This figure is the first one chosen by user vote! This figure was voted for by GerardHaZ and dtindcarea.
Partly surprised this wasn’t one of the bootlegs I chose for myself, as it was one I was curious as to how the bootleg compared to the real thing many moons ago. However, the real thing can be had pretty cheaply, with the postage likely costing more than the figure itself due to the box’s large size.

Whilst writing this blog, I ended up doing some more research on bootlegs for this figure – there appears to be at least three different bootlegs. One version is shown in the MFC gallery, featuring a box claiming the figure was made by Max Factory. There’s a second version which appears to be a run-of-the-mill bootleg, which looks more prize figure than scale, but comes with a box that’s pretty much a match for the official:

Note the unfinished green lines on her top, shiny hair and face plus seam marks as far as the eye can see.

And then there is the version I got. Which… well, you’ll see!

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥8,381
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥8,670 (£48.42)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £24.58

I bought the official version from AmiAmi preowned.

Box

Let’s get the boxes lined up for display…

Ah, hm, OK, time to do some unpacking! Though credit to the seller on this one – it’s probably the least bashed-up bootleg box I’ve got to date!

Size comparison:

The box for this figure is quite chunky, so here’s one photo of them both in the same shot, showing that the bootleg box is actually slightly shorter than the official.

Front:

The box design of the bootleg has been to be made to be close to the official, but without key graphics in some kind of attempt to avoid copyright infringement. The Goodsmile Racing logo is missing from both the top right corner of the box and the window. We’re also missing the copyright line in the bottom left. The blocks of colour at the top of the box are noticeably thinner than the official, and didn’t quite survive the resizing process intact.
The rest of the front is a copy of the original, only poorly printed – the colours have come out much darker and there’s a bunch of artefacting going on, especially noticeable in her hair.
And we can already see these figures aren’t going to be a match…

Sides:

A fairly similar story as to the front, but here we can see the poorly done edit job that has been done to remove the logos – looks like they’ve just grabbed the paintbrush tool and scrawled over the logo in white, leaving an oddly fuzzy edge to what’s supposed to be an ovalish sort of shape.

Back:

Here the bad print job on the bootleg is pretty apparent. The darker areas have lost significant amount of details, and gives the photos an overall odd quality. Again, the Goodsmile Racing logo has been removed, from the lower part of the box. And they were too lazy to draw the gridline back in.
Several chunks of the lower box text have been taken out, where it refers to GSC and being intended for sale in Japan only. To not leave huge white gaps, they’ve rearranged what was left to mostly fill out the space. As this is an edited copy of the original box, the barcode matches with the official one.
My official has an AmiAmi preowned sticker on it – they have their own control codes to keep track of their stock, so if you see a sticker very similar to the one to the bottom right of the official box, it’s just AmiAmi’s way of keeping track of stock. The “[中古]” at the start of the label text is “preowned”, and you can see the figure grade of A and the box grade of B.
OK, not here to talk about AmiAmi’s labelling process, so onto the next side of the box.

Top:

Another missing logo, another mediocre edit job. Not much to really notice up here, other than that hot pink bar at the top.
Oh, and this:

It actually has a round piece of tape – but just the one, whilst the official has three. And it’s the cheapest, thinnest bit of tape you ever did see. If you’ve ever picked off or cut through GSC’s round circle dots, you’d know that this was not it.

Bottom:

Yep, no Goodsmile Racing logo here either. Boxes look pretty similar other than that, albeit with a colour difference.

Let’s have a little look in the box:

Here we have one of the smaller things that the bootleggers will cheap out on – the amount of glue used to adhere the plastic window to the box. The official one is glued down on the outer edge as well as around the window itself, the bootleg only around the window. This has led to the plastic not lying flat, and will catch on the blister as it is pulled out.
The flap design is also slightly different on the bootleg – the triangular parts at the bottom of the box come much closer to the lower flap than they do on the original.

This box also featured a liner for both the official and bootleg:

For scales, sometimes the bootleggers will actually copy the official inlay. For this one, we also get an edit – they have actually drawn in the gridlines (though some are not level with the ones they’re supposed to join up with), but didn’t bother to complete the swooshes, making it look incomplete. This is mostly hidden by the figure in the box though, so by the time you get it out the bootleggers probably don’t care if you notice this.
The bootleg liner is also much lighter and less vivid in colour. The shapes are a match though, so if it wasn’t for the missing logo they would be relatively hard to tell apart.

One more “sneak peak” of the figure, before we take her out of the blister:

The blisters feel very different to the touch. The bootleg blister has little rigidity to it and will scrunch up easily. Even with the extra padding the seller added, the bootleg blister has become partially deformed. The flimsiness of the bootleg blister does actually make it harder to pull out of the box.
The official figure is likely a fair bit older than the bootleg (and has been out of the box more times), yet the official blister stays in shape nicely.

Accessories

None, really. But there are a couple of things I want to add here.
First is the official comes with a little warnings sheet, which the bootleg doesn’t come with:

And the official comes apart like so:

Which allows you to display her without her skirt:

Which means you can treat it as an accessory if you wish to. The bootleg I tried very hard to take apart, but it wasn’t going. I tried just tugging relatively gently before I did the photoshoot, but after the photoshoot I tried heating up her torso a bunch and tugging on it very hard, and it’s definitely glued (didn’t want to do this before the photoshoot just in case I ended up with a very broken figure). The skirt is the same mould as the official, so it sits loosely on her, but there’s no way of taking it off easily.

Base

Top of the bases:

Overall, very similar. The bootleg is more creamy in colour, and misses the patterning in the blocks of colour (most noticeable in the rings to the right of the base).
The green teardrop to the right of the foot pegs is a solid colour on the bootleg, whilst the official one shows the colours underneath. There is also a teardrop towards the top right that is purple on the official and blue on the bootleg (on top of the pink blob).
There are colour differences throughout, but that is probably the main, most easily visible ones.

Bootleg base pegs:

Even before I’ve assembled the figure, there’s seemingly paint transfer on the bootleg pegs. No idea where the green paint has come from – could possibly be stray paint in the factory. I don’t think the figure would have rubbed up against the base, especially for the lower peg.
Also the longer bootleg peg didn’t survive disassembly – I needed to take the figure off the base for another base photo, and the upper part of the peg has started to snap – one more disassembly and it will likely break right through. The official has been taken off its base a few times (usually for cleaning) and the pegs are still holding strong.

Underneath:

Here we can see the distinct difference in plastic colour. Here we have a slightly different mould mark on the underside of where the foot pegs fit in.

Copyright:

For all the removing of the logos on the box, they’ve left the copyright on the base.

Size comparison:

Seem to be identical in size. Can also see where the bootleg is a bit rough on the edge and more stray paint (yellow spot towards the left of the photo).

If they weren’t side-by-side, it would be easy to not recognise the bootleg base as bootleg. However, I wouldn’t recommend mixing them up as the plastic on the foot peg is weaker, and may snap inside your figure.

Figure spin-around

Let’s look at this beauty!

The first thing that sticks out to me is the off colouring of the bootleg’s hair – the middle is starkly an off-green colour for Miku. And her outfit is mostly silver instead of pearly light grey.
With her head pointing down and the lean, it feels like bootleg Miku is captured in the moment of falling over. Though she managed to stay upright for this photoshoot!

Figure close-ups

Face:

That hair… The bootleg’s hair colour is completely off, and shows off an extra seam line. We also have lots of extra bits of plastic that haven’t been cut off.
The bootleg’s crown has been painted in white, which is odd given most of the bootleg’s outfit is silver. For the official, it’s the same pearly white/grey as the rest of her outfit.
The prints on the eyes seem to be the same pattern, but the colours differ, so this part looks fine.
The inner mouth on the bootleg is lighter – probably could do with being less neon, but isn’t too bad. Also her teeth are painted neatly, which is sort of rare for a bootleg.

Headset:

Before we look at the headset she’s wearing… that hair seam on the top of the bootleg’s head is distracting me. Not only is it gapping, we seem to have some glue or something in there that’s given it a yellow line.
OK… headset… The paint is much messier and less precise – the purple paint at the top of the headset doesn’t follow the lines it is supposed to, the part that joins the ring to the earphone hasn’t been painted, and we’re missing some grey shading and the grey dot on the earphone itself.
The headphone on the official has a translucent-y back, but the bootleg just has a paint blob, giving more detail to the official. The bootleg headset is finished off with some purple paint thrust at the back of the mic, leaving it only vaguely in the right spot.
From this angle, we can also see how the bootleg’s skin and hair is shiny.

Top of her head:

The main seam line is definitely rougher on the bootleg, and we have that mint-green hair going on. The rings around her hair have some very visible seam lines on the bootleg, which aren’t very apparent on the official. The paint shading on the bootleg has a lot more variation in colour, which isn’t bad in of itself, but it goes a few shades too light, which really doesn’t help the off colouring.

Hair ends:

For this part, the official has more colour depth, and has a matte finish. The bootleg is shiny and has a fair amount of excess plastic, especially on a couple of the hair tips. The hair is also more bunched up on the bootleg and less liable to keep its shape due to the plastic used.
If we look just above the bootleg’s hand, we can see where the moulding has gotten quite dodgy, where the “stray” strand connects to the main strand.

