Can You Tell the Difference Between Cheap and Expensive Anime Figures? 

I've noticed most fakes have worse small details, as well as being a lot more shiny / glossy. Higher quality figuers seem to be more matte.

My very first figure was a knock-off. I got her when I knew nothing about figure collecting, I just saw her on amazon, I liked anime and thought she looked cute. So I bought her. And I'm not going to lie, I think I got pretty lucky with this find because she barely looks like a knock-off. And I'm saying this even now with much more experience with authentic figures and collecting. I still have her on display with my expenisve, authentic figures :) It's really mind-blowing how good a bootleg can look. Sure, in comparison you can tell the difference, but really only after taking a very close look

I like how your little daughter can tell which one has worse quality from just her feeling w.o ever watching those anime. She has good eyes.

Thank you for this. I have been trying to explain this to so many people. We (my kids and I) used to own an anime shop. Sadly two to three years ago, another anime shop opened selling these knockoffs. Many in my area seemed to not notice the difference, knocking us to retreat. We even all found jobs to help support the shop and home hoping this word would get out more but we were not able to hold out.

Note here for any new collectors - Corefuls are prize figures, while Pop up Parades are not. Pop up Parades are sort of their own category, similarly to Nendoroids, although there are comparable figures to Pop up Parades from Bandai, Furyu, etc. Prize figures typically have more ambitious designs for a low price, but typically don't have great quality control and are often made of noticeably cheap materials (they can look great, but it's important to keep in mind.) It's very common for prizes to have poorly done hair, but some people like the look of the transition from color to clear. Pop up Parades have good quality control and are almost always higher quality, but have very simplistic designs (as others have mentioned, sometimes the faces get messed up as well, but this is usually noticeable from photos before you buy.) Also... that Nezuko is rather bland, so I understand why people would prefer the Coreful, but I bet if they could feel the figure and see it up close, their choice would be different. You will get increased quality for your money (most of the time) even if it's not apparent at first glance. A lot of the price also has to do with size... it may not seem like it, but when you see a 1/7 scale compared to a prize or a 1/4 compared to a 1/7 in person, you'll understand just how much more enjoyable the larger figures can be. If you really love a character, go for a scale. If you like a character, but aren't crazy about them, go for cheaper options. Luckily, with more and more cheap options becoming available, you can avoid getting knock-offs and still get characters you like!

Bandai's banpresto figures are also usually pretty damn good quality as well even though they are considered prize figures. Although they do tend to only do figures of what is most popular at the time.

bootlegs are the worst. Save your pennies and go for the true scales or Prizes if scales are out of your budget.

Knock offs that barely look like knock offs are gems. Found one or two of those

It's a good thing that the e-shopping app I use actually tells if the figure that they sell is a knock-off or not, so i wouldn't really be worried of getting trolled like this..

For a tenth of the price, that Roxy one definitely brings more than a tenth of the enjoyment Especially if ya can't squeeze the OG into your budget

Loved this video! It was great to have side by side comparisons to see how obvious the mistakes are on the knock-off figures. Good stuff👍

Casually 3d prints any figure I could want

What a fun video! It was nice seeing the reactions and also close-ups of the figs. Also the editing is on point! Nice job

I wish there more videos like this, KO comparisons! Because I always find myself with two categories, the figures I want regardless of the price and then figures I wouldn't mind getting if they were more affordable. But only if they're the quality of that Roxy, where you have to actually take a few minutes and pay attention to the finer details. If only I could splurge on this hobby to make this kind of content myself 😂. So thanks for making this video. I appreciate it. Now, I'm off to go purchase a Roxy! Thanks for sharing.👍🏻😁

You have such a great way of talking and I found your voice so calming that I didn't even realize how much of the video I watched haha I loved this, though. You really do get what you pay for when it comes to these types of things and it shows. Especially, if a seven year old can see how low quality something is, it's truly telling.

😂😂, give another depth to "even my seven years old sister could tell that it's a scam"

From my experience Pop up Parade is really hit or miss with the faces. But on figures that dont have normal faces like Goblin Slayer, Chainsaw man, Guts with armor etc they are great!

