What are Your Feelings on Bootleg/Non-licensed Anime Goods?

[LiquidShu]

Sup Fuwa  Today I am here to ask about how you all feel about bootleg goods/merchandise (excluding figures). I am talking about wall scrolls, sheets, pillows, mugs, binders, anything like that. The whole reason I am asking this, is because the choice of going out of my way and spending a ton of money on goods no longer printed (specifically wall scrolls), and the time spent to find these in the first place, is something I am having trouble determining the worth of or not. A lot of the times the officially licensed good will be higher quality than the fan made/bootleg (not the case all the time), and others you will find some really good quality prints or goods that are fan made. Redbubble seems to be a decent example of things made by fans and not officially licensed, which honestly, puts me on edge from buying, even if the product is good.

So, do you guys/gals care about if your item has that official logo, and authentic feel? Or do not pay any head to that?

[Down]

I mostly find collection value in those derivative goods and a bootleg is therefore worthless from that point of view. I could see myself custom printing a t-shirt or a mug, though.

However I wouldn't buy anime goods from a bootleg store regardless - if I'm gonna spend money on anime goods, it might as well go to the people funding muh animu and not a random crook.

[AaronIsCrunchy]

I don't buy much tbh, but if I bought more I'm a bit of a sucker for the authentic. Even if it's really well done, there's something in my head that makes me uncomfortable or unwelcoming towards fan-made stuff... though I will admit I'd buy a few plushies that are made

[LiquidShu]

I was looking for Guilty Crown, White Album 2, Yosgua no Sora, Aldnoah.Zero, and Pokemon wall scrolls to be exact and I literally couldn't find anything that wasn't out of print, sold out, or going for way more than a wall scroll should be worth. All I was able to find really was fan made/boot leg items, which was disappointing. 

I as well strongly prefer authentic goods just because there is that itch in my head that tells me so, seems like that is the consensus so far as well. Hopefully more will come and weigh in ~ 

[Nosebleed]

Unless you're getting something like a mug or a t-shirt, bootlegs are usually worse in the long run due to poor quality.

Even assuming the bootleg looks really good, it'll probably never be as good as the original so it's a bit unrealistic to have an option in the poll for flawless bootlegs.

I mostly only buy figures though so maybe that's why I think like that. (Accidentally buying a bootleg figure would make me want to jump off a bridge).

[LiquidShu]

12 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Unless you're getting something like a mug or a t-shirt, bootlegs are usually worse in the long run due to poor quality.

Even assuming the bootleg looks really good, it'll probably never be as good as the original so it's a bit unrealistic to have an option in the poll for flawless bootlegs.

I mostly only buy figures though so maybe that's why I think like that. (Accidentally buying a bootleg figure would make me want to jump off a bridge).

Maybe I should change the option then, if possible. Though I did state this discussion to be excluding figures, since I would never go near a bootleg. Maybe I shouldn't have included the word bootleg? Mostly going for a fan of "X" series made "Y" item and is selling it, not Chinese Bootleg Company "A" is selling really crappy bootleg "B". If that even makes any sense?

-----

Also maybe I made a mistake in the "higher quality" portion of option #2, doesn't mean it has to be as good as the authentic, just of good quality (not great), nor an obviously shitty bootleg.

Here is to hoping that clears any misunderstandings generated from my side.

[Nosebleed]

That's fine, but my position still stands in the end, buying a collectible that's authentic always has more value for me.

It's pretty simple logic. Unless you're buying something to wear, chances are you're buying something ornamental or something that's meant to be collected, and i think having a collectible that's not authentic kinda defeats the purpose of it.

[Justin579]

as long as china exists they will. I don't see the problem. I would never pay $500 for a piece of plastic rather pay $50 even if it has shittier quality. sorry

[CeruleanGamer]

I mean if it's a wallscroll, if the anime girl doesn't look distorted and still easily recognizable, even with shitty color hues/saturation or any kind of obvious giveaway that it's a bootleg version, I'm fine with it. I mean, it's a wallscroll.... it's not something individually created to perfection but mass produced. It's not like a sculpture crafted by Michelangelo ffs.

There is a huge difference between $50 and $500, so saving money is important especially when you can buy 10 or more bootlegs for the price of 1 authentic. If you can't see it, you are either Bill Gates, some professional athlete, or someone living with his parents and just leeching off them. 

[LiquidShu]

45 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

That's fine, but my position still stands in the end, buying a collectible that's authentic always has more value for me.

It's pretty simple logic. Unless you're buying something to wear, chances are you're buying something ornamental or something that's meant to be collected, and i think having a collectible that's not authentic kinda defeats the purpose of it.

