How To Tell If Anime Figure Is Fake

Question

First,

Bank check if there is a fan website that catalogues the produced figures for the serial you're interested in.
Bank check the catalogues at MyFigureCollection.net, make an business relationship, and consult collectors there.
Browse the website of the Japanese manufacturer/due south that produce the official figures and familiarize yourself with them (even if you don't read Japanese, you tin can navigate a bit with GoogleTranslate on and just by trial-and-error) and take annotation of one) the market place toll, ii) details of the packaging, and iii) when the effigy was released (if it is make-spanking-new, the hazard of bootlegs floating effectually already is depression).
Fifty-fifty if y'all're standing at a convention booth with a figure packet in your manus and wondering, pull out your smartphone/tablet/laptop and do a quick Google search for name-of-figure + manufacturer+name-on-box or model-series-proper noun-on-box + the word "homemade": practise other collectors ain this? Have other collectors warned against buying this?

Japanese companies are very unlikely to sell you a bootleg, so if you are concerned about shelling out your hard-earned cash on the real matter, you can have more than peace-of-mind if you purchase from a Japanese shop, its online website, or its Rakuten online shop. Even if you lot are buying a used figure from Mandarake, you will know the staff have already inspected and verified it as being, to the best of their cognition, an authentic figure. Another option is to bid on Yahoo Japan Auctions, where most sellers are Japanese (some are real stores that also have an online sale presence, but many are individuals); since the Japanese generally take a strong ethic regarding honesty about their products, you can besides have the slice of listen that near none of the sellers are trying to swindle you (I have purchased well over a hundred items from sellers in that location with no bug. If a seller has any concerns whatever most the condition of the product, they volition explain this in the detail description and/or propose to carefully inspect the uploaded photos; they lean towards cautioning potential bidders not to bid if you accept any possible qualms virtually the detail: in all such disclaimers cases for the dozens of items I have won, only one of them was actually in poor condition equally the seller had mentioned. In all the thousands of auction listings I accept perused, I have not come beyond any homemade items. This is not to merits that none ever crop up, but there is not as much to worry about as when buying from eBay or at a convention outside of Nihon). About Japanese auction sellers practice not personally ship to overseas customers, then if you do not have an address within Nihon, yous can utilise a proxy behest service.

If you are in a situation where you lot're looking at the figure and you don't have a chance to investigate online earlier buying (or not):

The starting time thing to look for (as I assume we are talking about bootlegs that expect pretty existent, rather than ones where, on first glance, you tin tell the quality is shoddy) is whatever non-Japanese text, such as Chinese, Korean, Thai, etc. While there are figures officially-licensed for production and sales outside of Japan, nearly bootlegs are besides produced outside of Japan. If you lot see non-Japanese text, exist wary.
Next, locate the logo of the series and a copyright (such as the copyright symbol © or the trademark letters "TM"). This might exist printed straight on the box, might be embossed into the paper-thin of the box, and/or there might be a gold-foil sticker.
Carefully check the font of the lettering. Some official Japanese figure boxes have English on them, but it follows a pattern, then that is a reason to familiarize yourself with what words/phrases/font the manufacturer uses for its press. Seeing the name of the series or character typed in another font than the company unremarkably uses should exist a crimson flag.
Japanese companies are very meticulous well-nigh packaging, then if the box looks similar i) the art doesn't quite line up with the box edges, 2) the art is slightly blurry, and/or 3) the colors are as well harsh, it probably is fake. In other words, a bootleg packet might be created by taking a digital photograph or browse of the original box and printing a copy, so it might lose crispness in the reproduction procedure.
Something to be aware of is that Japanese high-quality models (garage kits) are usually sold unpainted (the body comes in pieces that must be assembled and is cream-colored or light grayness [paints must be purchased separately]); generally, if you lot are looking at something that is painted or colored plastic, either 1) it was an unpainted model that someone painted and is selling their painted version (a model painted by someone else is not mint condition, yet it often has a high price tag to pay the artist for their time and skill in painting it for you. This is a valid choice of something to buy, but pay attending to whether the paint colors used accurately match the colors from the real series; some artists use their artistic license and change details in the paint job), 2) it is a plastic effigy produced equally such by the company (the plastic sort are usually cheaper in cost than the top quality line of models. One type is the posable, jointed limb plastic models. Another type are lower-quality figures marketed toward kids with pricing that parents, rather than serious collectors, would exist willing to buy), or 3) information technology is a bootleg.

Equally an instance, hither's a helpful review of a Crewman Saturn figure posted on MyFigureCollection.cyberspace and the corresponding article "Identifying SHFiguarts Crewman Moon Series Bootlegs" at the fansite Sailor Moon Collection.

An official figure box (the Toei animation gold sticker, the existent logo ["Sailormoon World" is the official logo created for the 20th anniversary merchandise, not 1 of the original Idiot box series official logos], the copyright info at the bottom edge, standard pattern to the lettering font): Sailor Saturn box