Bootleg Gunpla?

Discuss models, figures, Blu-rays and more.

Did u like to buy bootleg-branded gunpla?

Yup!
4
17%
Nope!
4
17%
Not really sure
5
22%
Are u nuts buying bootleg gunpla?
10
43%
 
Total votes: 23
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Guiltaur
Posts: 36
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Location: Canada, East Coast

Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

Company loyalty is a non-factor for my decision making when buying model kits. My main concern is quality of the product. So I guess as far as bootlegs, I am interested in resin conversion kits rather than copies/knock offs of existing models. I'd rather buy official products because I can depend on a standard of quality but conversion kits offer model enhancement that isn't available in the current official product line.
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mcred23
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Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

Guiltaur wrote:Going back to bootlegs...are resin conversion kits that aren't made by B-Club licensed or are they also bootleg merchandise?
B-Club, AFAIK, is part of Bandai and thus their stuff would be liscensed. However, as Geoxile mentioned, when you see other companies selling full resin recasts of actual kits, those tend to be bootlegs.
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Guiltaur
Posts: 36
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Location: Canada, East Coast

Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

I just discovered G-System and my goodness, if these aren't licensed products, I don't care if they're bootleg. Things like the Gerbera Tetra resin kit...so expensive but so exquisite looking.
Yardly
Posts: 68
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:20 am

Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

I will always buy a Bandai kit over a knock-off. But things like the Chrome Akatsuki are pretty interesting to me.
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Oruma
Posts: 348
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Location: Vancouver

Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

Yardly wrote:I will always buy a Bandai kit over a knock-off. But things like the Chrome Akatsuki are pretty interesting to me.
I shared the same opinion. While I already had the 1/100 Akatsuki, a while back I did contemplate purchasing a bootleg chrome version of this kit, just for kickers :roll: However, due to the fact that I cannot verify the quality of bootleg Gunpla (the source I had was from online, and I wasn't inclined to purchasing things online due to bad experiences previous.)

The sad truth is, this is a serious problem in China/HK/Taiwan. While many had purchased bootleg gunpla for the HolySxxt!Value, others saw it as a cheap way to get spare parts (for fixing broken parts or kit-bash). The SD Gundam Sangokuden series (Romance of Three Kingdoms with Gundam, in a nutshell) of recent years had been a particular victim of this: it's fairly popular and there were numerous bootleg Gunpla. In fact, these bootleggers were bold and innovative enough that they designed (out of pre-existing character art) several kits themselves.
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Geoxile
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Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

G-System and NeoGrade that make their own original kits aren't bootlegs, the designs are rip offs technically since they don't have rights to them I believe. But people who recast G-system and NG are bootleggers, and these are more common, and actually I think SMS is a major bootlegger despite being a good resin kit provider. They have several recasts except with resin frames feature in them, still bootlegs just with bootlegs of the original Bandai model kit as well.

In fact? Most of the resin kits on Tatsu hobby, E2046, Hobbyfan, Gundamshopbest, etc. are all bootleggers by definition. They sell unauthorized recasts of other people's work. You shouldn't buy from those sites anymore if you don't like buying bootlegs.
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Guiltaur
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Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

Now that I've investigated the bootleg market more, I definitely think that knock off/recast products have no place in my collection, however, I do have an interest in conversion kits and independently designed/produced resin kits, even though they do violate intellectual property use laws. I freely admit that both KOs/recasts and things like unlicensed conversion and full resin kits are equally illegal but I see the former as the greater of two evils.

I feel that an unlicensed conversion kit, while illegal, offers something that the official product line does not have and so it isn't necessarily directly competing against the IP owner. I also have a similar attitude towards full resin kits that are of designs that don't exist at this time in the official product line like the Gerbera Tetra. Again, such an unlicensed product can at the very least be considered something that doesn't directly compete against an existing product, so while it is not "rightfully" used as a product for sale, it doesn't deprive a company like Bandai from profit unless Bandai already has a Gerbera Tetra model kit.

Now while I have an interest in unlicensed conversion kits and full model kits, I doubt I'll buy one any time soon as they are usually fairly expensive in comparison to a normal Gunpla model kit from Bandai.
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mangyver5223
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:41 pm

Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

:wink: I think that bootleg gunpla could be used as spare parts or experimental subject to to modification and customization. anybody agree or otherwise? :mrgreen:
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Badodots
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Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2016 12:02 pm

Re: Bootleg Gunpla?

Old topic it seems? Dang! Anyway...

Bootlegs seems to have improved these past few years. And when it comes to spare parts, I have always turned to bootlegs for the tedius stuff I want to repair. There some stuff that i want to add, like "I want to attach something to my Ootori Strike Rouge". Buying another Aile RM would cost me too much, and seeing dragon momoko's ver 2.0 Sword pack and Launcher pack, and is releasing an Aile Striker pack with not 1, but 3 SKY GRASPERS! I can't be tempted no more. "Oooh I heard that tallgeese 2 and 3 was a P-Banda--" Dragon Momoko has got you covered brother. "I have a PG Astray Red Frame and it sucks it doesn't have the Master Grade's Tactical Ar---" Daban has a solution for that. "OH NOES! Hyaku-Shiki is boring I want an Akatsuki MG!!!!" Do I have to post an answer for that?

Though I agree, the plastic quality of bootlegs REALLY do suck, and the connections are prone to issues like too much tightness or too much loose(Tallgeese, I'm looking at YOU). Regardless of whether be it bootleg or original, the true limiting factor is the Gunpla meister's skill in the craft.
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