A-kon! Is anyone good at identifying bootlegs? And commission woes.
I just got back from A-kon. It was fun, to say the least. I'll make a larger post with cosplay pictures and more info in a day or so. For now, here are some pictures of the things I bought.
Pieces from the Clamp chess set, including Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth. I'm not much of a Clamp fan, but I love MKR! It was the first manga I read, back in jr. high.
Their Pokemon selection was horrible, but I did manage to find the Articuno kid I'd been looking for. I have no idea who that Final Fantasy figure is. I bought a blind box hoping to pull Cloud, and instead I get the only character who I don't recognize.
I'm 90% sure these are bootlegs. Axel is fairly good quality but Ursula has some huge paint flaws and doesn't fit together correctly (see below for details). Too bad I didn't realize that when I bought them.
Awesome King Bradley pose! I really want to know what was in the other half of this set.
I told my mother that I got HPV at A-kon. Har har har.
I swore I wouldn't buy anything at the artists alley, but...
They were so pretty! And I have self restraint issues. I originally planned to buy only Link, but the artist said she would give me another print for $5 when she realized I wasn't likely to buy more than one. Now I just need to find cheap frames so I can hang them on my wall.
I finally broke down and bought some doujin as well. I never bought them in the past because I couldn't read Japanese. I still can't read Japanese, but I'm hoping that will change after I take Japanese I next semester. Even if I won't know much vocab, I could type the words into a translator if I could just read them.
Pictures for now because I was too lazy to turn on my parents' computer just for the scanner. Sorry.
All hail Brittania! I cannot for the life of me remember who the blond haired guy is. I feel like a bad fan. This one has so much talking that I have no idea what's going on by just looking at the pictures.
Aw, young Lelouch is so adorable~
Okay, this is why I don't like falling asleep in public places. I'm always afraid something like this will happen. Though Lulu doesn't appear to be too concerned.
Huzzah, FMA! This is a cute selection of short stories. I can pretty much understand what's happening even though I can't read Japanese.
Poor Ed is depressed throughout most of it. Aw...
Winry appears! Sometimes I feel like the only person who likes her.
I was not expecting to find Roy or Hawkeye at all. I was soooo happy when I flipped the page and saw this! It does make me wonder what Roy said though.
Overall, I was highly disappointed by the doujin selection. There were only two stands that sold doujin, and the majority of those were hentai or yaoi. Hentai highly disturbs me because of the art style (women with gigantic boobs, penises, etc), so I try to stay away from those. I don't really understand the appeal of yaoi; I'm more interested in plot and cute pictures than sex scenes. I wouldn't mind a random sex scene if there was plot to back it up, but since we weren't allowed to look through the pages without buying, I didn't want to take my chances.
Not to mention most of the series or pairings I like were not represented.
-There was no Fire Emblem doujin. None whatsoever. I wouldn't have even cared if it was yaoi as long as it was Fire Emblem.
-There were only 10 or so One Piece doujin, and EVERY SINGLE ONE was Zoro/Sanji. Out of all the dozens of pairings in One Piece, they had to choose the one I hated, didn't they?
-There were dozens of FMA doujin, but about 95% of those were Roy/Ed, 4% were Ed/Al, and the other 1% was the one I bought. Am I the only one who finds those FMA pairings disturbing? Aside from the fact that Ed is a minor and he doesn't seem to like Roy very much anyway, Roy is also his superior officer. Creepy, much? And do I even need to explain why Ed/Al bothers me?
I didn't take a very good look at the figures until I got home. Upon second glance, some of them appear to be bootlegs, and I have my doubts about others. I really hope I'm wrong. I tried my best to avoid bootlegs by looking at paint jobs before I bought them and watching out for "too good to be true" deals. The problem: the figures in question are the ones I bought in sealed boxes, and some of them I found on sale (for a bit more than the original retail price) on the last day of the convention. It's fairly common for stalls to clear out inventory on the last day, so I didn't think much of it at the time.
I thought about asking on anime_toys, but that community seems quite dead lately, and I made a similar post when I joined. I think a few people on my f-list collect anime figures. Anyone want to help me out?
Tales of the Abyss
Aside from Luke's hair being somewhat shiny, I don't see anything wrong with these. There are minor paint flaws, but nothing I wouldn't expect on trading figures, considering the price. If these are bootlegs, they're some of the best bootlegs I've seen.