Well, you don't buy knock off to display them, you buy knock off figures so that you can paint them :D

Side to side comparison makes it a lot easier, because you will generally find some detail that's not to par. The real chanllenge is attempting to guess the price of a figure when given a mix of real and knock-off. Is it a "scam" if everyone guess a higher value than the cost? To establish an idea of what figures cost in general, a knockoff, a prize, a PUP, a lower end 1/7 scale, a higher end 1/7 scale should first be provided w/ their prices to establish a base line. Preferrably in the same era in terms of release price, as a figure today and a figure 5 years of the same qualtiy tier can have drastic different price. Then the series of chanllenge can begin. A lot of knockoff hurts the industry, which is why it should be avoided if possible/feasible. But as far as the consumer goes, if they aren't actually fooled (i.e. it is sold for the price of real but you get a knock off), the consumer isn't really the one being scammed, the license holder is. Unless it's *really* bad quality, in which case it's just garbage, there are some of those ofc. I can't be sure without seeing the figures in question, but I would guess from people's reaction that the roxy, for example, looks better overall than a PUP while costing about the same. What is it really worth then? Is the buyer the one being scammed? The real problem with knockoff, from a consumer point of view, is that it is almost impossible to tell before hand how good or bad the job is. Because, like you said, they do tend to post the real figure's promo photos on the listings. Getting the knockoff nezuko vs getting the knockoff roxy would be very different experiences. That said, some seller would be willing to provide actual photos if you make it clear you know they are knock off, are fine buying it but just want to check quality. Although depending on platform, you might need to exchange out of platform contacts so that the exchange can be kept off the record. As for the quality poll... that's kind of misrepresentative. Things seens through camera lens, especially video camera lens, lack a significant amount of detail. I would have a hard time telling prize/PUP from scale when seen through cameras, but pretty much always could in person. The degree of detail and the color gridiant is just not the same. But both of those are lost on camera. In fact, just like the knockoffs, you can try to do a price guessing game with your family&friends with a mix of PUP, prize and scale. P.S. When I say prize here, I am excluding ichiban kuji last one prize as that specific line is not very well representative of what prize figure are. There might also be ones similar to that, but this is the only one I know and have. That said, even that isn't quite up to scale quality(well, what I consider the quality of scale should be anyway, there are some bad scales out there...) P.S2 To be clear, I'm not against PUP etc cheaper lines. Those are very good value for beginning/poorer collectors. The thing with figures is that there is serious diminishing return in terms of price vs quality as you go up the line. In many ways, PUP can be 80% of the quality for 20-30% of the price. But it needs to be made clear that it is just 80% of the qualtiy, it never really measures up when seen in person.

Great video, I always wanted to see a direct comparison between high quality figures and knockoffs. Bringing in people who aren't as familiar with figurines at all is a great idea as well!

Thanks for the comparison! I think the Knock-offs are decent enough of a gift for teenage kids as parents, since it is still a lot of money. But from time to time i see myself buying the expensive ones slowly once i am working properly^^

I would totally buy a knock-off since it wouldn't matter if it is in a shelf far away

My fav bootleg I have is my 1/4 freeing Lucy Heartphilia

the bakugo one actually doesnt look to bad though

This video essentially turning into a Popup Parade advertisement at 10:37 made me chuckle a bit as I recently got into anime figures, and I started my collection by ordering 21 figures in one go (yes, my wallet deeply hates me right now) and out of those 21 figures, 17 are PUPs... I'm overall happy with them; my main issues (which are rather minor) are their bases (empty and boring, with some being round, some being hexagonal and all in different colors) and that quite a few of the characters have rather unimaginitive poses - still, considering the good quality and that they cost about 1/5th the price of a decent scale, I'm not complaining and I intend to buy more.

That was a very enjoyable video! I loved how you involved your family members and let them guess which figurine is which. I've never seen that before on a channel about anime figures. I owned once a cheap knock off of the classic 80s character Madoka Ayukawa but that was in the mid- to late nineties when I didn't realize that such knoff offs existed at all.

the alarming is the fake imitates the exact pose as the original that the chance getting a fake is high

Used to buy knockoffs in early days coz i don't really know about anime figures back then ... then after knowing more about it, i've nvr bought knockoffs since ... usually new and original scale figures they only take preorders. It can be expensive though, but you can always go for prize figures which is still original but cheaper ones and quality guaranteed. Brands like taito coreful, pop up parade, sega prize, are good and cheap to start with

Many bootleg figures just look bad but some of them can be a surprise, I have a channel about bootleg figures and the quality of them improved over the years

You have such a nice, warm and loving family.

Prize and / or used figurines ftw! The only new figurines I would buy are 30ms or 30mm, since they are not too expensive already.

Amazing video! Would really like to see more of these for sure! Great job 😃

you can't consider it a scam since is pretty obvious is a knock off, alliexpress do sell original figures but those put the world original in the title

Buy the Cheap one and if you are a very good artist turn it into GOLD!! Make it look Bad Ass!!! I've seen people do that it looks awesome.

As a casual figure collector, it really amazes me how some KO can mimic the original really well. For Anime figures since it's higher in demand, the KOs can easily be distinguished by the inaccurate colors such as too yellow skin, too vibrant or too glossy most probably due to rush production. But in video game-related figures, it's a different story. For Play Arts Kai, the bootleg is a 90% copy. The paints are also matte and everything is literally the same (except sometimes skin can have a different hue).

Honestly, while I 100% support buying the legitimate figures when you can, I wouldn't blame anybody for buying bootlegs, AS LONG AS THEY DONT TRY TO PASS IT OFF AS A LEGIT FIGURE AND THE BUYER UNDERSTANDS WHAT TO EXPECT. Especially for characters that dont get figures. Money is a luxury some people don't have. Live within your means, not above them. The last thing I want it somebody to spend money they cant afford on a $450 figure and not be able to eat or something. Like you stated in the video a "good" bootleg is still gonna look good in a few feet away. I own 2 bootlegs, a Shenhe (genshin impact) and 2b (Nier). The Shenhe is 1/7 scale and honestly amazed me with how good it was painted. The 2b on the other hand looks great in my case, but upon handling it from about a foot away, you can tell she's seen better days.

You just got yourself a new subscriber 👍 Would love to see more content of figurines in the future!

Me and my friends had a random figure that was on the living table, it was from one of my friends brother, and we did a bidding and reach 5 dollars, the figure was a bunny suit girl FYI thus figure was from Temu I think and they said it was about 25 to 35 dollars and I was the only one who took it home cause nobody wanted it, also the fact that the breast and you know what are broken so nsfw to display normally so I took it, already knew it was fake because of the mess up lines, the not attach nsfw covers, and the signs of printing, colors on wrong spots, and messup or broken parts.

I love your videos! I'm running a few manga recap channels and planning to sell anime figures and print-on-demand merch through Shopify. I admire how you've built your business and would appreciate any tips on sourcing figures or creating merch that anime fans love. If you’re open to sharing advice or even collaborating, that would be amazing!

There’s a surefire method to always know the difference between cheap and expensive this is how you know the more expensive one will always cost more money 😅

I just clicked on the video because i own that Roxy figure good video!

Plot twist: Someone with the paints, the airbrushes, the tools and plenty of time on their hands, goes and buys the cheap knockoffs, and remakes them to be as good if not better than the originals. (Is this even possible? People do make figures out of 'garage kits' with as much detail, and even some custom work and mods, and it shows on how good the results are)

the reason the roxy is so accurate to the original is that in china they make the original run, for example 500 pieces with top quality plastic and paint, then they use the same mold/cast to do the fake ones but with cheaper plastic and paint overall is the same figure just cheaper materials

Thanks for this great video! Levi and roxy seemed legit to me for the price difference. Take the hat of roxy and done ^^

I personally wouldn't spend 1000% more for a figure thats like 30% better

It almost always boils down to paint quality. The good thing about cheap figurines is that you can bleach them and use them to learn how to paint figurines. As you get good at it you will have top quality figurines at super cheap prices.

Thank you kindly. Coreful seems like a great place for some one to start collecting with out going broke :)

I have wonder if supermarkets have offical figures but I more laugh as some are older shows and others you have to already be watching them anime shows.

Lets say you have a really obscure character you wanna have as a figure. How would you go onto creating and printing the figure yourself?

