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Aug 21, 2011 - 09:59 PM |
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Bootlegs and Nendoroid Hunting |
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So the story goes as follows...
I never really found the appeal of nendoroids until my cousin brought me back one from Taiwan a few months back. The one he brought back for me was Snow Miku (aka Yuki Miku, #97). At the time, I thought it looked pretty cute and reasonably well made. He never told me how much it costs, but I looked it up on eBay, and they certainly weren't cheap.
It's not until recently after I got back from Otakon that I did a bit more research. I got a bunch of Vocaloid stuff from Otakon this year, including a big Miku Plush from the Nendoroid Plus line of plushies, a Chibi Vocaloid wall scroll, and a Wowaka CD (Unhappy Refrain).
Since I like knowing about the things I buy, I decided to brush up on some Vocaloid canon so that I don't sound like an idiot when having to explain them later. It wasn't until this point that I stumbled upon a page of some of the vocaloid merchandise that I even thought of the idea of anything being a bootleg, so I looked up some of it, and that's when it hit me.
It might be hard to tell from this picture, but her face is very reflective. That in and of itself isn't that big of an issue, but I've always wondered why she's not very stable (the parts don't fit in very well, they're either really tight, or too loose). There are some other tell tale signs on the box, but the box doesn't matter that much to me. After some research online, I've confirmed it to be a bootleg. I think it's a pretty well made bootleg, but still.
This one is pretty much a lesson that I shouldn't impulse buy things from conventions. I always assumed that they had genuine stuff at conventions (especially one as big as Otakon), so I bought it without doing any kind of research first. But from what I found out, these plushes are only supposed to be ~10 inches in height. The Kagamine Rin plush next to it is genuine (one I bought shortly after the convention) and is the correct height. There aren't that many differences, but the main one I realized is that the Miku doesn't have a wire skeleton, which means you can't really pose her.
Now, I don't hate these two because I think they're still reasonably well made and I think the Miku plush is more huggable than the Rin plush, but it has spurred an interest in me to seek out other nendoroids, because I really do like how my Snow Miku looks.
I've been scrounging around eBay to find some nendoroids, and have tried to steer clear of any listing that looks suspicious (namely anything I can't get a confirmation of authenticity on). But at least over this last weekend, I think I've dropped closed to $600 on nendoroids. In the next week or so (whenever they come in) we'll find out if I got screwed on any of them.
For the curious, these are:
#27 - Izumi Konata
#28 - Hiiragi Kagami
#82 - Akiyama Mio
#93 - Megurine Luka
#97 - Snow Miku (let's try this again)
#104 - Nakano Azusa
I also pre-ordered the Kagamine Rin/Len Cheerful set and I've been eying
#33 - Hatsune Miku (This one I'm weary of because of the rampant bootlegging of this partcular figure.)
#62 - Mikku Miku Kagami (Awaiting Authenticity Check)
EDIT: #62 - Mikku Miku Kagami authenticity confirmed.
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Response to:
) But, at the very least, it's all over with. I'll never understand the people who think that college is partying every night. Of course, I'm probably just extremely jealous of the people who DO party every night. Senior year sucked ass for me, which I assume it's my fault for overloading 24 credits each semester. Also, I don't know if it's just me, but commencement ceremonies suck. I assume most people are happy that they've graduated from college, but I sat in that seat for about 2 hours just to hear my names get called once, walk across a stage to get an envelope and walk back off and have a seat again. Boring as all hell.