Hair strands from another angle:

For this part, the lack of shading on the bootleg hair is very apparent. We also get to see very easily where the joins are in the hair. With the official, the joins do show in places, but it isn’t too bad imo. We can also see where the back hair strand has been scrunched in on the bootleg, instead of flowing free as it should.

Chest:

And here we have the super-silver outfit! Where the top is a pearly white on the official, we have silver on the bootleg. The moulding here is awful on the bootleg – all the edges have lost their shape, and the details have gone wonky and misshapen. The worst parts for this are the triangle window on her chest and the black part at the bottom of her top.
The painted details on the bootleg’s top are mostly correct, though we are missing the black lines through the centre. Probably a good thing though, given the messiness of the paint in general on this figure.
The transfer/stamp for the logo on the bootleg is terrible, and is barely legible as a result. Certainly not the finest reproduction here.
Next noticeable element is her tie – the painting on the top part of it has been done OK, but the tie itself is opaque on the bootleg instead of the translucent of the official, as well as having a poor moulding job.
Then comes the “vest”. Not sure what to call this, but I’m going to stick with vest for this review. The design has many lines – the bane of many bootlegs, and indeed here we have the sloppy paint job as can be expected of a bootleg. The sheer parts have been painted on the bootleg, so it doesn’t look super-odd.
Lastly, we have her skin – the lack of contrast between the sheer parts of the vest and her skin on the bootleg show how bootleg Miku is more tanned than she should be – Miku is usually portrayed as being very pale.

Side:

Here we can really admire that terrible logo and poor green linework on the bootleg. We also might have a clue here why the moulding on the top is so bad – it looks like they’ve reproduced it as the moulds join in different places – the official we can see a mould line on the strap (next to the purple part) whilst the bootleg’s join is on the cup.
The seamline on the body is also in a slightly different place – if you look just above the skirt on the official, you’ll see the mould line close to the green line on the vest, whilst it is a lot further away on the bootleg.

Back:

Viewing her from the back, the hair on the bootleg looks super-weird due to the difference in colour between the hair on the back of her head and her pigtails. The hair tufts at the bottom of her hair are also pointing upwards a bit more.
With her hand, it is pointing more upwards on the bootleg than it should be, and the bootleg’s nails aren’t painted well. We’re also missing the green detail at the top of her sleeve.
The back of bootleg’s outfit is interesting – the top bit has been painted silver, but the lower detail has been inexplicably painted white. What they painted white and what was painted silver on this bootleg figure seems very inconsistent.
For the lower detail (fastener?) we’re missing the glossy part in the middle of it, and it is thinner and taller than it should be, giving it a more oval appearance.
The green linework here isn’t as blobby on the bootleg as it is on the front and sides. Still not great though.

Skirt:

Yeesh. Where to start with this one? Colours? Completely off. Apart for maybe the green lines at the edge of the skirt. For some reason the circular “button” details here are a different green on the bootleg, whilst it’s a matching “Miku green” on the official (and glossy).
The centre of the upper part of the bootleg skirt is easily the worst part of this – the paint is awful, the green border is missing and the moulding is terrible. If I had to display this bootleg, honestly it’d be tempting to snip off this skirt due to it being so poor (and it doesn’t come off like it should). The lower lines are very roughly done, and incorrect. The upper lines are too thin and the joining lines do not match the official at all – there are 3 where there should be 2 and none joining this part to the skirt hem. And talking about the hem, the green paint here has been applied very haphazardly.
Again, the logo here has been poorly reproduced, but at least the main part of the logo is legible.
The silver paint has been oversprayed on one side, but not enough on the other side. Well, it evens out to a proper paint job…?

Side of the skirt:

Here we can really admire that overspray on the bootleg, and we also have a seam line not present on the official. The official has some overpainting in parts, but it’s nothing compared to the sheer messiness of the bootleg in the respective areas.

Back of the skirt:

Here, the green linework on the bootleg is actually close to prize-figure levels of messy. Instead of “wouldn’t pass prize figure QC” levels of messy. The dark green paint and the black paint is a fail here on the bootleg – very poorly done. Official is looking neat and tidy though!

Left arm:

And we’re back to the closer shade of paint to the official here… In terms of raw colour, this isn’t actually a bad match for the official, so it’s a bit strange why they made certain parts of her clothing silver. Though that’s about the only positive for the bootleg’s paint in this area.
So, missing paint details on the bootleg: Green part at the top of her sleeve, green button on the cuff, lack of shading on the sleeve and the black rings on the glove. The bootleggers obviously noticed a shade change between her sleeve and her glove, but this has been replicated by the glove being a different colour instead of replicating the shading that it is supposed to be. The glove paint on the bootleg didn’t make it all the way up the gloves, leaving her with mutant hands.
Lastly for the paint, it looks like bootleg Miku dipped her fingers in the nail polish instead of y’know… painting her nails. Does look quite funny from certain angles.
Again, the seams are very visible on the bootleg. Official, you can see a bit of a seam on her hand if you look closely.

Hand:

Here we can appreciate the details that went into the official – with the shading and the small details being painted neatly.
And then we have mutant-hand Miku dabbing in the nail polish.
The cuff on the bootleg’s glove has also been moulded poorly, and feels like the button is more on top of her wrist rather than to the side.

Top of the boots:

For the purple/grey detail, the bootleg has lost the middle grey bit. Probably not a bad thing for the bootleg, given the poor paint overall. Again, the green paint is messy and we also have the grey paint on the main part of the boot bleeding into the white.

Legs:

We’ve got some attempt here of matching the shiny finish of the official’s outfit here, but it doesn’t live up the the pearly finish of the official. The pearly finish was one of the things that attracted me to getting this particular Miku.
Paint is also messy here on the bootleg – most apparent in in the green areas from these angles.
From the back, we also get a lovely seam line to look at on the bootleg.
For the official, we have a couple of zippers swinging out from the boot, on the bootleg these have been flattened up against the boot.

Closer shot of one of the feet showing the worst of the paint here:

Paint slop and scrapage. What more could you ask for? Oh yeah, the seam line.

Back of the legs:

The bootleg has some very bad overspray on her right leg, very much covering the white area of the boot. We can also see how she’s not posed right, which is why she leans funny when assembled.
Her panties are a darker grey than the official’s – not that you’ll be seeing them much seeing as the skirt isn’t removable. We’re also missing most of the green linework – only the top band has been painted here.
At the top of the boots we have yet more messy paint and the purple line details are missing.

Foot:

Finally down to the bottom of the figure! Paint is messy here, but at least we have all the details. Here we can see the stand for her foot isn’t quite the same shape as the other, also contributing to her standing funny. I didn’t quiiite get her to the bottom of the stand pegs for the detail shots, but in the spin-around, you can see how much she faces the floor when properly on the peg (I had to redo one of the base shots – usually I’ll do base and accessory shots first, but I realised one of my base shots was done incorrectly after I did the spin-around shots. Which lead to the bootleg’s foot peg nearly shearing off).

Conclusion

This bootleg is straight-up bad. Even in the box, you can tell there’s something not quite right, thanks to the hair, and potentially the logo on her top if you’re looking closely. The overall quality and appearance is poor – her pose has been messed up, some parts are poorly moulded and the paint is messy. Also only certain parts of her clothing have been changed to a silver colour, which looks kind of odd as some of her outfit is still white/grey.
In terms of differentiating this one from the official… the outer box is clearly missing logos (especially the one on the plastic), and the figure having different coloured hair and outfit make it stand out as not the real thing. There does seem to be a bootleg out there that is closer to the real thing, so to watch out for that one, look for the shiny hair and poor paint.
Would I think someone who buys bootlegs would be happy with this one? No, not really. Definitely wouldn’t recommend this version of the figure – it’s like a bootleg of a bootleg. The official one comes up reasonably often secondhand, so I’d recommend getting that and eating it on the shipping. One of the other bootlegs may have been worth it for a “prize tier” version of her, but this one is not.

I promised another Q Posket blog, and here it is! The figure I bought at the same time as Catwoman was Harley Quinn.

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing
MSRP (without tax) – prize figures do not have an MSRP
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥2,439 (£14.71)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $4.49 (£3.47)

The official figure I bought unopened from Mandarake.

Accessory

This figure comes with Harley’s hammer, so let’s look at that first.

Top:

First thing that is immediately noticeable is the bootleg hammer is smaller – it is smaller in all dimensions, but the shorter handle is the most noticeable.
The bootleg has lighter coloured silver paint and a free dent on the head of the hammer. The shaft on the bootleg is a darker shade of brown and has a bit of excess plastic still attached.

Bottom:

The underside on both can be told by the inserted plastic piece which leaves a seam on this side of the hammer head. Other than the seam, there aren’t any notable flaws on the official. For the bootleg though, the head of the hammer is very rough in places and my copy has a slop of paint in the middle of the flat surface. We’ve also got a couple of marks from the moulding process. Well, at least the bootleggers had the foresight to face these towards the back.

Edge:

This time we have a defect on the official – part of the paint has been scraped off of the hammer, probably in transit. The paint is a lot smoother though than the bootleg, which has a bunch of knobbly marks from manufacture.

Base

Top:

The official has the Q Posket logo and the bootleg has… nothing! The edging on the bootleg is much deeper on the bootleg, which is a bit of a trend reversal for moulding on bootleg figures. Can’t say it’s an improvement though. The bootleg base is also shinier than its official counterpart.
The bootleg base also has a very strange feature – a second hole. I have no idea why this is here, and it isn’t used for this figure, even in bootlegger’s photos of it. I do wonder if this is a previously bootlegged base that just happened to work for this figure or if it was an unintentional mistake when “designing” the base for production. If you’re wondering if the hammer can stand in the hole – the answer is no. Hole is far too big and top-heavy for that to work. Maybe if you stuffed some tack in it?
Both stands have pegs for her feet – both figures work fine on their respective bases.

Bottom:

The official has a copyright mark, but interestingly only for Banpresto and not DC on this one.
Here you can clearly see the one peg hole on the official and the two on the bootleg. The bootleg also has a number “2” marking. I know Bandai has used numeral markings like this on trading figures to ensure parts stay grouped properly (all parts of a trading figure may have small numbers on them to denote what they belong to). This makes me wonder if this is a bootleg of an older Q Posket base, but these two were my first Q Poskets so I don’t have any of the older ones to compare.

These two bases would be hard to mix up. No Q Posket? Not a Q Posket.

Figure spin-around

First thing to note – no, your eyes don’t deceive you – the bootleg has indeed been scaled down. This is why the hammer is smaller than the official – so it would fit this scaled down version of Harley. After the Catwoman Q Posket, it was a surprise to find this one was scaled down, especially for the tiny bit more it cost.
Also looks like the bootleggers only had some version of the figure to work off of – for the figure’s support they’ve gone for an inverted-L shaped post that pegs into the back of the figure, whilst Banpresto has gone for supporting her by the head. For me, the different support options have pros and cons – the hair stand type means you don’t have a hole in the figure, but the figure can be more unstable (though this is mostly alleviated by the foot pegs). The L-shaped stands tend to be better for stability and you can see more of the figure from the back, but you do have a hole in the figure to make the stand work.

Figure close-ups

Before I could photograph the figures I had to repair the bootleg:

She wasn’t packaged very well from the seller – not uncommon for figures from China – so her hair snapped in transit. A tiny bit of superglue and time to dry, and she’s ready to go.

Face:

Bootleg Harley’s been a bit heavy on the rouge, and has quite orange cheeks. She also has the appearance of being sweaty, thanks to the shiny plastic. The bootleg has fuller lips – I think the thinner lips suit her more, but they aren’t bad in of themselves.
The colours in the official’s eyes make the highlights more subtle than the highly contrasting lines in the bootleg’s iris. We’ve also got some actual shine on the official’s eyes that the bootleg lacks.
Most of the moulding is pretty much identical on the bootleg, but some has been lost on the strands of blue hair from her ponytail.
Overall, the paint on the bootleg’s face has actually been applied well, though giving her cheeks less highlight would improve it. If you’re familiar with these figures, the lack of shiny eyes would give away pretty quickly you’re looking at a bootleg.

Back of her head:

Again, the bootleg has a shinier finish back here. Neither figure has a perfect hairline back here, and both leak some of the hair colour over to the other half. The official has the blue extending slightly into the red, and the bootleg is mostly the opposite.

Neck:

Didn’t quite get the bootleg in focus here, sorry!
Honestly, I think both collars here could use some work, though at least for the official her neck hasn’t turned into full collar. The official I find a bit rough-looking and lumpy. The bootleg avoids that, but the finish makes it a bit like she’s wearing a jelly mould or something.
We can also see where the bootleggers haven’t tidied up the seam down here. Also the neck has a pointless recess for some reason, not sure what that’s about.

Chest:

OK, let’s start with the good – I like the ring on the official’s collar. The bootleg’s isn’t as nice but does the job.
Now onto the bodice – my official has a bunch of stray blue paint, and honestly, the painting feels rushed here. From a distance it doesn’t look too bad, but that stray red paint above the laces should really not be there. The difference in the body colour and the “skin” on the bodice looks OK at a distance, but if you’re holding the figure it does take on an odd appearance as it isn’t an exact match.
So let’s take a bit that looks a bit “eh”, and bootleg it… The black paint is a bit more of a mess, and that stupid red line is still there. The blue and red badly overlap on her right hand side, and the blue isn’t staying within the lines on her left. They’ve also used a white instead of an off-white making the bodice even more strange when looked at closely.

Legs:

Just above the bootleg’s belt we start off with a dot of stray red paint.
The official’s paint on the belt is a neater job that the bootleg, but the bootleg isn’t too far off. Both have minor paint flaws on the hot pants, and personally I prefer the way the bootleg’s holster straps were painted.
The tops of her stockings are rougher on the bootleg and we have stray red paint down the front the bootleg’s blue stocking. The ankle bands are much more neatly painted on the official, but we have paint spillage on both of the bootleg’s and official’s right foot.
The moulding is pretty bad on the sole of the bootleg’s right shoe – looks a bit like her sole’s falling apart.

Feet:

The official wins hands down here – the paint is much neater and thicker on the official, keeping the contrast between the colours.

Top of the cape:

My official one has a bit of stray blue paint – not so great. The shade of red is better on the official imo, but there really isn’t a lot in it. The bootleg’s cape isn’t free of flaws either – and there’s a small “nibble” on the edge of the cape.

Underside of the cape:

Yep, both blue down here. We can see the edge of the bootleg cape is a bit rough and the bottom is a bit shinier. Again, nothing major.

Conclusion

Looking at just the figures, they would be a bit hard to tell apart without them next to each other. However, if you’re familiar with the official figure, then the lack of shiny eyes would be a clue, along with the slightly shiny face.
With the base, it acts as a dead giveaway – the bootleg lacks the “Q Posket” branding, and has an extra hole for no apparent reason. Also the figure has a different stand type, so that would be an easy difference to pick up on.
Could this bootleg be recommended to someone who buys bootlegs? I’d say yes, as she’d still look cute on a shelf. She currently goes for ¥1,200 on Mandarake, which isn’t super-expensive, but the bootleg is stupidly cheap. Does come with a free plastic-y scent though which the official doesn’t have.
If you’re wondering why there was no headswap in this blog – that’s because I can’t. The head pegs don’t work either way around, so I’m afraid there’s no silly headswap pics. Would’ve looked funny with the different scales, oh well.

oday’s blog features Q Posket Catwoman. As this is a small figure without any box or accessories, there will be a “bonus” blog next week featuring another Q Posket bootleg I ordered at the same time.

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing
MSRP (without tax) – prize figures do not have an MSRP
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥2,393 (£13.00)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $3.77 (£2.93)

The official I bought unopened from Mandarake.

I ordered this bootleg as I was curious what I would get for the princely sum of £3. These small figures are usually sold without boxes in multilistings, so I decided to grab two and see how they turned out.

Base

Top:

The bases from the top are very similar, with the holes and the logos in the same place. The writing is thicker on the bootleg, and came pre-dusty. The “Q” looks copied, then for the “posket” the bootleggers have seemingly picked a font they thought was similar enough. It isn’t very similar though – the characters are thicker and lack serifs (the sticky-out bits at the ends of letters).
The leaf pattern around the edges matches with the official, which is a mild surprise given the half-arsed font match on the top of the base.

Bottom:

As is typical, the official has copyright markings and the bootleg has nothing. The construction also slightly differs between the two – the peg holders on the official are one solid piece with the base but on the bootleg we have a part inserted to form the bottom of the pegholders.

Overall, the bases are very similar. There are two tells here – no copyright on the base, and the incorrect font on the top of the base. So if you see these displayed at a con unboxed, the easiest trick of inverting it to look for copyright notices holds strong (n.b. if there is no copyright for a Q Posket on the bottom, this is a surefire tell of a bootleg, however the inverse doesn’t 100% prove it is official, as in some cases bootleggers will do their best to duplicate everything).

Figure spin-around

Not too dissimilar with each other. The main things that stick out for me is the more transparent goggles on the bootleg and much more skin visible as you rotate the figure. We’ve also got variations in the finishes, where the bootleg is duller in some spots but shinier in others.
Oh, and the zipper. For some reason on my official, this now has a tendency to point straight out. It is flexible though, so it can be pushed down more into the intended position.

Figure close-ups

Face:

The masked part of the bootleg’s head is less shiny than the official, which can be seen via the window reflected on her forehead.
Going to skip the goggle lenses for a sec – on the bottom of her goggles is a bit of silver plastic sticking out… resisting urge to go snip it. The silvery parts of her goggles are quite rough-edged when looked at up close. The official holds up well, even getting this up close and personal with it.
OK, back to those lenses. The tint is much better on the official and looks more in line with how Catwoman should be. The yellow on the bootleg isn’t strong enough and doesn’t give off the luminous yellow/orange vibe that Catwoman’s goggles should have.
Comparing the eyes on the figures, her left eye is markedly different and the iris & pupil are up much higher on the bootleg than the official’s. The lower parts of her eye are also off on their own journey, leaving some skin in her eye area and the lashes in the incorrect position. When not looked at up close, the defects in the eyes aren’t too distracting though.
Underneath her left eye, we also have some paint damage which is definitely visible at a distance and looks quite offputting. Catwoman isn’t usually in the habit of having her face marred, so it looks quite odd.
The lipstick is pretty solid for a bootleg, though we do have some stray lippy going just above her lips. Official Catwoman has gone for a matte lipstick, whilst the bootleg has gone for a glossy look.

Neck & chest area:

OK, I think the obvious place to start here is… what’s happened with her chest?! The bootleg has been very much incorrectly assembled, and the chest area has been placed kind of on top of the jacket instead of recessed into it. To complete the mutant look, we have some yellowy skin paint slopped thickly over it. From the front, it’s harder to spot the error, but some angles look hilariously bad as it sticks over her collar.
Her collar has curled over more on the bootleg, and her zipper is in a flat, fixed position. The zipper pull on the bootleg can’t be moved without breaking it.
The zipper itself has lost a chunk of the moulding detail on the bootleg and doesn’t look as nice as the official, however the paint is correctly placed on both the official and bootleg.
Lastly, we have some glue slop on her jacket over her boobs, probably from attempting to glue the chest part in completely the wrong place.

Butt:

Here we have more matte on the official and shiny on the bootleg. The official isn’t free of flaws, and we see some hairline markings in the plastic. However, the bootleg suffers much worse in this regard and has what looks like quite a scratched-up posterior when looked at up close. What is more visible to the naked eye though is the scratched paint that’s missing from her right buttcheek. That doesn’t look so good.
I think bootleg Catwoman got her catsuit from AliExpress, whilst the official Catwoman got hers from a much more quality store.

Feet:

Pretty similar here, and the paint on her buckles is neat on both the bootleg and the official. The official we do have a little bit of flesh colour poking out – let’s take a closer look at that.

Pegs:

Honestly, this is one part where the bootleg I think is slightly better – having the black pegs means that the flesh colour can’t stick out by mistake. On the official, it’s supposed to let you know when you’ve shoved the pegs in fully, but it’s a bit awkward (at least on mine) which leaves a bit of a line visible on my official. It’s not a huge deal to me though.

OK, let’s pop her head off:

This figure starts of as three separate parts – head, body and base, which is typical for Q Poskets so her head is removable.
The bootleg’s collar has been painted not very well at all – the black paint isn’t dedicated to be either on the outward facing side or all the way over the top, as per the official. We’re missing some of the black paint on the bottom of the collar on the bootleg too, which ruins the look of the collar. Whoever was doing silver paint did a good job, though. Credit to silver paint guy.
For the official, the skin parts are just the colour of the plastic, the bootleg it’s all painted, which probably wasn’t the best idea but possibly cheaper than getting the right colour of plastic.
Overall, the paint on the bootleg here does nothing to alleviate the incorrect assembly.

Bottom of the head:

Bootleggers missed this copyright marking. Here there isn’t much difference between the two – some extra black paint slop on the bootleg. The band is a lighter silver on the bootleg, but this isn’t too noticeable unless you have both of them together.

Whilst we have them headless, let’s do a headswap:

Yep, you can do this. Not entirely sure why you’d want to though, as the face and body of the bootleg are pretty flawed.
Also this is similar how I had the official displayed before I got the bootleg… initially I thought my official base was defective, but then I realised she’s supposed to be looking sideways when both sets of peg holes on the bases turned out to be the same, d’oh! So I have the bootleg to thank for that!

Conclusion

All in all, I’d say you get your £3’s worth out of the bootleg. It’s definitely flawed but… £3. That’s less than 4 American bucks. You can currently get the official version of this figure much cheaper than I bought it (is ¥600 at time of writing on Mandarake), so I’d recommend just buying the official currently for anyone vaguely interested in it.
Telling them apart is pretty easy, thanks to the manufacturing mistake with the chest, and the more transparent goggles. And if you’re still not sure, turning the figure over will reveal a lack of copyright on the base of the bootleg. So a pretty easy one to avoid if seen in the wild.

This figure was intended to be the first entry of Official vs Bootleg… and here we are at OvB number 9! This bootleg was released several months before the official product was released, so I was super-curious how it turned out.

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥3,685
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥4,210 (£29.45)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $14.58 (£10.42)

I pre-ordered the official figure.

For this one, I did not get the box with the bootleg, so we’ll be skipping that portion – though the bootleg box is very different from the official from the photos I’ve seen. And like a good portion of S-Style bootleg boxes, it has a window whilst the official ones do not, which is a massive clue to it not being an official S-Style figure.
This figure also does not have any accessories, so it’s straight onto the base.

Base

Side-by-side:

Yep, don’t think we can get much more different. Like the other official S-Style figures, the official base is a cog shape. For Shiro, her base is a darkish blue and does not have any pegs as she can stand on her own. The bootleg however… is a roundish fluffy thing that likes to shed feathers. Being cheaply made, its final shape cannot really be called circular, as it contains many irregularities.

Bottom:

For the official, we have the standard copyright notice and a central support to keep the base sturdy. The bootleg has been sewn to a piece of fabric, so there is some finishing work going on here. And no, they haven’t put any copyright info down here.

And here’s a picture for an exact size comparison:

Bootleg base is a decent bit bigger than the official. If the bootleg base was done more professionally, I think it could be preferable to the plastic discs these figures come with – they don’t tend to be well-liked. I think they’re OK, and I do like interlocking them when I’m displaying S-Style figures in a group, but I do agree some of them are a bit too gaudy-coloured.

Personally I display this figure with no base, so no actual points to award here really. As far as telling which is which, I’m not sure you could mix these two up. If the bootleg base wasn’t as poorly produced, I think it could be a contender for this figure as it is more interesting than a cog that doesn’t fit with the figure’s aesthetic.
Due to the fact the bootleg base sheds and isn’t a proper shape, I’d recommend buying something separately if you want her on a fluffy base.

Figure spin-around

For the first photo, we can see how the official base design really doesn’t fit the figure, quite literally. With FREEing going for a very specific base design for this line, certain poses don’t work with it. It can be somewhat alleviated if you own multiple S-Style figures, as you can interlock the bases and have the figure stretch over two… or in this case, abandon the base entirely. The bootleg base is actually winning out here, now we have the figures on their respective bases. As the bootleg base obscures parts of the figure, the actual spin-around was done with no bases.
For the bootleg, we’re looking at sloppy paint and moulding throughout. Also her left arm is badly bent – I did fix this when I initially got the figure, but due to the flexible plastic she’s made from, it bent back up again. I decided to leave it like this for the blog, as this is the arm’s preferred state.

Figure close-ups

Eagled-eyed viewers may have spotted an oddity in the spin-around. However, if not, I did have an issue with the bootleg’s tail – originally it was attached but after a week or so it fell off as I think it was only being held on by paint:

It left this hole in the figure:

Not a great start! So to repair this I used some white-tack to hold it in place, which does show a little:

So that’s what that extra whitish blob is next to her tail, and isn’t part of this comparison. If you’re wondering why I didn’t glue it, that would be because it would take time for the glue to dry and the repair wouldn’t be guaranteed as the surfaces may not marry up enough for glue to take. And avoids accidentally adding some bonus glue to other parts of the figure, so decided this was the least effort and less chance of accidental disaster.

Now onto the face:

Bootleg Shiro’s face never ceases to amuse me – she looks very angry and sneery to me. Her eyebrows, eyes and mouth paint are responsible for this angry look. For the eyebrows, we’ve lost a line and they’ve now been done in black and the same blue as her hair, and very much angled inwards. The tops of her eyes seem to have the gotten a bit more of a severe angle too. To complete the angry look, the mouth paint has missed the intended spot, which makes it look a bit like she’s sneering.
Comparing the eye prints, the design on the bootleg looks like they’ve redone the design from scratch with maybe the prototype photos as a reference – we have two brown lines coming down on either side of her irises and the eye shine on her right eye merges in much more with the white of her eye.
Her hair is very much a mess, with lumpy paint and lumpy plastic. We can see where they didn’t bother sanding down the extra bits of plastic and any of the pointier hair strands don’t come to a sharp point. The ahoge-ish bit is also looking very sorry for itself, and is closer to her head.

Closer look at an ear:

Yeah, the bootleg really suffers here. The sharp points are no longer sharp, with two now fused together by a blob of plastic. The fur detail in her inner ear is lost, and now we have something that almost looks like a furry paw. The pink paint has been haphazardly done on the bootleg, so it is not the shape of the ear as it should be. With the white parts, there is a lack of the pinky-purple shading of the official too.
Oh, and some paint slop and a bit of missing paint. Though my official has some tiny bits of missing white paint, as seen by this close-up – but these areas are very small to the naked eye, so I can see why this passed QC.

Top of her head:

The official has a hair strand and the bootleg has a splitting headache… The official does have a seam, but it is very slight compared to the bootleg’s, especially for the fact the hair clump covers half of the seam line, whereas the hair clump is much more pointed forward on the bootleg. A good chunk of the moulding suffered here on the bootleg – we’ve lost the angular shapes on the hair and the strand detailing on the back half of her head is much more indistinct.
Lastly, we have a lack of paint detail here on the bootleg – official has shades of blue and purple, whilst the bootleg is only blue.

Back of her hair:

The shading on the official is smoother and in less-defined blocks. Bootleg is typical bootleg with distinct colour blocks and mediocre blending. We’ve also got some weird neon blue at her hair tips to complete the bootleg’s look.

Bottom part of the hair:

Let’s see if the quality continues where we can’t see. The official is just plain purple here, and the seam line is slightly visible but nothing too bad.
Bootleg… well, they tried. Seam line isn’t hiding at all, and the purple paint has been roughly slopped on, leaving certain parts bare or with brushstrokes clearly visible. Quite a bit of the mould detail is missing or distorted too – towards the left of the photo, there should be a bunch of hair clumps that are just not present, and the rightmost of the left section has a dimple that is missing on the bootleg.

Left armband:

The official is painted neatly, in an off-white colour. The bootleg’s is very much white, and has a distinct amount of bleed over the edges.

Right armband:

Here, we have some paint bleed on the official. But… the bootleg has no paint. Nada. Nothin’. Zip. Just a mutant arm that hasn’t been put together properly.

Whilst we have her head off, let’s compare the neck:

This bit was the part I was most curious about on the bootleg, before I got the original – had they modified the neck to be this monstrosity? How similar will the official be? Turns out, pretty dang similar, so she looks very strange with her head off.
The hole on the official is more towards her back which does stop her neck sticking too far away from her body – the strange shape is to make her neck look right for having her head turned.
The holes are slightly different in size, so a headswap doesn’t work terribly well without modifications:

As we can see, the official head simply sits on top of the bootleg body due to the peg being too large. The bootleg head sits slightly oddly due to the too-small peg.

Heads:

To me, the bootleg head looks very sorry for itself when pictured like this. The colours blend very nicely on the front strands of hair on the official, and all the parts that are usually not seen are painted evenly in purple.
The bootleg, on the other hand, looks like a clumpy mess, with some random shading suggestions in her hair. The purple is sorta thrown on the hidden parts unevenly, leaving large parts white – Shiro should only really have white hair at the very top of her head.

Curled hand:

This was one area I was expecting the bootleg to suffer… and it does. The fingers are flatter than they should be and are pretty indistinct. The official one actually manages to look like fingers, though not super-detailed due to the scale.

Tail:

Well, we already know the bootleg tail is somewhat of a disaster… let’s analyse it!
For the official, we have some purple shading, and the seam line isn’t obvious. It also stays attached.
Bootleg we just have white paint here, and a very distinct seam with a bunch of flashing at the bottom. It also has a natural tendency to lean – it was very bent over when it first arrived, and will slowly lean over time. Official I’ve had since release, and no bending to report thus far.

Tail tip:

Unfortunately was quite hard to do this shot, but the bootleg mould is a unrefined version of the official one.

Panties:

Welcome to the blog if you’ve scrolled down to find these!
Bootleg panties are definitely not superior to official ones. The lines are thinner on the official, and much more neatly painted. Bootleg lines suffer from a lack of paint and a lack of staying in the lines. Her right leg is also not properly attached, leaving an unsightly gap. The official gives the impression her tail is slightly pushing her knickers down, but that’s entirely lost in the bootleg imo.

Underneath:

The small amounts of paint shading look better on the original imo – the bootleg she just looks kinda slightly sunburned.
The quality of the plastic is so much better on the official – it doesn’t have that weird finish to it, and the thinner parts on the bootleg have gone semitransparent, which isn’t very humanlike. Or nekolike. Maybe Cheshire-cat like, but that’s not what we have here.
The toes also shows the poor quality of the moulding, along with the hand we previously looked at, which leaves the bootleg looking rather odd.

Conclusion

The bootleg is pretty easy to tell apart from the official – there are a number of flaws that can be looked for, but an incorrect base would be a massive clue you’re not looking at the official product. If you’re looking at just the figure, if it’s bent up and lacks the purple shading, then you’re looking at a bootleg.
Would this figure satisfy the less morally-inclined budget-conscious shopper? I’d say no, as this figure is likely to deteriorate over time – having her front arm bent and her tail flopping does rather spoil how the figure looks, and then there’s the chance parts might just drop off. Overall the bootleg is pretty poor, and would have to be displayed at some distance to hide the flaws. If you can consider them able to be hidden at all.

Today’s figure is very much NFSW – Rocket Boy’s Dva. Definitely not Blizzard’s D.Va.

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing

MSRP (without tax): ¥14,455
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥18,640 (£124.04)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): $22.60 (£17.17)

The official figure I preordered.

Box

When I was taking these photos, I apparently decided to have the bootleg box on the left instead of the right. Not sure why I did that, and it isn’t as if I could accidentally mix them up! Well, now you can see why I chose to label the images instead of relying on convention!

Front:

The bootleg certainly lacks the subtlety of the original! No hiding what you’re buying here, though this choice does make it questionable for instore sale. Well, at least you get to see what you’re buying?
As well as the large window that has been added, the “DVA” text has been shrunk and moved into the corner so it isn’t cut off by the window, and the details are printed in white instead of silver. The bootleg box is looking worse for wear as it was shipped flat.

Right:

Close to being a copy, barring the print colour difference and the logo is slightly lower down.

Back:

As far as I can tell, pretty much a copy here, though the bootleg print quality has left the writing slightly blurry. Interestingly, the official box has a sticker over the figure details in the top right – I guess a mistake was made and only noticed after the boxes had been produced. Not particularly inclined to peel the sticker off, so not entirely sure what’s underneath, though from it naturally peeling off slightly, I can actually see there is writing underneath – I can see the “S” of MELONBOOKS” underneath.
The sticker on the bootleg box is a control sticker for the AliExpress seller – underneath is the proper barcode, but this sticker wouldn’t come off when I tried to peel it (will likely take the top layer of cardboard off with it), so I can’t photograph that directly.
One interesting thing of note is they’ve left the “Rocket Boy” logo alone and not removed it.

Top:

If it weren’t for the white print, the bootleg would be a copy. Also note the official box is sealed with 3 round pieces of tape.

Bottom:

Apparently I was having a dozy day the day I took these, and the official box is on its side. They are actually the same (or very similar) dimensions. Not too much to see here, other than the round tape on the official. The reflections show a more premium finish to the official box, but that’d likely be hard to notice without them side by side.

Now to get the bootleg figure out of the box:

Mm, yes. Some professional packing here – and the state of the blister made it hard to do the box shots. The arm was floating around in the blister and fell out when I was unwrapping it from the shipping bag.

Accessories

Before we get onto the figures themselves, let’s look at the accessories they came with. For the bootleg, these came in a clear plastic baggie shoved in the bottom of the blister, the official ones were wrapped in an opaque black purpose-made bag. I think the official had her pasties already on, but it was quite some time ago I unboxed her (I preordered her) so I cannot remember for certain.

Front of the pasties:

The official ones are a nice, smooth shape and very reflective (hello me!). And the bootleg ones… are roughly cut and a horrible texture on top. The paint doesn’t look like it took too well to the metal, and they’re generally kind of unpleasant-looking to me.

Do the backs fare any better?

No. Absolutely not. No. The officials look fine, but the bootleg’s are very rusty. It would be very unlikely this happened in shipping as she was shipped in a plastic mailer, so my best guess is they’re churning them out of the factory in this state… Just say no to these bootleg pasties. The only thing that’s going for them is they are magnetic, but I definitely wouldn’t want to use these as a replacement if I lost/damaged one of my official ones.

Arm bangle:

The bootleg lacks the lustre of the original, but is a close copy. Maybe a tiny fractional bit smaller, but not really noticeable.

Leg bangle:

Paint has the same difference, but the seams are a little bit rougher here on the bootleg. With the bootleg bangle, it is more flexible plastic than the official one, which will feature later.

Vagina front:

The official one is painted up OK, and the paint lines are largely neat whilst the bootleg has lots of overrun on the black paint, as well as missing some in the top left. The red shading has been given less detail on the bootleg, and the pubic area doesn’t have any shading, whilst the official does some light pinkish tones added in.

Back:

The official has the black paint extending around the edges so that the flesh tones don’t get a chance to show when assembled. The paint isn’t very neat back here, but it’s not a visible area when attached to the figure. The bootleg has zero additional paint back here.

Penis with condom:

The paint sades of the condoms aren’t massively different – the official has a bit of a brighter shade. Some of the fine detail of the moulding has been lost – notably the crease at the base of the condom. The bootleg comes with bonus paint dirt (or maybe a freckle?) just above the testes. Oh, and a bonus STD – plenty of pink paint on the vagina part for seemingly no reason.

Alternate angle:

Here we can see a bunch of black paint slop on the side of the bootleg – not great. We’ve also got a bit of a paint flaw on the original on the base of the condom :(. Again, the black paint on the official extends around to ensure there isn’t a flesh-toned line where one isn’t wanted and the bootleg paint just ends. Looking at the tip of the condom, the bootleg’s seems to be slightly foreshortened and not as rounded as its official counterpart.

Penis without condom:

Here is where the skin colours are pretty obviously different between the official and bootleg – with the bootleg being a yellowy shade and the official being more white/pink toned. If you think the official version had an angry, purple head then it has nothin’ on the bootleg. Bootleg also comes with a free “freckle” and ball dirt. We’ve got less of a raging STD here in the vagina, but still some redness to the bootleg that doesn’t look good.

Alternate angle:

The black edging paint is consistent to the same styles as the parts previous. The gradient of the red head is slightly longer on the official. The paint is layered on too thick on the bootleg, making the poorly-replicated sculpt look even worse. Yeah, definitely preferring the original on this one.

Base

One more thing before we move onto the main event – the base. So… can we tell these apart?

