootleg, which is a feature of the Parfom’s.
Looking at the hair, the bootleg is dirty here too. The paint has quite a rough texture, making it look cheap.
Looking at her chest, the paint is quite roughly slapped onto the bootleg – the green part doesn’t stay within the lines… and the lines go underneath it. Her collar pips are lopsided, and the orange chest paint doesn’t properly cover the areas it is supposed to.
As the articulation has been taken out of the bootleg, we have a strange sculpted line underneath her chest making the top of her suit look weirdly bobbled between her boobs.

Hair clips:

The official’s hair clips are separate parts attached onto the figure’s head but the bootleg has gone the simplified route and made these a part of the main figure body. A small difference, but the official does look better for it, especially as the bootleg has slightly sloppy paint.
Looking at the hair, the bootleg’s is glossier and has a bunch of excess plastic, especially on the hairs above her ponytails. The paint shading isn’t as nice on the bootleg either, with the shading entirely missing on the hair between her hair and pigtail.

More bootleg hair:

The bootleg’s hair is even worse on this side – we have a hole in her fringe with some scraped off paint blob just under that. The seam between the fringe and the main hair body is awful too.
Shading seems to have been mostly avoided on this side, and some of her hair paint is on the hair clip. All in all, not very nice to look at close up.

Legs:

One nice thing is the legs are a lot less deformed when they’re in statue form, and the leg stripes do stay whole. For the official, I do wish the leg articulation was better – there isn’t a lot of it, so the slightly derpy appearance isn’t offset by much flexibility to be honest.
The painting isn’t too bad on the bootleg – about prize tier quality, though seeing as I paid a prize-tier price, it’s actually decent considering. They have actually painted the backs of her legs properly, which is unusual for a bootleg.
For the most part, they’ve done a decent job of removing the joints, but still looks a bit strange in places (mostly her knees) due to the source figure. At the back, her shoes have a joint line which isn’t correct for a non-articulated figure as the plugsuit is all one piece. Interesting they managed to mould out the knees but not the ankle joint entirely.

Arms:

Sliver “screwhead” paint seems to have gone walkies on bootleg Asuka’s right sleeve… Paint is a bit sloppy here, especially on her left arm.
Attempted to get the official in the same pose – but I’m not always the best at posing. The official has the advantage she can have many poses with the arms, unlike this more statuesque bootleg.
With the elbows, they’ve attempted to seamlessly remove the joints but haven’t done it too well so she looks a bit like “pipe” arms due to the unrealistic shape. The shoulder joint they didn’t smooth out as they have partially kept this as a joint.
For the wrists, we have lost the cuffs on the bootleg and we just have a peg joint instead of a ball joint.

Let’s try rotating the arms “till you like it”:

Yeah, I’m rotating it… still not liking it. Due to the fixed elbow positions, the arm articulation is pretty pointless. Isn’t a ball joint so you can’t even bend the arms outwards – just up and down. The wrist articulation has some point as it does allow her to grip the doll a bit easier, but equally well, if the hands were locked into the correct positions it wouldn’t matter much.
So your main two poses are having her hands together or holding her doll. Or this weird “karate” pose.

Let’s give her the doll:

Yeah, she can hold it without it slipping out, but you’re going to be quite limited on how she holds it. The official you could go for a few different holding poses, so long as you can balance it. The bootleg you’ve just got to wedge it between her hands and move the arms and hands in their limited ways until you get it to stay.

Rei (aka the white one) spin-around

Rei is also a scaled-down version with the articulation removed. Again, we have the slightly awkward-looking knees and ankles. For Rei, they’ve gone for serious expression with grabbing hands. With the official, you can use the glasses with these hands, but we don’t get the glasses with the bootleg.