Man, POP UP PARADE figures could easily cost 40 to 60 euros (~42 USD - 65 USD) from where I come from. Your typical prize figure is already 30 euros! Collecting anime figures, especially in my country really is an expensive hobby 😓

when the facecam came on, I knew it was jover

I only have one anime figure which is inosuke from demon slayer and it is a knock off but the details are actually not bad except for the eyes both in his mask and his actual eyes and his feet which has this fur which he use as a pants but other than that it's really is great aside from the small details and brighter color, I got it around $5 and it's around 3-5 inches tall (it's sitting and rice cakes both in his hands)

There is a reason why the bootlegs use the stock photos from the authentic ones. As far as I have observed, none of the bootlegs show their actual pictures. Yes, there are some quality bootlegs. But you just never know what you get AND the odd is really against you. But if you are a casual "collector" and don't really care about the quality and on a budget, bootlegs are probably your best bet. But if you are buying action figures, you should get the authentic Nendoroid and figma. For whatever money you are saving on a bootleg, you will regret about it when the certain parts of the action figures keep falling off or don't fit. Or they don't hold to the position that you want. BTW, if you go to a con, there is no guaranty that the vendor is selling authentic ones. I have seen vendors bragging about how much they rip people off with their knock offs. You assume that the figures inside a glass display are probably authentic? You may be assuming wrong. When you are in a con, shop around and see the differences in quality and price of the same figure. So you can make a better informed decision. Paying more doesn't guarantee you to get an authentic figure either. If you are ordering online, shipping from Japan doesn't guarantee you getting an authentic figure either. Yes, people sell knock offs on the internet all over the world.

Bro this vid was amazing had me crying 🤣 This defs deserves more views💯💯💯

I actually ended up getting my first figurine a month ago from pop up parade. I was surprised how decent the quality was and the price. It was a Myne figurine from ascendance of a bookworm. I also recently got the Fran/Teacher figurine from reincarnated as a sword.

Each to their own ,I love anime but spending 1000s of dollars in anime figures is INSANE , 3 years ago I bought me a 3D printer and that was the best thing I ever did, I have learned so much to the point I now paint them and sell them, 3 years later and now I own multiple 3D printers 1 Resin printer, 1 laser engraver and tons of acrylic paints I can tell ya that I have made many of costumers happy, many times is not about having the original thing, people just wants something decent that is affordable and that they can display in their room, Most of the time all you are paying is for the Brand, I have seen many 3d Prints from artis that look absolutely insane detailed and the best part about it is that you can print them as big as you want, and only for a fraction of what the retail ones cost.

Got it, only buy knockoffs after checking reviews

I have a Zero Two bunny coming from china for $50 instead of $280, we'll see how it goes when i get it.

is it worth buying a figure on amazon for 600 bucks or is it overpriced?

yo nice video, good job youtube for the recommendation

Fun video! I've been collecting anime figures since 2018 & I think I only have 2 knockoffs from Amazon in my collection. The first 1 I got I didn't know was a knockoff despite the price being suspicious. It's a figure of Asuna & Yui from SAO; in which the original figure $300-$400 & the knockoff is $30 or $25. Someone on Twitter told me that I got the knockoff version because Asuna's hair was painted blonde instead of orange & Yui's dress is a bit darker than the original. I still wanna get an original version, but the knockoff still looks alright. The other I'm not sure is a knockoff, but it's a Noodle Stopper figure of Yui from SAO, but it's her as a pixie, but I can't find her wings.

The biggest problem with AliExpress knockoffs is the fact they dont try to remove mold lines and on top of that they are painted by bad artists, on basically every figurine you can see jagged edges when 2 paints are next to each other, however there are situations where its not the case. For example I got myself a figurine to put in my car from Wonder Egg Project, but it ended up on shelf next to premium/mid figurines. No one who I asked to show bootleg figurine on my shelf was able to do so so far.

I've only ever found one aliexpress figure to actually be good. I did my own experiment like this with my FREEing Erza Scarlet bunny, the knockoff version of it was really good barring a few small things, though to be fair it was a bit more expensive than the average knockoff. Honestly if I could, I'd go back and just buy the knockoff rather than the official one.

It`s really scary i just bought this Roxy figure online and now i have this video on my You Tube start page.

This was great, Thanks alot!!

I bought one Asuka figure off of Aliexpress for 7 dollars as an experiment... Whoa Nelly, it was rough.