Um, just slightly. For the official, we have some nicely-sculpted sand, though it doesn’t have shading. And for the bootleg? A roughly-hewn “circle” that has been folded up strangely, and given a suspicious yellow stain (if you can’t see it, look to the fold on the left-hand side heading towards the top left). I suspect this is some of the rust off of the pasties, as this was in same bag as the rest of the accessories. This thing also sheds bits of feathers, so I should imagine it’d eventually go bald. About the best I can say about it is that it’s fluffy – there really isn’t much redeeming about this. This figure was designed with the butt-divot base in mind, so this furry shape doesn’t support the figure well so it isn’t great from a functional perspective either.

Size comparison:

The bootleg base isn’t quite as big as the official. Also nowhere near as circular.

Figure spin-around

OK, so the accessories didn’t get us off to the best start. Let’s have a quick look at the figure from various angles:

We can immediately see that the bootleg is much more tan, and has a weird silvery shading to her hair. Also the bootleg’s thong has seemed to have “snapped”… wardrobe malfunction incoming! The paintwork is also obviously bad on her left side.
The bootleg is also sitting up straighter than the official – this is more because the hair became deformed in transit, which means it supports the bootleg into sitting upright more. If you were to put the bootleg’s hair back where it is supposed to be she’d likely rock onto her side like the official.

Figure close-ups

Before we delve into the figure further, this is how the bootleg’s hair came out of the box:

Yeah, can’t exactly do the review with her hair like this, so I heated it and bent it back into position. To set it, I rinsed it under the cold tap, so you may see a bit of water on the bootleg in a couple of photos (I spent a fair amount of time drying her off with some kitchen roll… but apparently not long enough). The bends in the hair likely happened in transit due to the poor packaging and the length of time spent sat in the blister.

Figures on their bases:

The official base I still feel is sort of plain, but some time and attention has been put into it to add scuffs in the sand and make the stand support the figure. I think the idea of the furry base is a nice alternative though it doesn’t fit thematically with it being a beach figure. The one provided with the bootleg is very poor quality though, so not something I’d want to use.

Face:

For the official, we have purple-brown hair, with lighter colouring on her fringe. The fringe cuts across evenly above her eyes. And the bootleg? We have definitely purple hair, with silver shading, and her fringe is at uneven levels above her eyes. With the official, we have some shading around her eyes and underneath her fringe which is entirely absent on the bootleg. The bootleg seems to have slightly rounder eyes and more contrasting colours for the iris. The bootleg’s mouth is also crooked, which gives her different expression which feels less friendly to me.
With the moulding on the hair and the bow, there’s a bit of flashing left over on the bootleg, though not the worst as far as bootlegs go. The bootleg also has some random paint splotches on her arm above the cuff, which gives it a bit of an odd appearance.

Flower:

The official is a bit more vividly-coloured, and has some curling around the edges. The sculpt on the bootleg has lost some of the depth, making look a bit flatter.

Though the bootleg has one additional “action feature” – you can remove her left arm, even though there is no need to do so:

Here we get a better look of the bootleg figure’s hair flower, should you wish for it. On the official, only the right arm is removable so you can put her bangle on.

Top of her head:

The official’s seams are more visible than I’d like, but the bootleg’s are even worse. The edges of the parts on the bootleg seem to have deformed slightly, which emphasises the poor construction. The colours from the top don’t seem as wildly different as the front. The bootleg’s fingers on her left hand are bent unnaturally, which makes her look a bit freakish. It’s likely possible to fix this, but I’m not going to bother. Plastic on the bootleg seems very prone to being bent.

Back of her hair:

The shading is a lot more smooth on the official than it is the bootleg. Bootleg also features more shininess and flashing. Due to the plastic used for the hair on the bootleg it has curled and clumped up, which means it misses the refined look of the official. Unlike the Jibril figure I compared, I believe this can be fixed if you have enough time and patience to straighten it all out as it should be, but it will likely be prone to bending again in future. The clumped hair is also helping her sit up in the pose she’s supposed to be in.

Getting closer to the bottom of the bootleg’s hair:

Here’s a clearer shot showing some of the bending. Just to the right of her arm we can see where a piece of hair is bent so much we can actually see the face that should facing towards the floor.

Chest:

For the official, we have some large, slightly shiny breasts. On the bootleg, they’re less shiny and the paint is weirdly powdery. The areola is also a bit overly pink.
If we look to just below the chest, we can see where the bootleg has been poorly constructed – between the bootleg’s breasts they’ve added some peach shading, which doesn’t either continue to the lower part or tail off before it meets the join, making her look very disjointed. Again, the parts don’t match up well here on the bootleg, and we have a small gap between the parts. On the official, the join is hidden well at the cord around her body. Talking about the cord, the official has a cute bow in the middle, but the bootleg has a fairly indistinct mess that looks more like a knot. I don’t mind the more tan skin colour of the bootleg, however the paint shades chose to “match” with it for the shading don’t fit.
Moving to just above the chest to the collar part – on the left side of the photo, we can see where the black linework didn’t go very well on the bootleg. This part would be hard to replicate at speed, so not surprised that this part has ended up a mess.

Right-arm cuff:

The paint isn’t as nice as I would like on the official, but it still beats out the bootleg. The lower band on the bootleg doesn’t extend down to the bottom, giving it an unfinished look. The white band along the middle wasn’t painted with enough paint, which means it lacks distinct edges and the black shows through a bit too much. On the official, the white bits have been done with a pearlescent finish, which is absent from the bootleg.

Left leg:

The bootleg’s leg is a bit more curled in, which means her toes are now behind her other foot. The ribbon hasn’t been painted on well for the bootleg, and looks a lot worse than the official.
If you remember earlier in the review saying the bangles were bendier for the bootleg, and that being a relatively good thing? The official comes apart like this so you can put the bangle on:

But the bootleg has no such joint. Tried tugging and inspecting it – nope, no joint. For the bootleg, the bangle is just flexible enough so you can get it around her heel. I guess the person who reverse-engineered the bootleg assumed that the bangles went on the arms (hence both being removable) and didn’t look at the pictures which shows it going on the leg. Oops.

Leg bow:

For the official, the bow matches the ribbon colour and style… as it should. On the bootleg it doesn’t match whatsoever, entirely ruining its appearance. The bow also looks smaller and more deformed. Certainly one of the weaker parts of the bootleg figure.

Leg cuff:

The official has a printing error, where the band doesn’t match up, but other than that, it’s decently done. The bootleg on the other hand, the scallops are very uneven and have a lot of flashing still attached. And to complete the look, we have a very unevenly painted black band. Looks like I tried to paint it :P.

Left side:

Well… not much of a competition here. For the official, we have some nicely sculpted strings painted in black, which look like they should. With the bootleg, an attempt was made… Starting with the glaring error where the paint doesn’t even match up. Even on the upper X, the lines don’t quite meet up as they should. For the string on the panties, on the bootleg it looks like it is digging in very painfully – that’s some serious deformation going on there.

Let’s get a closer look at that bit by her boob:

… wat. Really not sure what’s going on with the bootleg here, but it looks like a piece is missing. As we can see on the official, the skin is even and joins up so it looks natural. On the bootleg we have a straight-up missing chunk, and the body just isn’t joined up well.
The other side of the bootleg seems to have the same issue, but not as pronounced:

Yeah… not great :/.

Right leg:

With the bootleg, we have a gouge and a bunch of scratchy defects. These may not be present on all of the bootleg copies, but shows that not much care was taken when constructing this figure, so such defects are possible. The leg isn’t joined at all well on the bootleg, and just looks like a mess. The leg doesn’t meet this band properly, which just makes it look odd and out of place. The skin also lacks the fine shading that the official has, making her skin look flatter.

Right leg bow:

Her we can see that the bootleg has lost a lot of the finer details that the official has. The band hasn’t been cut away properly on the bootleg, which is probably why the assembly ended up poor – on the official we can see where the ribbon tapers as it is pulled into the bow, and on the bootleg they’ve left a bunch of the plastic attached so it doesn’t taper, which would mean the parts wouldn’t fit together right if they were otherwise similar copies.

Bum:

Here we have a nicely-shaded, rounded bum for the official. The g-string disappears into her bum, but you don’t see this angle of the figure when displayed.
However, it looks like the bootleg’s been rolling around in the dirt, and we have a lot of warehouse/factory dirt here. Not entirely sure how cleanable this is. There was an attempt made for the g-string, but it’s not a very good one – it doesn’t meet up with the front of the panties properly, and it is uneven. We also have a visible seam on her left leg, which isn’t visible/present on the official.

Accessory try-on

Now to see what her various accessories look like attached.
Let’s start off with the pasties:

The bootleg ones don’t look too bad attached, and they do the job. Still much prefer the originals though.

No genitalia attached:

Here we can see where the thong strings don’t properly finish in the right place on the bootleg, which leaves it looking like her thong is falling off, no matter what genitalia you have attached.
Interestingly, the holes are different sizes – the bootleg’s is larger than the official – meaning the genital accessories can’t be mixed and matched.

Thong:

Well, the bootleg fits, but doesn’t look very good. Paint’s a mess and doesn’t have the pearlescent finish of the official. The bootleg parts don’t fit as tightly as the official, which does make them easier to swap at the expense of some angles having gaps… Not a trade-off that is worth it imo.
As this is the first option, let’s have a look at the rest of the strings holding her panties on – on her right-hand side we can see that string that cuts way too deeply into her. None of the strings appear to match up with the lines on the rings, entirely spoiling the appearance of the thong. The bow on her right-hand side isn’t even complete, and is missing one of the ‘tails’. Yeah, not really sold here.