Rei (aka the white one) close-ups

Face:

Bootleg Rei also has the same glossy face syndrome as her Asuka counterpart. Looking at her eyes, I think they’re closer than Asuka’s but still off – the shines are quite right, though I’m not sure which is the closer red eye colour as to what I envisage Rei as having – they’re both off to me. With the red part, there is more gradient to the darker part on the official.
Moving to her hair, the bootleg has less shading and is quite lumpy around the edges, as is typical of bootleg hair. The black lines on the hair clips is also a bit too thick.
Moving to the upper body, the paint is sloppy in places on the bootleg – the pips and collar aren’t quite right and the upper line isn’t quite shaped right. The “00” isn’t centred properly either. Lastly, the green paint isn’t quite in the right place on the front of the triangles. Whatever they may be.
For the triangles, I actually prefer the bootleg’s as I was never fond of the fact they made these a “floating” part on the official, attached to her upper torso. They look strange and oddly placed – I guess they did this for articulation reasons, but they don’t look great. Wish they attached them to the lower body, possibly as small sliders if they got in the way of the upper torso. So some minor points for the bootleg :P.
Like Asuka, we’ve also got the awkward chest join, but it is less apparent on Rei as she has the red blobs that obscure the between-boob area.

Hair clips:

Again, the hair clips seem to be made as part of the hair mould on the bootleg, which they aren’t on the official. The paint is noticeably worse on the bootleg – we have one of the lines straying quite badly onto her hair, and hair paint on the clip itself.
Looking at the hair, the paint is pretty bad on the bootleg – the two hair halves don’t match and we’ve got dirt and scrapage. The hair strand next to her clip has also been fully adhered to her hair mass, instead of floating at the tip like the official.

Backpack:

An ew for the bootleg… looking quite dirty back here! The shoulder paint is badly done, and we’re missing the black line on the top of her backpack. The 0 has ended up a little slanted on the bootleg, but mostly OK. The bootleg also lacks the shiny finish of the official.
The rest of the paintwork isn’t too bad here, especially considering its small size.

Leg:

Again, the bootleg’s leg looks more natural due to lacking the joint. However, the legs haven’t been as well melded to the body as Asuka’s so we have a strange seam line by her hip. We also have the ankle seam lines as seen on Asuka too.
The paint stripe hasn’t been painted too well – whilst the edges are straight, it doesn’t fit onto the raised sections properly.
I do like the fact they gave her legs a bit of a pose instead of just having her stand straight – some thought has gone into the posing of this figure.
The backs of her legs have been painted like the official too.

Arms:

As with Asuka, the arm cuffs are missing and the articulation is limited. And those pipe-like arms. The hands are pretty roughly moulded on the bootleg though, with plenty of excess plastic to see when up close.

More rotating till we like it:

Get a good look at that hand peg :P. The articulation is probably even more pointless than Asuka’s as she has no accessory to hold and less poses where it looks like a natural pose. You’re pretty much limited to having her hands down in front of her if you don’t want her pose to look silly. The two peg joints really don’t have much to offer.

Posing

OK, let’s see the thing assembled… erm, well, as best we can, seeing as I’m limited to tacking them to the base!

Officials next to their bootleg counterparts:

Can’t quite get the officials quite like the bootlegs, might get closer if I used just the one Parfom stand. Here you can see how the bootlegs are a bit smaller than the officials.

With Asuka’s doll:

They look kind of cute like this.

Back:

Yeah, not a great viewing angle. Other side is definitely the front.

I didn’t do the “facing” pose, mostly because I forgot about it and partly because it’d be hard to do without any pegs – they’d likely have to lean against each other for them to stand, which wouldn’t look good. Their heads can also move, though Asuka’s can’t do much as her hair gets in the way. So realistically, they’re probably going to be posed back to back like this.

Conclusion

Well, telling them apart is definitely not going to be an issue – the near-lack of any articulation gives that one away, as well as being a 2-pack. The bootleg box has quite a bit taken from the official, but has had a fair amount of rework… including poorly-translated English which gives away how not official it is.
For a transformation into non-articulated figures the result is decent considering this was done on a budget. The base is terrible though, seeing as it isn’t functional, and I think they could’ve placed the pegs better so the fronts of the figures were more visible. From the officials you’re losing a lot of features – no articulation and nothing really in terms of accessories. No extra hands or faces were included with the bootleg, so you can’t customise them in this way either.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing an official statue version of this bootleg – I think the back-to-back pose is quite cute with the semi-chibified forms. Whilst the figure box does say you can pose them face-to-face, I think that’s a bit of an afterthought, and not as fitting given the source material.
Overall, this figure pair is decent for a bootleg, but still noticeably bootleg.

