Time for everyone’s favourite slime – Rimuru! He’s survived many things, so let’s see if he survived the bootlegging process!

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥4,444
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥4,732 (£34.34)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £9.90

The official I bought from Nippon Yasan (so much money, so little retailer…)

Box

Front:

There are instantly noticeable differences right out of the gate – no logos at the top, no authenticity sticker and they’ve even removed the “Rimuru” in Japanese as well as the copyright! Looking closer, we can see the white parts on the bootleg box are slightly yellowy and the print quality is poor and grainy.
The “Rimuru” on the bootleg’s plastic may appear to be in the wrong place, but the plastic sheet had fallen off in transit.
Looking into the box the yellow background shines through a lot more clearly on the bootleg.

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: Nendoroid Rimuru (#1067)” →

For this figure, when I got the bootleg I only owned the standard edition. I took photos with the standard edition then a month or two later I ended up buying the deluxe edition. The standard edition I have is sun-damaged to some extent, which you’ll see on some photos. I ended up retaking a good chunk of the comparison photos with the deluxe figure, but there will be a mix.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): Standard: ¥3,800, Deluxe: ¥4,600
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): £32.00
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $16.94 (£14.05)

The official standard edition I bought from eBay, and the special edition from Suruga-ya. Both ended up around the same cost.

Box

Here we have the bootleg as it arrived:

Yup, padding and everything! That was a surprise. Usually bootleg sellers don’t particularly care what condition the box turns up in, but this one was well-protected for the tumultuous journey from China.

OK, now to discard the extra wrappings on the bootleg and get the deluxe edition box out:

A surprising amount of difference is instantly noticeable – no backdrop on the bootleg and the parts are packed in different positions. The face is in the official box but in a separate blister that’s not visible yet (we’ll see it later). For the official Haruyuki ball it is also in a separate blister for the official, whilst the bootleg has these parts integrated into the one blister. This difference can be explained via the official having two variants and the bootleg only one, so makes sense just to make one blister.
And yes, the Haruyuki ball was backwards in the bootleg box when I received it.
Looking at the top-left of the boxes, the bootleg doesn’t have the Wave logo or the Sunrise authenticity sticker.
They did bootleg the special edition sticker, but the print isn’t as dark.

Continue reading “Official vs Bootleg: Wave Beach Queens Kuroyukihime” →

For this one, we have two bootlegs to compare! We have one that is intended as a copy, and another that’s a variant.

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥11,000
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥12,480 (£98.06)
Price I paid for the bootleg copy (inc shipping): £16.00
Price I paid for the bootleg variant (inc shipping): £12.08

The official I preordered from Big in Japan.

Box

Front:

Wow, three very different boxes here! The official goes for a compact box, and the variant also goes for the compact design but with a different window configuration. And the copy… wat. A massive box, with the figure really oddly angled within it. This box came flattened, so wasn’t sure which orientation the blister was designed to fit in it, but neither orientations looked good.
With the variant, we see the text “Summer Dome Sister”… but what the heck is this? Some people are probably shouting the answer at the screen right now, but I had to research it. Turns out it is Kasugano Sora from Yosuga no Sora. I don’t play VNs, so wasn’t a series I was familiar with (nor have I seen/read the related anime/manga). I have seen a couple of her figures floating around before… and that’s the extent of my familiarity. So yeah, they’ve taken Rurudo’s character and modified the head so it has a resemblance to Kasugano Sora, which we’ll see when she’s out the box.
If we look at the top right of the variant box, we also see a white version alongside the red – this white version does exist but I opted for the red version to add some variation to this comparison.
Going back to the copy bootleg – the front of the box borrows the artwork of the official box, albeit blurry and stretched. Thankfully they didn’t try to stretch it up to the full height of the box.

Continue reading “Official vs Bootlegs: Union Creative Koakuma-chan” →