I bought a 4€ generic anime girl anime figure from Temu. The quality is super shit and it feels like it would break at any moment if I touch it. But I'd rather fill my room with 50 figures like this for 200€ than spending the same ammount for just one high quality.

idfk why this was reccomended to me by youtube but yeah, you do like like the type to collect anime figures, like you could not get closer to the stereotype its funny asf

Popup parade usually delivers, yeah. The cheaper official ones can also be really good, but it much depends on the actual figure, some are the same quality, some are getting closer to knock-off brand level.

Look at the hair! That is the best way to tell

i think the main problem with bootlegs (for customers) is if you think you bought a real figure but its not. If you know you're buying a fake and through reviews or something you see how they really look (and think its good enough), i don't think its bad, a lot of us don't have the money to spend on 100-200$ or more figures, and personally its not just about the money but my country has unreal taxes so i can only realistically buy up to 50$ (product+shipping) figures, and considering that most shipping here is about 10-20$ then that leaves 30-40$ for figures, and most original figures in that range are not really that good, though some are and those are definitely worth buying (and for some reason they are equally if not more expensive in aliexpress lol). And i know that for people in the US and Europe that might just seem like 2 hours of work worth of money but here and in many 3rd world countries it's waaayy more.

Really should have let us see them before family guesses so we could try and figure it out rather than just looking at the back of them. I got away with Nezuko and Bakugo because the colors were just wrong but Levi was unfair from the back.

Interesting. At 2:43, I thought the one with the flashier colour was the real one, that is until I looked at their front sides.

your family is very pretty, such an entertaining video!

👊🏻 cool video

Nice video man!

12:15. When you get four opinions, that's hardly a "poll", and using words like the "majority" is pretty heavy handed! LOL

JC - do you think a decent painter could bring knockoff to a original quality? i thought about it after you reviewed it. Sometimes it is just about kind of varnish to improve how paint look, and my only concern is about plastic quality and posing (i.e. Levi left hand grip on the sword) Hope you'll see it and respond.

Im an artist so I just repaint and fix the low budget ones❤

I must be weird. I instantly knew all the knockoffs from far away in a second or less lmao and I only own 1 figure. I think it's all the browsing of the real ones I really want haha

Knock-off Levi has jaundice

I'm not a collector, so at least for me I don't care about quality if I can save 300+% to get my favorite character. $30 vs $160 is a $130 difference for polish that in some instances isn't that noticeable even close up and directly compared. I agree, scammers are a crap shoot, plus morally ambiguous. But if a company is basically just 3d-printing-sculptures-but-matte while using a slightly higher quality plastic and saying it's worth two weeks of groceries or more, wish scams are a perfectly acceptable alternative.

Can you talk about the warning label, some boxes figures have warning of exposure to phthalate!

Can you make another experiment where they don't touch them?

yeah but now buy a 1/4 scale bunny, and you will see that the price native or freeing charges are really insane

The price and the eyes.

I have the exact same $250 Roxy figure and I do not regret my purchase

idk. i knew instantly which roxy figure was fake due to the slight facial distortion on the knock off

some on of them are pretty noticeable of the bat from the behind the footage with your familymembers... its the paint

Pop Up Parade is sadly useless to me. With the delivery fees they charge, the figures are in the hundred dollars range. Was excited to get their DMG figure, until the shipping slammed me across the room.

can you link the sites where we can buy figures please?

Anyone who promotes bootlegs doesn't understand how horrible they aren't. A lot use lead based paint or other weird paint that smells. Rhe mold seems are visible and there are slight defects. Save your money and by official merchandise. Pop up parade is official but cheaper but are tons better than bootlegs. I will note is the more you spend the longer lasting the figures will last.

This was a really good video

I found mha, sailor moon ,demon slayer figures at Ross for my daughter for Christmas. 14.99 and below price range

Yeah there is kinda a pain point when the price goes past 40-50 before none free shipping regarding figures. Extra ordinary situation would be needed to warrent spending way above this.

4:23 the dog agrees

To put it right : fake figure vs real

3:23 I had to laugh out loud - the difference is night and day and obvious at first sight.

The only Anime Figurine i have is from my friend who died, it was a Touhou Figurine of Remilia Scarlet, i personally would never buy figurines, but my friend used to collect them excessively! that is one of the things that i have left from him besides my other friends in the group!

Didn't know Popup Parade sponsors youtube videos too nowadays (JK 😂)