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

From the front, the bootleg is definitely veering off to one side, but she does manage to stay balanced. Some of the paintwork is dodgy, which we’ll look at in close detail below.

Figure close-ups

Face:

For the skin plastic, we’ve got a sweaty look on the bootleg with its shiny finish. The colour isn’t off by much, which is a rarity.
Moving to the eye decals, we’re certainly seeing a degradation in quality – we’ve got some yellowish imperfections and the eyes aren’t even the same colour on the bootleg. The entire eyes on the bootleg seem to say “low print quality”.
Onto the mouth – I’m not a big fan of how the sticking-out tongue is done on the original, but the paint bleed on the bootleg makes it even less obvious it’s supposed to be her tongue and not part of her lips.
The hair mould is noticeably jankier on the bootleg, and her hair is plain black unlike the blue-black of the official.

Flower:

The bootleg’s flower is a paler blue, but I don’t think this really detracts from the figure. However, the left-on excess plastic at the top and more squished nature of it does.
Apparently my official has some kind of mishap/dirt on it… maybe I should go see if I can clean that later.

Other side of the bootleg’s head:

Oof, that poor bootleg seems to have a splitting headache! Poor casting and assembly has meant she has an obvious gap on this side.

Dress:

The straps on the bootleg have been lazily painted and spill out significantly onto her body. The white paint has also got partly onto the bow, but not too badly.
The moulding and overall appearance of her cloth belt on the bootleg isn’t as good as the official with its shiny finish and stray non-blue paint.
We can see the stars are a paler purple too – let’s take a closer look at those.

Bottom of the dress:

The bootleg print is a few shades lighter and doesn’t quite line up with the edge of the dress. The pattern also doesn’t seem to be the same, with the stars being more sparse.

Other side of the dress:

The stars are also lighter and sparser here on the bootleg too – looks like they may’ve mostly chosen to avoid the edge of the dress here. The hands of the bootleg are also translucent caused by thin plastic and thin paint.

Left hand:

The bootleg’s arm is at a different angle to the official’s, making the hand point backwards instead of sideways. The poor moulding on the bootleg makes the bootleg’s hand awkwardly shaped, and the thinness of the plastic is apparent from this angle too, with her “darkened” fingers.

Side:

The shininess of the bootleg’s skin is visible in this photo near her shoulder. The white paint has a number of scratches and imperfections on the bootleg, plus we have a very visible seam. The band is also not very good on her – the paint doesn’t reach to the edges, and the parts seem to be different so we don’t have the natural indentations to add detail to the ribbon.
The overall shape of the bootleg is bad – which is why her pose is so off from the front. Here we can see her back isn’t bent right and her backside is an odd shape compared to the official. .
Lastly we have the hair – the bootleg’s being overly black and not posed as nicely as the official’s, meaning it lacks the appearance of motion. The hair strand near her back is also differently positioned – on the official it helps hide where the wing joins to her back, but the bootleg leaves this fully on show. This also reveals how the wing on the bootleg didn’t quite go fully into place – we can see some of the wing’s peg still visible.

Conclusion

Well, the bootleg is cheap. Was cheap and looks cheap. I’d say the main tells on this one is the poor pose, the poor paint and the extra seamlines. Out of the noodle stoppers I got for this batch, I think this one is probably the hardest to tell apart without the official next to it.
Still isn’t great, but not really horrible either until you look up close.

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.

Side:

Looks like a similar story for the side… Super Heroes… waitwaitwait… let’s open this and start again.

Box, for real

Upon receiving the bootleg, I thought they’d possibly stiffed me on the box, but turns out the not-Lego box was just repurposed to protect the bootleg box. It was an incredibly tight fit, so didn’t do a huge amount to protect the box. It still got dented, but suppose that’s better than being caved in.

Front:

The front box design has been simplified from the original – the window is now mostly square instead of the multiple cuts of the official. The bottom of the box’s design has been repurposed and moved over to the left, and a new, plainer background put behind it to add contrast.
We still have the Accel World logo at the top left of the box, but not the Max Factory logo or the authenticity sticker.
Despite the larger window space in the bootleg box, we have a less clear view of the figure – we can see the crossed sword arms of Black Lotus, but not much of Kuroyukihime. The official box we get a good look at the swords and Kuroyukihime, with Black Lotus’s head peeking out in the background.

Sides:

The side box art has been switched, and the windows removed from the darker side.
The print quality is noticeably worse on the bootleg, with the colours merging into each other to some extent. We also have some fuzziness from the artwork being shrank down to fit the smaller box.

Back:

The artwork on the back of the bootleg box has been shrunk down to fit, but not quite enough to avoid being lopped off at the top, likely owing to different proportions in the box shape. It works, but it is obviously sloppy.
The bottom area has entirely been reworked with an entirely different set of information, including a new barcode. This information arrangement seems to be the “signature” for some bootlegger, and this barcode number seems to be associated with a variety of bootlegs with a similar information box.

Top:

The official has the same artwork as the front of the box, and a window to see into the box. Not sure what the purpose of this box window is, but it’s there.
The bootleg also copies the front of its box, but does not include the window.

Bottom:

The official repeats the “logo” for the figure, as well as having Max Factory. The bootleg is about as boring as you can get, with some overprint from the sides of the box.

Opening the bootleg box:

Well, we’re off to a good start here…

Lids:

For the official, we can see the glued-on window for the top of the box and the whiteish cardboard that the box is made of.
The bootleg box they’ve decided to go fancy and print images on the inside of the box. Interesting.

Box insides:

The official has an orange patterned liner, with a cut-out for the box side window.
The bootleg… has the various box images tiled in a complete mess. Interesting idea, poor execution.

Let’s look at the glue quality of the bootleg box:

Womp-womp. Barely hanging on. And this box wasn’t even flattened for transit!

These boxes are easy to tell apart if you’re familiar with the official. The bootleg box has a few weirdnesses of its own which could also potentially give it away – the front looks overly plain in a way, and the information banner on the back is off. From the banner, the “MADE IN CHINA 2019” part stands out the most to me, though if someone’s familiar with JANs, the barcode starting with a 6 is a clue that things are amiss.

Blister

Front:

The bootleg blister is smaller and much more dinged up that the official, and not just due to the transit. The plastic of the bootleg’s blister has a lot less clarity to it, pretty much hiding the back blister. As my official figure was secondhand, I can’t guarantee that the base was the correct way around on release, but I suspect it was. What I can confirm is the bootleg’s was packed backwards.

Back:

Ah yep, here’s the logo on the bootleg base. Here we can see the bootleg comes with the same blister arrangement as the official. And we can also see where the fin part has gotten snapped off, presumably in transit. Though I do half-wonder if it actually snapped off in the factory and was just tossed into the box where I found it.

Front of the smaller blister:

Whilst this part has been packed the same for the bootleg, it is noticeably different at this stage, without even having to take the parts out.

Bootleg blister “feature”:

Due to Kuroyukihime’s stray hair pointing in the wrong direction on the bootleg, they’ve cut a hole in the blister to accommodate it.
Here is a closeup of the hole after she’s been taken out of the box:

Base

Front:

The first noticeable thing is the messy paint on the motif on the front of the base – the bootleg painting is fairly sloppy. The official base is a shiny black, whilst the bootleg base is matte.
Looking at the water, the official’s fits in the recess provided, but the bootleg one sits proud.

Let’s look closer as to why:

The bootleg has an extra lug here, but no extra indentation to go with it, so it won’t sit in the hole properly.
The official only has one lug at the back:

The water:

The bootleg’s water has less subtle shading and is more orangey in tone. The bootleg lacks the indent(s) required to sit neatly within the rim of the base.

Base from the top, with the water:

The bases look fairly similar from the top – the main difference is the orange parts are different colours. Both the water and the inner of the bootleg are more orangey.

Base top without the water:

Here we can see the bootleg base inexplicably has four lugs. Guess they wanted things even?
For the official base, the supports and the bottom of the base match in colour whilst the bootleg’s support is more flesh-toned than the bottom.
The bootleg base also looks scuffed-up on the top despite being bought new.

Close up of the inside:

The bases have the same support structure on the inside. Looking closely at where the bottom of the base joins the sides, the bootleg isn’t quite as well joined.

Back:

Here we can see where the back of the official base attracts all of the dust. Anyone else remember the piano black device fad? Yeah.
The bootleg is a much more matte black, and we have some scrapes along the top corner.

Bottom:

The bootleg base misses out on the copyright text, and has some extra holes which I guess were supposed to tie up with the internal supports.
The official base is much cleaner in terms of smoothness of the plastic. Please excuse the fingerprints!

If you want to just display Black Lotus, you can cover the water up where Kuroyukihime kneels:

Both match their respective waters and look fine. Personally not a fan of this piece as it can’t look seamless.

Tap test:

The bootleg is actually a bit of a looser fit and easier to dislodge out of place, especially with the water disc not sitting properly within the base.

Overall, the bootleg base is reasonably similar, but falls down in functionality. The water part doesn’t sit right which spoils its look and means the water shifts about.

Kuroyukihime accessories

Kuroyukihime can be displayed separately or as part of the diorama. As such, her legs are an acccessory.

So let’s take a look at them:

The official legs have some shading – mostly visible by her toes and the back of her thighs. The bootleg legs are one paler flat colour and have a slightly shiny finish.

Leg peg holes:

The tops of the legs interestingly are differently-shaped between the bootleg and the official – the bootleg’s are rounder and chunkier than their official counterparts. They also lack the “L” and “R” markings that the official has.

Kuroyukihime spin-around

The bootleg’s hair is noticeably darker, and her skink has a more reddish tone. We can also see her stray hairs point upwards instead of downwards towards the front.

Kuroyukihime close-ups

Hair strands:

An oof for the bootleg here – the hair strands have been attached by squeezing out a blob of glue then jamming them on there. Looks awful, especially coupled with the excess plastic.

Top of her hair:

The official has a subtle hair shine, which adds depth to the hair whilst the bootleg is just a flat black. With the main hair seam, it has been minimised on the official but the bootleg has a large gap on this side which give the hair a strange shape. The cast of the bootleg’s hair has lost the strand details in the main body of the hair too.

Hand:

The bootleg forgoes the nail polish, and looks much paler than the official. The sculpting is OK from this angle on the bootleg though.

Face:

The eye decal on the bootleg has lighter colours and less contrast. The brown line that should be above her eye has been moved to be closer to her eyebrows on the bootleg.
Looking at her mouth, the official’s has been painted to emphasise her expression and the bootleg’s looks like she’s wearing lipstick, which doesn’t really suit the scene.

Back of her hair:

The difference in hair colour is quite apparent back here – I like the subtle shade of blue the official has been painted with. The official’s hair also has a highlight towards the bottom.
The bootleg feels more like a prize figure, with the flat black and slightly shiny finish.

Hair tips & bum:

With the hair, the bootleg’s is less defined and has bits of excess plastic.
However, the real show-stopper is the panties – the official’s have been put in a position of slightly pulled down, but the bootleg’s… is just weird. Her ass cheeks are shaped strangely, which makes it look like the panties are inflicting serious damage on her legs, which is also producing a strange gap that makes it look like she’s got a huge hole in her butt.

Body:

Looking at the tips of her hair, the bootleg’s are a fair bit messier than the official’s. If we look underneath the bootleg’s hair tip, we can see some glue spilled onto the body – not so good.
The body sculpt is actually decent and looks OK on the bootleg. Some of the panty paint has gone onto the bootleg’s body though, and the legs don’t attach quite as neatly as their official counterparts.

Feet:

The bootleg’s feet are noticeably more pallid, mostly due to the lack of paint detail. The plastic is also thinner, leading to a small amount of translucency in the toes.

Now to take Kuroyukihime’s legs off and see how she looks assembled to the base.

Leg pegs:

The official’s leg pegs aren’t painted and cast in a milky-white plastic which differentiates the pegs from her knickers.
The bootleg went ham on the paint making this area look awful. Coupled with the poor casting, her nether regions looks strange and lumpy. The paint isn’t going to help with the fit, but they have added some channels to the pegs for some reason. Not sure why.

Attaching to the base:

The bootleg was a pain to attach to the base – the pegs aren’t the right shape and size, so wouldn’t assemble correctly. I did get it in a bit more than this, but it won’t assemble into the holes properly without modification of the pegs. The water disc does not do much to hide the poor assembly of the bootleg.

Here are some photos of later on during the shoot where I made a bit more of an attempt to assemble her:

Yeah, still not great, especially comparing to the official which attaches pretty much seamlessly.