I guess this raises the question "Is a wall scroll a collectible?"  

Totally agree on the "...having a collectible that's not authentic kinda defeats the purpose of it." Suppose it just comes down to what one considers a collectible vs vanity (?), if t-shirts and the like could be considered that. 

[LiquidShu]

41 minutes ago, CeruleanGamer said:

I mean if it's a wallscroll, if the anime girl doesn't look distorted and still easily recognizable, even with shitty color hues/saturation or any kind of obvious giveaway that it's a bootleg version, I'm fine with it. I mean, it's a wallscroll.... it's not something individually created to perfection but mass produced. It's not like a sculpture crafted by Michelangelo ffs.

There is a huge difference between $50 and $500, so saving money is important especially when you can buy 10 or more bootlegs for the price of 1 authentic. If you can't see it, you are either Bill Gates, some professional athlete, or someone living with his parents and just leeching off them. 

I see the $50 - $500 saving thing is important as the budget I am giving myself is about $450 for luxury items (pretty much gift money from my family) until sometime in the summer (which I want to save as much as I can of that for EVO). But when it comes to I can get 10 fan made/bootleg items or 1 authentic item I am still drawn towards that one authentic item... I feel as if I should break that habit but oh well.

[CeruleanGamer]

Just now, LiquidShu said:

I see the $50 - $500 saving thing is important as the budget I am giving myself is $600 for luxury items (pretty much gift money from my family) until sometime in the summer (which I want to save as much as I can of that for EVO). But when it comes to I can get 10 fan made/bootleg items or 1 authentic item I am still drawn towards that one authentic item... I feel as if I should break that habit but oh well.

I'm a hoarder by nature. I prefer when I have more of things. I mean this authentic vs bootleg evaluation is really dependent on you. Unless you're gonna show off your room to other people like a museum which people like OriginalRen tends to do a lot, buying authentic-only goods will dry hump your wallet to oblivion because they are just that costly.... I've seen authentics range from 20 to even 30x more than the bootleg version, so we are sometimes talking $50 vs $1,500 here....  

You can also do mix and match of things, splitting your budget for authentic/bootleg while highlighting your authentic stuff in a separate shelf/wall and excluding them from the rest of your bootlegged stuff.

[LiquidShu]

1 minute ago, CeruleanGamer said:

I'm a hoarder by nature. I prefer when I have more of things. I mean this authentic vs bootleg evaluation is really dependent on you. Unless you're gonna show off your room to other people like a museum which people like OriginalRen tends to do a lot, buying authentic-only goods will dry hump your wallet to oblivion because they are just that costly.... I've seen authentics range from 20 to even 30x more than the bootleg version, so we are sometimes talking $50 vs $1,500 here....  

You can also do mix and match of things, splitting your budget for authentic/bootleg while highlighting your authentic stuff in a separate shelf/wall and excluding them from the rest of your bootlegged stuff.

Basically the only thing I would be buying bootleg is wall scrolls, which the 8 I have up, 6 are bootlegs. I do own more authentic posters/wall scrolls but they aren't the right size for me to display. I go on a crazy tangent every once in awhile about some random thing related to my hobbies and it bugs straight for a few days, which led to this topic 

[Nosebleed]

Official wallscrolls aren't really that expensive though, unless you want huge ones, but those are expensive even as bootlegs. If I were to rank them though, I'd say they're on the same level as t-shirts and mugs since you can easily custom print one.

I don't think a 50-500 dollar difference is realistic though. From my experience, the most expensive things to buy, outside of figurines, tend to be stuff like dakimakuras, and the most you'll save on those if you buy a bootleg is maybe 50 or 60 dollars, and the print quality is extremely important when it comes to dakimakuras, so I think those 50 dollars might be a worthy investment.

The rest of anime goods are usually cheapish stuff which makes bootlegs obsolete.

Also, if you know where to search, you can usually find good deals for the real products, even the more expensive ones.

I think bootlegs are valid in some scenarios though, like when something is no longer manufactured and is very rare, to the point where the prices for it online are absurd.

I don't normally buy a ton of stuff at once, so even though authentic goods are more expensive, I'd rather pay extra for security and quality than save a few bucks somewhere else and get an inferior product while simultaneously not supporting the makers of the anime I like. The extra amount is usually not abysmal unless you just like buying tons of stuff at once, so I'll always go with authentic first and foremost.

[CeruleanGamer]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you don't like what you see, then by all means buy whatever you think is right.

But here's the thing though, selling anime goods for a decent price might be tougher to sell than grandma's antique necklace from 1880s. I had a garage sale before for all my unwanted goods and being in an Asian neighborhood, I was rather surprised that most of my anime stuff didn't sell that much but my furniture and jewelry sold like peanuts. I even had them all appraised beforehand too. 

[LiquidShu]

There is a Yosuga no Sora wallscroll on Mandrake for $140, not printed anymore and I couldn't find it on any other site I go on (about 13/4 others). Nope, no way am I spending 30% of my budget on a wall scroll, especially when there is a figure of the Sora on the wall scroll (Chinese dress ver.) for cheaper. Then when it comes to Guilty Crown, aside from GE on Amazon, who doesn't provide dimensions I can trust in the description, zip. AmiAmi is sold out of all White Album 2, Guilty Crown, Aldnoah.Zero, and any other series I want on my walls. Other sites didn't even bring anything up. 

30 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Official wallscrolls aren't really that expensive though, unless you want huge ones, but those are expensive even as bootlegs. If I were to rank them though, I'd say they're on the same level as t-shirts and mugs since you can easily custom print one.

I think bootlegs are valid in some scenarios though, like when something is no longer manufactured and is very rare, to the point where the prices for it online are absurd.

I don't normally buy a ton of stuff at once, so even though authentic goods are more expensive, I'd rather pay extra for security and quality than save a few bucks somewhere else and get an inferior product while simultaneously not supporting the makers of the anime I like. The extra amount is usually not abysmal unless you just like buying tons of stuff at once, so I'll always go with authentic first and foremost.

Official wall scrolls that are no longer in print are absurdly expensive for something on my wall, especially in light of my budget.

I too tend not to buy a lot of things at once, however this time around, I am trying to replace the scrolls on my walls all at once (they have been up for almost three years). So, if I were to scrounge around for what I really wanted, it would take quite some time and probably would cost as much as a figurine, maybe more. And in that case, I rather buy the figurine. 

At that point it's "Do I bother to replace the scrolls I have up and buy other things?" if I decide "screw fan made/bootlegs", or "Screw it let's buy the fan made/bootlegs and live with it". Though I feel I am going off topic now. 

[Nosebleed]

I'm not passing judgement on anyone's purchase preferences, I'm just saying how I personally deal with the subject of bootlegs.

A couple years ago I'd always go for the cheapest thing I could find, but after becoming more knowledgeable on the market I started valuing authenticity and began understanding that saving a couple of bucks once in a while isn't worth the risk of getting something of bad/average quality.

Regarding out of print wallscrolls, like I mentioned in my last post, if they're no longer being manufactured you're no longer supporting the makers regardless of what you do, so in this scenario you're better off with bootlegs if you know where to print good quality ones, since all yu usually care about here is how they look.

Generally speaking, with newer stuff I'd rather buy authenticity. With stuff that's no longer manufactured it depends on the product.

[Mugi]

A high quality item is a high quality item. Whether it's official or not doesn't matter to me, personally.

[LiquidShu]

15 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

I'm not passing judgement on anyone's purchase preferences, I'm just saying how I personally deal with the subject of bootlegs.

A couple years ago I'd always go for the cheapest thing I could find, but after becoming more knowledgeable on the market I started valuing authenticity and began understanding that saving a couple of bucks once in a while isn't worth the risk of getting something of bad/average quality.

Regarding out of print wallscrolls, like I mentioned in my last post, if they're no longer being manufactured you're no longer supporting the makers regardless of what you do, so in this scenario you're better off with bootlegs if you know where to print good quality ones, since all yu usually care about here is how they look.

Generally speaking, with newer stuff I'd rather buy authenticity. With stuff that's no longer manufactured it depends on the product.

Never tried saying you were, instead I found it helpful having these discussions. I never even thought of supporting the manufacturer in all honesty, I was just focused on my own personal collection and displays, so that is a viewpoint I find worth looking through. Normally if it music or a NEW game (normally buy used for consoles) I would think of the developers/artist but it never crossed my mind when it came to anime goods.

[Satsuki]

What do you think about "made in china" stuff? 

I'm kinda a collector, so for me, official or nothing. Most bootleg stuff have horrible quality, and the few good ones are only slightly cheaper than official ones, so why bother?

[Forgetful Frank]

I personally prefer the official merchandise because that way you're supporting the one who made it, same reason why I'll never pirate a game. If I enjoy a product or franchise, I want to support them because I want them to be able to continue creating the things I enjoy.

Not 100% sure if you'd be supporting them with unofficial bootleg stuff, I highly doubt it, but that's why I would prefer to go for the official stuff.

[john 'mr. customer' smith]

sometimes there is no authentic stuff available. i've had to have a planetarian poster printed from an image i found online, simply because nothing is made for it anymore