Vagina:

This angle shows the gapping on the bootleg – unless you’re viewing it straight-on, this is the kind of thing you see. Here we can see the official has tiny bits of fabric painted in the triangles, but the bootleg is just flesh-coloured. Not a massive difference, tbh.

Penis with condom:

Maybe a bare penis is just too lewd for you… or you want her to look like the original artwork. Whichever, this option is for you. The penis options fare better on the bootleg, as the penis does hide the area where it attaches somewhat. At least the skin colours match on these accessories, which can’t be said about every bootleg and their accessories.

Penis:

For the person who wants it all. Well, it works.

So all four genitalia accessories work on the bootleg, without them falling out or plain not-fitting, so it has that going for them.

Here’s a couple of bonus photos showing the full figure with the vagina and penis attached:

Conclusion

Just say no to this bootleg. Couldn’t even recommend it for cheap. If I had a choice of the bootleg or nothing, I think nothing is a fairly compelling option for this one. The paintwork just isn’t very good, leading to large errors which spoil the overall appearance, and she will likely need a fair amount of heating and setting on the hair to get it all in the right places on arrival. We also have a rusty pair of pasties which I wouldn’t use on the figure, lest they transfer the rust to it.
As far as telling the official and bootleg apart, there’s no real confusing these two. The boxes are very different and the fact that the black lines don’t meet is a dead giveaway this is a cheaply-produced copy.

Today’s figure is Kirishima Touka from Tokyo Ghoul:re, the second (main) series in Tokyo Ghoul.

This was also the first figure that I needed a hammer to assemble – assembling the official was easy enough, but the bootleg had other ideas in mind. The bootleg only came in a (very smashed) blister, so let’s get straight to the figure-reviewing.

Want to vote on which figures you’d like to see in the Official vs Bootleg series? Head over to the OvB voting site!

Pricing

NEW section, starting from this blog. In this section I will list the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price), the price I paid for the official and bootleg including shipping (as the bootleg prices normally include shipping in the price) and state whether I PO’d the official figure or bought it in the aftermarket.

MSRP (without tax): ¥12,000
Price I paid for the official (inc shipping): ¥11,970 (£82.58)
Price I paid for the bootleg (inc shipping): £10.40

For the official figure, I pre-ordered.

Spin-around

Time to take a figure tour!

First thing that is immediately noticeable is the difference in the kagune (that’s the red winglike protrusions from her back. Wiki article about what kagune are in Tokyo Ghoul) – Kotobukiya’s is a much more solid colour and the bootleg’s is much more transparent. Light can shine through Kotobukiya’s, but in normal lighting conditions it looks solid. The bases are also markedly different, and Touka’s clothing has a different highlight colour.

Base

Here is the official base:

Please excuse the water droplet – thought the figure was finally dry after cleaning the dust off it… Guess not for this photo!
Not a particularly coherent design, but better than a plain base. Kotobukiya generally has nicer, more involved bases than this, but we got what we got.

And now for the bootleg base to knock it down a notch:

Mmm, quality. The plainest of discs, with a couple of metal pegs. And a small plastic one. At least this one doesn’t have any tape residue and bonus hair that previous bootlegs have had.

Close-up of a metal pin:

And these rough, misshapen buggers is why I had to hammer the bootleg onto her base. They don’t fit into the figure well at all, and the plastic underneath the peg is so thin and flimsy that the metal pegs just popped through the bottom of the base when I tried to push the figure onto the pegs. Managed to hammer the pegs in enough so that the base could sit juuust about flat, though one was still slightly proud. If I was wanting to keep the bootleg, I would’ve probably enlarged the holes instead of hammering the pegs in.

Figure close-ups

Face:

The hair has a few moulding defects in the middle of it, making it blobby. We’ve also go no shading on the bootleg, which makes the hair look flatter and less detailed. The points on the bootleg’s hair are slightly less defined, but not too badly blunted.
Next we have the eyes – and here the bootleg differs a lot – it looks like the bootleggers sketched something that roughly represents Touka’s eyes. The iris on the bootleg is only one colour, missing all the small details of the original. Bootleg Touka also has an interesting arrangement of eyelashes. The red ‘blood’ detailing is entirely missing on the bootleg.
Finally, we have the mouth – the original is unpainted, but the bootleg couldn’t resist giving her some lipstick. Not sure what Touka herself would think…

Side of head:

The bootleg’s hair isn’t any better around here, and the strand of stray hair has been adhered to her head.
Her cloak hood also has a very visible seam, that can’t be seen on the original. The paint shading over this seam is particularly bad, with the colours not aligning well. Moving to the edge of the top layer of her cloak, the bootleg has several parts where the paint has gotten scratched.
Overall, the shading on the bootleg cloak doesn’t make much sense – it doesn’t really fit the contours of her clothing and it doesn’t come from a sane light source. On the original, we have highlights on the creases of the fabric.

Right hand:

The bootleg’s hand didn’t get assembled correctly, and isn’t at the same angle as the official, but I’d consider this a neutral change. Interestingly, her hand has more definition on the bootleg. Her skin colour is also paler.
One not-so-nice change is the additional seam on the sleeve. Bit strange to not have this at the back, but there you go.

Left arm:

Here, my official has a couple of marks. Not sure if these were originally there or not. The bootleg’s arm is at a more upwards angle, with a slightly differing position with her hand again.
This side of the bootleg figure also features a couple more ugly seams – one on the hood, one on the top of her arm. With the bootleg they’ve attempted to shade the wrinkled part in black, with the rest of her coat a purple colour.

Lower part of the coat:

The sculpt on the coats are pretty much a match, however the paint… not so much. The shading is more similar to the original than the rest of the coat, but it is still full of paint errors. Towards the right of the photo, we can see a purple blob in the middle of the black shading. The edge of her coat is also rough and not finished well on the bootleg.
Looking to her legs, we scan see that her trousers are much shinier on the bootleg than the official.

Belt:

Here we can see the bootleg has not been attached very well, and glue is blobbing out. Looking at the moulding here, I’m wondering if the bootleg was made from an official figure taken apart as the construction is quite different – the belt seems to be part of the lower half of the figure, but on the bootleg it seems to be a separate piece.
The upper part of the cape is a uniform thickness and finish on the official but the bootleg suffers from a rough edge that varies in thickness. Some of it copies the original, and some of it looks like it has taken on the thickness of paper.

Back:

In terms of sculpt, we’re pretty much the same back here. The same paint flaws show themselves here. With the lighting on the bottom half of her coat, we can see that the bootleg lacks the matte finish of the original. The wings attach in the same way on both, however the bootleg came pre-assembled and the official you needed to push the large “wing” in.

Foot:

Here we can see that the bootleg’s trousers are much darker in colour, and the shoe is a very different shade of brown. Interestingly, we have two different shades of brown on the bootleg, instead of the singular colour of the original. In isolation, the different colourations work OK, but I think the official’s colour matches in more with the colour tones of the rest of the figure. The bootleg one suffers from some stray white paint. No surprises there. We’ve also got some scrapes/stray paint on the “connecting” bit – I don’t think this bit looks good on either figure, but it’s not really visible when on display.

Now for the star of the show… The large kagune:

Here is where the figures differ the most – the bootleggers have gone for a much more translucent look than Kotobukiya. Personally, I’m kind of conflicted which kagune look I like more – Koto’s probably more true to what a kagune is supposed to look like, but I do really like the translucent look of the bootleg. The paint blend within the bootleg kagune has actually been done decently well and looks good. Kotobukiya’s also looks nice, and has some good details in the paint.
One downside of the bootleg is you may notice that some of the parts that stick out are at different angles – this is at least partially due to the plastic being too soft so it’ll easily bend, especially if the kagune is left leaning up against something. Initially I was going to toss the blister for the bootleg when she arrived, but ended up storing her in it so that her kagune wouldn’t get too bent up prior to review.

Small kagune:

With the smaller wing, I think the transition from solid paint to translucent paint on the official works better than on the larger wing, where the tail-off feels sharper due to size.
On the back of the bootleg kagune, we see some stray paint dots – one at the top near her hood and another just down from the large red central blob. We’ve also got some roughness of the mould – the bit at the bottom that forms a loop has some stray plastic on it still.

If both the kagune came out of both figures, I’d probably swap them around and see what it would look like. I wouldn’t be too cut up about having to butcher the bootleg, but with the smaller wing being attached on the official, I don’t fancy having to break my original to test it out.

Conclusion

This bootleg would be an easy one to spot, if you’re aware it exists. With the very different kagune, purple colouration to her outfit and the shoddy base, there isn’t much confusing her for the original. Most of the bootleg is pretty poor and not very good, with the one stand-out feature of her kagune. Maybe an idea for a second release version of her?
This was the cheapest of the scale bootlegs that I’ve bought for this series thus far, and I think it shows.

This figure is the first one that was not on the original poll, but I suspect it would have garnered a reasonable number of votes, so here she is.

And talking about voting… I now have a website where you can register your interest in what figures I feature in the Official vs Bootleg series. The website is https://ovbvote.tharglet.me.uk. You can vote for figures in my collection that are marked as having a counterfeit version on MFC and that I haven’t already planned to blog or blogged about.
If you have any questions/comments about the site, feel free to comment down below or send a PM on MFC.

