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.

Sides:

The poor print quality persists here, and the “Nendoroid” text from the bottom has been removed.

Back:

They have been a lot less ruthless with the removing on the back surprisingly – even going so far as leaving a Good Smile Company logo in the bottom right. They’ve just removed the block that refers to GSC support – good – as you won’t be getting it for this bootleg!

Top and bottom:

Both of these ends have had their logos removed. Rimuru gets to keep his Japanese name on the bottom of the box. They have also kept the correct barcode.

A peek into the boxes:

Now we get to see why the bootleg background was so dayglo – the inner of the box is a very bright yellow all the way around.
The official box has a slightly less bright liner:

Blister:

Not too dissimilar, though the mask is upside down in my bootleg copy, and one of Rimuru’s hands plus the yakitori is making a break for it. And bootleg slime Rimuru is too embarrassed to show his face.

In conclusion, if you have the box to look at it’s going to be very apparent if it is a bootleg copy – the bootleg box feels suspiciously blank and is noticeably poor quality.

Accessories

Well, he’s got a few of these to get through! Let’s start with the packaging:

OK, my official one isn’t packed as it was – the little pockets at the top contained the arms in the grip seal baggie I’ve used to contain the bits whilst in my drawer storage. However the bootleg has chosen to go for a single bag for everything, just letting it rattle around.

Well, with all these bits plus the ones in the front of the blister I think I’m going to need some instructions:

Bootleg actually comes with a copy – slightly lighter but otherwise unedited.
OK, I can’t do Japanese, let’s try the other side:

Aha! With the official instructions I’m in luck… bootleg not so much. We just have a repeat of the Japanese instructions. Not so useful.

OK, let’s get onto the various bits we have!

Extra faces:

The colour differences are immediately apparent, especially the skin colour. The bootleg is much more pinkish in shade. The bootleg colours on the prints are largely darker than their official counterparts, plus there is some misalignment with the print layers. We can especially see this with the dark grey at the top of the eyes. The thin lines have been bulked up on the bootleg giving the whole thing a less delicate appearance.
We also have the “bootleg red” thing going on where the red lining of the lips and the embarrassment lines look more like wounds than what they’re supposed to.

Back of the faces:

Oof, a bit of a moulding disaster in the bootleg faces. Lots of excess plastic and looking a bit deformed in places.

Bottom of the faces:

As is common with bootleg nendos (for some reason), the bootlegs have changed the neck joint. Not entirely sure why they do this, but we have a peg hole on the bottom of the face parts instead of a slot.

Head deconstructed:

Apparently I mixed up the faces when taking these photos. Not sure how I managed that!
With the hair sculpts, we can see that the bootleg is an inferior match of the official. Interestingly, for the official we have a bit of overspray whilst the bootleg is fully painted. The full paint does look more aesthetically pleasing, but I expect the official doesn’t do this to ensure a consistent fit.

Mask:

From the front, the bootleg doesn’t look too dissimilar – a little messy with the red paint, but the black lines aren’t significantly off. If the masks weren’t side by side, the bootleg would look decent.
On the back we have a misshapen peg and some mould marks on the bootleg. The bootleg mask also doesn’t have the same sheen as the official.

Arms & spare joint:

The dark blue paint on the bootleg arms feels kind of… crusty. A lot of the detail has been lost on the cuffs and the paint isn’t as precise.
With the joint, we can see the bootleg lacks the Goodsmile smile – this is why the joint is a good place to check for bootlegginess – it’s usually missing or poorly replicated on bootlegs.

Takoyaki hand:

The bootleg takoyaki hand isn’t too bad barring the incorrect skin colour – the takoyaki itself retains most of the texture but does have a bit of excess plastic that you can see when up close. Also a bit more paint spillage.

Wings:

The paint is somewhat flawed on my official copy, but the bootleg has shaky linework making it not good either. The linework on the back of the wings on the bootleg is especially bad, making it the inferior copy.
Also the pegs for the bootleg wings… Note how awful those look. Yep, those awful pegs will haunt me later.

Sword:

The bootleg sword is fractionally smaller and has a more rounded tip. We also see some difference between the diamonds on the hilt. Not too bad for a bootleg.

Sheathed sword:

The bootleg sheathed sword has a serious bend to it just above the hilt. The gold paint is also a bit more brassy. Again, we have the bootleg peg painted whist the official isn’t.

Fire:

This is another piece where if they weren’t side by side it would be much harder to pick out the bootleg. The bootleg fire is a bit blobbier in places, and doesn’t have as nice a colour transition. Looking from the bottom, we can see there’s less colouring to the bootleg one. The bootleg fire doesn’t curve as much, but doesn’t seem to have any issues standing up.