Kuroyukihime alone on the stand:

She looks strange without Black Lotus in my opinion, but hey, this display option exists if you want… As the bootleg won’t assemble properly, the water hole looks strange as it doesn’t match up with her body at all.
To me, the official looks sad and resigned, the bootleg, with her painted mouth and sticky-up hair looks a bit surprised instead.

Black Lotus

Black Lotus comes as three parts – two arms and the main body. The main body slots into the base behind Kuroyukihime. The arms need to be separate pieces so you can assemble her around Kuroyukihime.
The official gives you some instructions on how to do this, and warning to be careful with Kuroyukihime’s hair:

Outside of arm:

Looking at the overall appearance, the bootleg is shinier than the official. The orange-red parts are more of a dark terracotta colour on the bootleg.
Looking at the blade itself, the bootleg is a bit irregularly-shaped, especially towards the tip. At the top end of the arm part, we also have one less piece, which can be seen just underneath the wing-shaped bit at the top.

Inside of the arm:

Here we can see that the arms attach with different peg styles – the official has two round pegs and the bootleg has just the one square peg.
The paint tries to be similar to the official, but misses quite significantly in my opinion.

Closer look at the pegs:

Yep, quite different attachment systems here. The official has the the curved piece and its attaching block on the arm – this is on the main body for the bootleg. Looks like the bootleggers didn’t realise which was the peg for gluing and which was for user assembly.
The bootleg part also has a bunch of scratches and what looks like excess glue.
With the paint, the orange isn’t blended well, causing a less subtle shading effect. We’ve also got the lower blocky part in the middle painted incorrectly.

Shoulder:

Here the “missing” piece on the bootleg is more obvious. The purple “glass” isn’t as nice on the bootleg and doesn’t have the strong colour of the official. We’ve also got some bad seaming on the bit just below, with a mould mark that hasn’t been sanded off.
The edge parts that are painted the orangey colour on the official haven’t been painted the same on the bootleg, which gives it a less striking appearance.

Elbow:

Again the paint isn’t as precisely done on the bootleg and we have the shiny finish. The moulding isn’t showing much in the way of defects either, which is a change from usual.

Tip:

Oh, found the defects! The bootleg sword tip is bent and not pointy. The underside of the blade also doesn’t have the same sharp shape as the official either .

OK, that’s the arms looked at – let’s look at the main body.
Starting with the head, the closest thing we have to a face:

Going straight to the “face”, the bootleg misses out on the orange-brown paint on the visor. The purple plastic is more see-through, not properly obscuring the silver possibly-face behind.
Moving to the top of her helmet, the black is darker than the official’s and also doesn’t have paint accents.
Moving to her fins and lower helmet, the bootleg is bright orange, which is a stark contrast to the official. The bootleg’s chest also suffers from too high contrast – the orange is very bright and there isn’t any shading on her breast armour, making it look odd. Ordinarily, Black Lotus is, well, black, so the bootleg’s painting doesn’t capture that the orange-brownish parts are supposed to be due to the lighting from the pool below.

Fins:

And here we get to see the missing fin part again. This part can’t be easily repaired as the plastic is quite thin here. No idea why the bootleg is just orange plastic here – looks so odd. I guess they didn’t realise that these parts were partially painted and not orange.
For the purple parts of the fins, the bootleg’s is overly pale again, same as the other purple parts on it.
Looking at the inside of the fins, the official’s is black as this part doesn’t get the uplight, but the bootleg is stupid-orange.

Shoulder:

The bootleg has quite a bit of stray spray, making her shoulder look spattered. We also seem to have a gluey fingerprint too. The official has no such problems, and looks quite smart.

Arm connectors:

Here we see the “missing” part on the bootleg that should be attached to the arm part instead. The official has been designed so the arm pegs go snugly into this deep hole so that the arms attach securely but are still removable. The bootleg’s incorrect attachment means that the bootleg figure’s arms are quite easy to accidentally knock off.

Neck:

Here, the bootleggers have gone ham on the paint, leaving her too orange. The bootleg’s diamond detail is very different – for some reason they’ve decided the surround should be silver and the gem should be a reddish colour. Black Lotus has two colours – black and purple – silver doesn’t enter the equation, so not sure what spurred this decision.