And now for the main feature!

The bootleg didn’t come with a box, so no box comparison for this one. So let’s get straight onto the figure!

Spin-around

Firstly, no your eyes do not deceive you – the bootleg is indeed a couple of cm shorter than the official. The bootleg figure has been scaled smaller than the original. Guess this saves on the plastic! The other immediately noticeable thing is the way bootleg Harley “holds” her mallet – floating roughly in front of her arm. That’s some holding ability! One thing to note about the bootleg is getting the hammer in was not easy and is very much prone to falling out. The original has some of the falling-out problem, but not as bad as the bootleg.

Due to some of the parts being mangled during the production of the bootleg cast, this one was another one that was hard to line up certain shots for. The two notable parts in this regard are the hammer-holding arm and the cape.

Hammer

Here we can clearly see the scale difference – the bootleg hammer is noticeably smaller than the official one when they’re side by side. The colours are also markedly different – the bootleg looks like a painted wood colour to me, instead of an actual wood colour.

Top of the hammers:

The bandings are a fair bit worse on the bootleg, being uneven and losing the sharp definition of the bumps. We’ve also gained a mould line around one of the bandings. The middle of the hammer has also seen some “damage”, and isn’t cylindrical like it should be.
The bootleg has also been painted post-assembly, leaving lots of paint slop of both paints.

Hammer handles:

The red paint on the official is paint transfer from the figure, and was not originally on there. My bad.
The bootleg’s handle has lost much of the finer texturing detail on the leather wrap, leaving it looking a lot less like leather. The original also features a shiny finish on the end-cap and a matte finish on the leather wrapping, whereas the bootleg has a semi-glossy finish throughout.

Pegs:

And this is why the bootleg was so hard to assemble… the peg is so much bigger than the original, and doesn’t have a proper shape. The hole on the figure isn’t much different, so it took some heat and shoving to actually get the darned thing in. The official, on the other hand, slips in easily, and it’s just a case of getting the angle right for assembly and to balance the hammer correctly on her shoulder.

The bootleg hammer also has some scratchy defects:

What? Is this a rusty hammer?

Overall, the bootleg hammer is fairly clearly the inferior product in my opinion. Couldn’t be used as a replacement for the original due to the scale and the defective peg. Whilst the peg could potentially be fixed, the scale cannot.

Figure close-ups

Before we get onto the figure proper, let’s have a quick look at the bottom of the base:

The original has the copyright information, and most notably, a screw. The original comes as one piece with the figure screwed to the base whilst the bootleg actually pegs onto the base. If you see her displayed loose turning her over to see if there’s a screw on the base is probably the fastest way of seeing if she’s bootleg. If there’s no screw, she’s not Kotobukiya.
We can also see here that the original base has a much better finish quality, whilst the bootleg has a bunch of defect lines and mould marks.

OK, back to the top. Here’s their faces:

The first thing that strikes me is the much less pleasing tones of her hair colours. Kotobukiya’s chosen a blue and red that pop and complement well. The bootleggers have gone with whatever paint they could find. The bootleggers have also seemed to have put a glossier finish on the blue part of her fringe which makes it look quite odd indeed.
I think bootleg Harley did her makeup when drunk – much too heavy on the eyeshadow and wtf is up with that lipstick?! My official seems to have her right eye stamped incorrectly, but I’ll take that over the poor colour definition on the bootleg. And to complete her facial features, the bootleg seems like she’s been rubbing her nose in the dirt, and the tip of her nose is a greenish colour. Not too pleasant to look at up close.
Lastly, we have her ruff – the official is decent, with one bit of moulding left that I can see, but the bootleg is an unfinished mess. All of the edges are rough, and it’s not something I can really ignore.

Top of her head:

The official isn’t flawless here – we have a tiny amount of paint bleed between the halves, and the way her part-in doesn’t line up between the parts may annoy some.
Now onto the bootleg… here, we are really not lining up, and have a large unpainted gap between the halves of her hair. The red hairband has become more of a bead and doesn’t really match her hair. Not sure why we’ve gone shiny just for this bit. The hair across the top of her hair has lost some of the finer details, so doesn’t look as nicely bunched as the original.

Top of her chest:

Here we can see where her bodice didn’t fit correctly to the chest on the bootleg, leaving an odd ridge that follows the edge of the bodice. Interestingly, the ring on her cape is more rounded on the bootleg to the official. And if you’re keeping a good eye on her cleavage, then you may have noticed the speck of dirt embedded into the bootleg’s left boob.

Now to “admire” the bodice closer:

Yeesh. This is really where the bootleg falls down, if the face didn’t do it for yah.
The official could be neater – where the red and blue paint joint doesn’t look as neat as it could, but the laces are nicely detailed and look like actual laces.
And the bootleg? An attempt was made. Blue and red paint have been quickly slopped on, without much regard for coverage. The eyelets have been completely ignored and painted over. And the lacing? All the fine moulding details have gone, and the top ones have suffered badly during moulding and don’t look like they’re pulled tight. And to finish the whole thing off, there’s semigloss sloshed over the lot of it to further make the lacing look incorrect.

Let’s take a look at her arms. First the more statically-posed one:

Here we can get a good feel for how different the skin tones are for these figures – the official is much more of a pinkish-white tone, whilst the bootleg is a much more peachy-based skin colour.
Under her armpit, we can see a very distinct seam line on the bootleg, as well as part of the bodice banding being missing.
For the arms themselves, they are pretty similar, but the diamond paint is a bit messier on the bootleg. With the blue-red we can see the official has a much stronger contrasting colour scheme whilst the bootleg is more muted.

Hammer-holding arm:

This was the photo I was editing that made me notice the arm on my official Harley has come slightly loose – it does push down so her arm doesn’t look so misshapen. So I’m going to ignore that ¬¬.
Here we can see why the peg is such a pain on the bootleg. For the official, we have a perfectly-shaped square hole that matches with the hammer peg. (You may also notice the peg hole is painted, which is why there is a paint transfer on the official’s peg). On the bootleg we have… a roughly-hewn mess. I think they tried to add a keyed slot looking at the hammer peg, but instead we got whateverthefuckthatis. With the official arm guard, we have some subtle red shading, but on the bootleg it is simply a flat colour.

Holding of the hammer:

With the official, we can see she is leaning on the hammer so that it balances on her shoulder. The pose looks natural and carefree, matching Harley’s “doesn’t give a fuck” nature.
Now to the bootleg. She seems to have attached a spike to the hammer and rammed it through her wrist. Ouch! The self-injuries don’t end here – on her hand we have some holes and scrapes in the form of moulding issues. Her fingernails also lack the sharp points they’re supposed to have. Not sure what’s going on with the thumbnail paint on either of them, but the rest of the fingernails are painted nicer on the original. However, this detail is very small, so you wouldn’t really notice unless you look up close.

Belt and stomach:

Bootleg Harley’s belt looks like it has been through the wars – the poorly-painted buckle leaves the black paint poking through, and the bullets look like they’re rusting copper oxide. The belt doesn’t seem to have been scaled down as much as the rest of the figure, which leaves it sitting higher up on her hips. It kind of looks like they attempted to re-add the detail on her buckle and ended up with a misshapen mess on the front of it. The bootleg bullets look much more of a brassy colour than their official counterparts.
The bootleg Harley’s stomach has less shading, but we seem to have some bonus warehouse dirt baked in. Yay? I really like the shading on the original as it helps give the figure more definition, so this is lost on the bootleg.

Holster:

Here we can see how the belt sits differently on the bootleg – on the original the holster sits below her shorts, on the bootleg it has ended up sitting at the end of the shorts line, due to the belt riding up.
The gun’s grip on the bootleg has lost some definition, but it isn’t particularly noticeable. The more matte finish is, though.
The holster on the original looks like its outer layer is made from plastic/pleather. The bootleg… I’m not sure what this looks like.
With the shorts, we can see how the official is glossy but the bootleg is not. Also we have a bonus seam line on the bootleg. Another bootleg that’s been to the Chinese knockoff clothing store.

Feet & base:

Massive overspray here on the bootleg – her left shoe didn’t know where to stop. We’ve also got some grey scratches on the base and not entirely sure why. With the bases, we actually have more contrast on the bootleg than the official, which is a switch compared to the figure itself.

Cape:

Here we can see the different colour and finish of the capes – the original is brighter and has a more matte finish. The bootleg cape curves in different amounts in certain places, which makes it look more different than it truly is in my opinion.

Bum:

With the cape, holsters and her arm, there isn’t much backside action going on here. Here we can see the massive difference in the finish on the shorts though – on the official you can see plenty of shine, and the bootleg is super-dull. We can also see some mould defects on the back of the bootleg’s right leg – the small wormy lines. The nail polish is passable though – it didn’t quite get to the ends of her fingernails, but at least it isn’t blobbled out over everywhere.

Conclusion

This bootleg isn’t really going incognito with the poorly-done hammer peg and pose alterations. May fool a non-seasoned collector at a distance, but a close-ish inspection will reveal the poor quality. Was also interesting to find out she was scaled down – I’ve seen this with action figures but less so with bootleg scales. If you were hoping to pick this one up to use for spare parts, I’d give it a miss as it won’t work with the scaled-down pieces.