Rimuru as a slime:

The bootleg slime is noticeably darker and has a lot of flaws on the surface of the plastic. Under less bright lighting this would be less noticeable but as soon as the light catches it the lines show up.
And his face is wonky on the bootleg…
It’s not the worst-looking thing, but does look pretty bad next to the official.

Whew, that was a lot of pieces! Overall, the accessories are a mixed bag – some of the bootleg ones aren’t too bad, others like the wings are noticeably inferior. And we’ll get onto those wings later…

Base

The bootleg base is clear instead of translucent – common downgrade with bootleg bases. We also lack the copyright text of the official.

Stand arm:

Again, the arm is cast in a clearer plastic on the bootleg. We also have some extra plastic on the bootleg where it escaped the mould and wasn’t cleaned off after.
The bootleg stand arm also doesn’t disassemble into two pieces like the official, so you can’t repurpose it for a Nendoroid with a different peg. Or replace the peg part if it breaks.

Spin-around

Hm, looking like a derpier version of the original. The scarf stands out as particularly globby, along with the poor paintwork on the hair. Looking at the sides, we can see where the parts fit poorly on the bootleg.

Accessory test

From the way I did this photoshoot many moons ago, for the close-ups portion I seem to have decided just to do accessory tests. So this will focus on trying out the accessories. We’ve seen most of the detail in the accessories section, so there wouldn’t be much to cover.

Fresh outta the box:

Hm, the bootleg’s head appears to be making a break for it, and the wings are looking somewhat sad.

Let’s get them onto the stands:

Fdunk. Yeah, the bootleg stand isn’t very good, and Rimuru will fall off it easily. So if you see bootleg Rimuru lying slightly backwards in some shots, this is why.

Back holes:

Looking very similar to the official here as far as the holes go. So that’s good.
The scarf looks kind of terrible to me on the bootleg – bent all over the place, poor seams, bend out of shape and looking a dirty shade.
Looking at his coat, the lines and edges aren’t as clean as the official either. The plastic is also warped at the bottom of the coat, making it look cheap.

Let’s try these back holes out:

Well, the sword is in, but on the bootleg I had to use the stand creatively to get it to work… Notice how one of the bootleg wings is missing- they didn’t stay in very well, and at this point I wasn’t even sure if I’d get two wings to stay in on the bootleg… but after a fair amount of persistence, I did.

Let’s try out a bootleg faceplace swap:

Well, that works at least, even if it does look somewhat scary. Dark red lines really don’t work.

Rimuru holding Rimuru:

…or on further attempts, Rimuru not holding Rimuru. The fit of the right arm and the left hand are so loose that it just drops off when you attempt to pose him with the slime.
The official fits nicely – no issues there, but the bootleg is a waste of time without actually doing something to make the joints fit the holes better. The left hand is particularly loose, so this isn’t the only photo with a missing left hand.

OK, let’s try the mask:

Ahhh… aha, ha. The bootleggers have glued the hair strand in that’s supposed to come out for the mask to slot in. So that’s a waste of an accessory for the bootleg. Best you can do here is balance on his head or something.
Also we can see the bootleg wings doing whatever the frick they feel like. Ugh, they were so annoying.

OK, the yakitori, that works right?

Thankfully yes! Something that works on this stupid piece of junk!

Time for some head replacement:

As is fairly common for some reason, the bootleg heads have been modified to be a simple ball joint and hole instead of following GSC’s “chin” style of head connector. I guess it reduces the moulds needed to make it, but seems strange to me they bother to change this. For this reason, the bootleg’s faceplates aren’t compatible with the official.

Let’s do a face swap anyway, with just the head:

It kind of works, not that there’s much point to doing so. You’re left with significant gappage on the bootleg hair and an empty hole on the bottom, so nothing would attach. A fun, if ultimately pointless experiment.

Conclusion

As far as avoiding this bootleg, it should be relatively easy to do so. If there’s a box, the bootleg’s is distinctly incorrect so easy to see at a glance. Without the box, the poor hair paint stands out. The extra-clear base is also a giveaway. Other than that, looking at the wing and sword connectors can give distinct clues, as well as the head connection.
In terms of a bootleg, I’d regard it as awful – don’t bother with even for cheap. The bits don’t fit together well, the paint is somewhat terrible and he looks kinda cheap.
Some of the small pieces you could potentially get away with as replacements for the original, but the faceplaces and wings would be useless.
Overall, I’m glad he’s resigned to the Box of Bootleg.