However, the poses don't match the ones on the box, which seems incredibly suspicious to me. I know that Luke has two different poses (one with long hair and one with short hair), but I don't know if the short hair version is a "secret" figure or if it's from a different set entirely. Also, the true bases appear to be clear while the bases on mine are brown/orange. (Either that or the base color was changed from the stock photos.) There was also an English "choking hazard" warning on the box, which I didn't notice until today. Do Japanese boxes ever have English warnings on them? O_o
I'm almost positive that the Kingdom Hearts figures are bootlegs. Both of them had "made in China" labels on the bags when I opened them:
Do any legit figures have these labels? I've only seen "made in China" labels on bootleg Pokemon bottlecaps. The paint also seems quite shiny on these figures, and Ursula has some paint that doesn't match up on the bottom. (She also has parts that refuse to fit together.) For the record, the Final Fantasy trading arts figure also had "made in China" on the packaging. I don't know if that means the FF figure is also a bootleg or that some legit figures have "made in China" on the packaging.
Picture of the box:
I thought I didn't need to worry much about bootlegs at an anime convention. I'll be quite upset if these aren't legit. That means I will have wasted over $40 on knockoffs. The Tales figures I can live with, but the quality on the Kingdom Hearts figures is a bit depressing, even for cheap trading figures.
Does anyone have official figures of these so I could compare the two? Or does anyone know how to spot bootlegged trading figures?
I know what to look for when it comes to identifying bootlegs of scale figures, but what about identifying bootlegs of trading figures? Especially those that are boxed.
Also, I agreed to trade some of my cards for a custom Bulbasaur charm about a month ago. I sent off the cards around May 11. Today I finally received my Bulbasaur charm, and I'm quite disappointed with it.
It's cute and all, but it isn't what I thought I was going to receive. I don't know what to do. I've dealt with this artist before and all of her other work is very good quality. I don't want to sound like one of those buyers who is never satisfied with anything. The cards I traded only added up to around $7-$10, and I don't really want to cause drama for such a small purchase. On the other hand, I don't want to act like I was 100% happy with the commission when I wasn't. It does have quite a few paint flaws (like the green on the head and some white clay showing through on the bulb) that would have been simple for the artist to fix before she mailed it. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like this was rushed. Also, the eyes creep me out. I was under the impression that the artist planned to add beads for the eyes so they wouldn't just be indentions on the face. Either I misunderstood or the artist forgot.
So... what should I do? D:
Pieces from the Clamp chess set, including Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth. I'm not much of a Clamp fan, but I love MKR! It was the first manga I read, back in jr. high.
Their Pokemon selection was horrible, but I did manage to find the Articuno kid I'd been looking for. I have no idea who that Final Fantasy figure is. I bought a blind box hoping to pull Cloud, and instead I get the only character who I don't recognize.
I'm 90% sure these are bootlegs. Axel is fairly good quality but Ursula has some huge paint flaws and doesn't fit together correctly (see below for details). Too bad I didn't realize that when I bought them.
Awesome King Bradley pose! I really want to know what was in the other half of this set.
I told my mother that I got HPV at A-kon. Har har har.
I swore I wouldn't buy anything at the artists alley, but...
They were so pretty! And I have self restraint issues. I originally planned to buy only Link, but the artist said she would give me another print for $5 when she realized I wasn't likely to buy more than one. Now I just need to find cheap frames so I can hang them on my wall.
I finally broke down and bought some doujin as well. I never bought them in the past because I couldn't read Japanese. I still can't read Japanese, but I'm hoping that will change after I take Japanese I next semester. Even if I won't know much vocab, I could type the words into a translator if I could just read them.
Pictures for now because I was too lazy to turn on my parents' computer just for the scanner. Sorry.
All hail Brittania! I cannot for the life of me remember who the blond haired guy is. I feel like a bad fan. This one has so much talking that I have no idea what's going on by just looking at the pictures.
Aw, young Lelouch is so adorable~
Okay, this is why I don't like falling asleep in public places. I'm always afraid something like this will happen. Though Lulu doesn't appear to be too concerned.
Huzzah, FMA! This is a cute selection of short stories. I can pretty much understand what's happening even though I can't read Japanese.
Poor Ed is depressed throughout most of it. Aw...
Winry appears! Sometimes I feel like the only person who likes her.
I was not expecting to find Roy or Hawkeye at all. I was soooo happy when I flipped the page and saw this! It does make me wonder what Roy said though.