Back:

I like the stark shading of the official, and the bootleg entirely misses out on this. Instead we’re treated to a vista of orange plus a bunch of scratches and marks in the paint. The difference in finish is pretty noticeable back here. At the top-middle of the bootleg’s back we have a noticeable seam line that seems to have collected some paint.

Base peg:

The official’s is unpainted skin-coloured plastic, to match the inside of the base. The bootleggers have decided the peg should also be shaded… despite this bit being firmly out of view when assembled.
The pegs are close to the same shape, but the bootleg’s has thinner edges and isn’t in quite the same position relative to the bottom of the figure.

Let’s get her plugged into the base so we can have a closer look at her:

The official slots in nicely, with maybe a bit of fiddling to get it into place. The bootleg doesn’t assemble right, meaning both the bootleg Lotus and Kuroyukihime don’t go into this base right.

What we have now:

Yeah, that bootleg is looking pretty sad already with its ill-fitting parts and broken fin.

Front of the wires:

For a bootleg, the casting came out well here and the gaps in the wires are still present and distinct. What’s lacking is the paint job – the wires are just painted lightly orange here, and have no gradient like the official’s.
The lower diamond on the bootleg also has a silver frame, but the diamond itself seems to be more purple.

Back of the wires:

Much more thought has gone into the official’s paint and has been done to better reflect the intended lighting of the scene. The bootleg’s is… mostly sprayed from the right. Doesn’t look terrible, but doesn’t look great either.

Black Lotus spin-around

Before we look at the figure fully assembled, let’s take a look at Black Lotus on her own. I should’ve put the blanking piece on for this… but I didn’t. So you’ll just have to imagine it.

From the front and side shots, we can see the bootleg’s arms don’t sit perfectly, and sort of lean on each other to stay attached. The official has no such problems, and are rigidly attached and take a bit of force to get back out. Almost thought this spin-around was going to be a fail with the bootleg falling apart.
Other than the arm issue and the broken fin, the bootleg does look broadly similar to the official. However, the bootleg’s paint doesn’t make it quite as clear where the orangey light is coming from and does somewhat detract from its appearance.

Black Lotus & Kuroyukihime spin-around

OK, now let’s look at these fully assembled!

I think the official looks significantly better than the bootleg – the poor fit of the bootleg’s parts doesn’t allow the two figures to pose correctly as well as being a pain to assemble. From the side, these assembly issues are even more apparent as we can see parts of the figure that should be hidden by the base.
When put side-by-side, the lacking elements of the bootleg’s paintwork become painfully apparent and the orange fins look extra-ridiculous.

Black Lotus & Kuroyukihime close-ups

Just a couple of images here, to highlight the issues of the fully-assembled figure.

Upper shot:

Kuroyukihime is supposed to be grabbing at Black Lotus, but her hands are too high on the bootleg, making it look like she’s entirely failing to do so. We’ve also got the painfully-obvious hair seam here.

Front:

The framing of her face doesn’t work as well on the bootleg, and her expression is off. The official has a sad resignation and the bootleg looks… sort of concentrating?
The hair strands on the official hang over the arm blade, but the bootleg’s hair strands are nowhere to be seen here, and sticking up strangely instead. I like the way the official has the hair strands over the blade, adding more depth to the figure as a 3D object, even if it makes assembly a bit more of a pain to ensure you don’t damage these strands (they do have some flex to them, but don’t want to pull at them or rub them against the blade, lest they do eventually mark each other).

Conclusion

Telling the boxes apart is pretty easy – with the different window, it’s easy to spot that it isn’t the same. There’s several clues on the bootleg box that it isn’t the real thing – enough to have vaguely suspicious people question it.
Telling the figures apart is also relatively easy – the paint on Black Lotus gives the most clues that the bootleg isn’t official – the shading is poor and we have incorrect colours – chiefly the orange fins and the silver diamond parts. With Kuroyukihime, it’s harder to tell at a glance, but the poor hair gives it away.
In the case of someone taking this bootleg monstrosity home, it’d become quickly apparent that all was not well when none of the pieces fit together as they should.
In terms of a bootleg, I find this one pretty bad – poor colouration, poor fit and just… poor. You could possibly mod some of the bits into something, but I don’t think it would look good to display. Someone familiar with Black Lotus would likely find the fins silly… or at least I do. Doesn’t fit her at all! The visor is also pretty disappointing and doesn’t uphold the mystique that all the other Black Lotus figures have.
The parts could be interesting for custom figure projects, but as a whole, wouldn’t recommend. Save up for the official one!

And to conclude: The bootleg is indeed Death by Embarrassment!

For those who are already familiar with Accel World (plot spoiler):

Spoiler

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

Looks like bootleg Sinon has slathered on the sun block a bit too thickly and she is very shiny. Paintwork is noticeably mediocre in a couple of spots, but at least she actually stays on the stand.

Figure close-ups

This figure isn’t very complex, so this will likely be one of the shortest Official vs Bootleg articles I will do…
Let’s start with the face, as is traditional:

The bootleg’s face is actually decent, though the eye colour is off. Hair is a similar story – it has similar shading, but the colour is off. The white chequered print suffers though – all of these bits are printed unevenly on the bootleg, with little in the way of alignment.
Looking to her right arm, we can see where the bootleg hasn’t been assembled correctly, leaving a gap between her swimsuit strap and the arm itself.
Looking at her hands, the bootleg’s have ended up slightly out of place, making her pose look a little off.

Side of her head:

And the quality nosedives. The square hair grip(?) in her hair has become a blobby shape on the bootleg. The bootleg’s hair has some blobby, messy paint plus the shading doesn’t extend around to the sides – only the front-facing parts. On the official, the paint shading continues around to the hair tips at the back. The bootleg’s goggles are also sporting some paint mishaps and poor moulding.

Top of her head:

Main feature here is her goggles – the official’s look nice, if not terribly see-through. The bootleg’s are quite badly painted, with the silver all over the place and the inner blue-black layer not being evenly painted, leaving a gap in the paint towards the top.
Her stealth ahoge has also been flattened on the bootleg, whilst her fringe noticeably sticks out on the official.

Armband:

The bootleg’s has been painted very sloppily, leaving a lot of black paint smeared on her arm. We also might have a fingerprint just to the left of the chequered marks. Near this spot we can see where the print didn’t quite align properly and the line doesn’t go into the middle of the chequered square.
The official isn’t flaw-free, but certainly looks a lot nicer than the bootleg to me.

Let’s turn her around a bit:

The poorly-assembled parts on the bootleg show up a lot here, and the way the black paint has been done on the strap makes it stand out more.
The grey paint on the bootleg doesn’t fare much better either – lots of slop on her skin, and a chip in the paint on her bottoms. All the paint is overly shiny here too on the bootleg – most of it is fairly matte on the official.

Her back:

We can see the paint isn’t flawless on the official – but this is fairly normal for a figure at this price point. From this angle, the thinness of the bootleg’s paint on the straps becomes fully apparent – could’ve done with another coat.
Looking at the hair, the moulding isn’t as sharp as the official, which is to be expected of a bootleg. The seam lines are about the same here though.
The bootleg’s legs are not properly inserted either, especially the left.

Flipping her over:

Paint is a bit more all over the place on the bootleg, plus it looking shiny. The bootleg’s left leg looks like it wants to escape the rest of her body.

Bottoms:

The band details are sort of lost to the shiny paint on the bootleg, and both legs are slightly outward, revealing more of her crotch. Official is a bit marred here, but I think the paint is better as it doesn’t have the missing bits at the bottom of the band.

And now we come to the end of Sinon… her feet:

The bootleg’s are slightly different in position, but have otherwise come out well. And a feature unique to the official: a copyright notice, making this the easiest spot to check if it is an official version or not.

Conclusion

As far as the noodle stoppers go, this seems to be one of the better ones – the paint isn’t hideously off, has some shading, and she actually perches on the stand as she should. However, the bootleg is still noticeably inferior if inspected – the shiny plastic does give it away at any distance, and the paint is spilling out badly in various spots. Some parts are assembled incorrectly, leaving noticeable gaps.
For telling the two apart, the shiny skin is fairly obvious, along with the lack of copyright on her foot. Whilst the chequers have some flaws on the official, they are a bit of a mess on the bootleg.