Overall, I was highly disappointed by the doujin selection. There were only two stands that sold doujin, and the majority of those were hentai or yaoi. Hentai highly disturbs me because of the art style (women with gigantic boobs, penises, etc), so I try to stay away from those. I don't really understand the appeal of yaoi; I'm more interested in plot and cute pictures than sex scenes. I wouldn't mind a random sex scene if there was plot to back it up, but since we weren't allowed to look through the pages without buying, I didn't want to take my chances.
Not to mention most of the series or pairings I like were not represented.
-There was no Fire Emblem doujin. None whatsoever. I wouldn't have even cared if it was yaoi as long as it was Fire Emblem.
-There were only 10 or so One Piece doujin, and EVERY SINGLE ONE was Zoro/Sanji. Out of all the dozens of pairings in One Piece, they had to choose the one I hated, didn't they?
-There were dozens of FMA doujin, but about 95% of those were Roy/Ed, 4% were Ed/Al, and the other 1% was the one I bought. Am I the only one who finds those FMA pairings disturbing? Aside from the fact that Ed is a minor and he doesn't seem to like Roy very much anyway, Roy is also his superior officer. Creepy, much? And do I even need to explain why Ed/Al bothers me?
I didn't take a very good look at the figures until I got home. Upon second glance, some of them appear to be bootlegs, and I have my doubts about others. I really hope I'm wrong. I tried my best to avoid bootlegs by looking at paint jobs before I bought them and watching out for "too good to be true" deals. The problem: the figures in question are the ones I bought in sealed boxes, and some of them I found on sale (for a bit more than the original retail price) on the last day of the convention. It's fairly common for stalls to clear out inventory on the last day, so I didn't think much of it at the time.
I thought about asking on anime_toys, but that community seems quite dead lately, and I made a similar post when I joined. I think a few people on my f-list collect anime figures. Anyone want to help me out?
Tales of the Abyss
Aside from Luke's hair being somewhat shiny, I don't see anything wrong with these. There are minor paint flaws, but nothing I wouldn't expect on trading figures, considering the price. If these are bootlegs, they're some of the best bootlegs I've seen.
However, the poses don't match the ones on the box, which seems incredibly suspicious to me. I know that Luke has two different poses (one with long hair and one with short hair), but I don't know if the short hair version is a "secret" figure or if it's from a different set entirely. Also, the true bases appear to be clear while the bases on mine are brown/orange. (Either that or the base color was changed from the stock photos.) There was also an English "choking hazard" warning on the box, which I didn't notice until today. Do Japanese boxes ever have English warnings on them? O_o
I'm almost positive that the Kingdom Hearts figures are bootlegs. Both of them had "made in China" labels on the bags when I opened them:
Do any legit figures have these labels? I've only seen "made in China" labels on bootleg Pokemon bottlecaps. The paint also seems quite shiny on these figures, and Ursula has some paint that doesn't match up on the bottom. (She also has parts that refuse to fit together.) For the record, the Final Fantasy trading arts figure also had "made in China" on the packaging. I don't know if that means the FF figure is also a bootleg or that some legit figures have "made in China" on the packaging.
Picture of the box:
I thought I didn't need to worry much about bootlegs at an anime convention. I'll be quite upset if these aren't legit. That means I will have wasted over $40 on knockoffs. The Tales figures I can live with, but the quality on the Kingdom Hearts figures is a bit depressing, even for cheap trading figures.
Does anyone have official figures of these so I could compare the two? Or does anyone know how to spot bootlegged trading figures?
I know what to look for when it comes to identifying bootlegs of scale figures, but what about identifying bootlegs of trading figures? Especially those that are boxed.
Also, I agreed to trade some of my cards for a custom Bulbasaur charm about a month ago. I sent off the cards around May 11. Today I finally received my Bulbasaur charm, and I'm quite disappointed with it.
It's cute and all, but it isn't what I thought I was going to receive. I don't know what to do. I've dealt with this artist before and all of her other work is very good quality. I don't want to sound like one of those buyers who is never satisfied with anything. The cards I traded only added up to around $7-$10, and I don't really want to cause drama for such a small purchase. On the other hand, I don't want to act like I was 100% happy with the commission when I wasn't. It does have quite a few paint flaws (like the green on the head and some white clay showing through on the bulb) that would have been simple for the artist to fix before she mailed it. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like this was rushed. Also, the eyes creep me out. I was under the impression that the artist planned to add beads for the eyes so they wouldn't just be indentions on the face. Either I misunderstood or the artist forgot.
So... what should I do? D: