oh sweet jesus what is that

let's celebrate this transition with some motivational words from our lord and savior yugioh

"our battle begins now"

"hark, for the hour of our conflict arises"

"it;s tiem ot dul"

"joey i don't think you should cook the candy bars"

"bird rock lambchop bird bigger bird"

Hello, it's me again. Hope this is okay?

I had these two for a while now and i still can't tell if they're bad quality official merch or bootlegs with slightly more effort.

Got both of them randomly on a flea market at some point. The ralts has '2001 Nintendo' (i think? Might be a 7 instead of a 1, the font is very small) stamped on the back of it's legs (also, it's a pencil topper) and the vulpix has something barely legible on it's belly that's only partially readable due to the thick coat of paint on it. I think i could make out smth along the lines of "19??" (A year maybe?) followed by what might be 'Nintendo' with a bit of fantasy. It also has barely readable 'made in china' on there.

The ralts is made of a hard plastic and i feel like it's kinda off model while still close enough? Idk. The colours throw me off and that you can actually see the eyes.

With the vulpix, i actually thought it was a cute bootleg at first but i think i saw someone with a similar one claiming it was official a long time ago? I don't really remember any details sadly. This one is more rubbery and the paint on the paws is peeling off in some places. I think it's kinda hilarious how neon orange it looks though.

What do you think? I love them either way but i think it'd be fun to trace their origins, if possible.

you're good bro i ain't got much to post atm so bootleg convos are great!!

not sure on whether these are boots or not tho. it's a toss up with older figures cause the pokemon designs themselves were still kinda fluid so there's a lot more wiggle room. can't even tell you what my gut's saying cause i'm torn?? they're adorable either way and i love them

Now that the advent calendar is empty, i grabbed two more that made me question stuff while opening the little doors over the days.

First off: the crust on sylveon seems to be a part of the sculpt, or at least underneath the paint, so my attempts of cleaning up that spot were mostly in vain. Good news, most of the other dirt on it was easily wiped off.

Shout out to bent sneasel (the one in the middle) who actually stands more stable without falling over than the slightly less bent ones i had before. I think the comparsion is nice. Actually, i like the crouched down look for it better, like it's ready to actually put those claws to use in battle instead of just posing for a picture. The tail feather is kinda hilarious though.

I also noticed some weird black dirt particles stuck to plenty of the figurines thoughout the calendar but those were usually easily wiped off.

Still, this calendar had me question the quality control for these things like, these are official. You'd think they'd at least be clean and not bent straight out of the box.

Honorable mention to struggling to get some of them out of the packaging, i don't think i could have managed to get them out in one piece sometimes if i didn't already know how fragile some pokemon toys tend to be.

Don't get me wrong, i still enjoyed the calendar but some things just made me wonder this time around. I just thought you'd maybe like to see the anomalies i found it it. Feel free to disregard & delete this if not. Hope everyone is having a good time with the holidays.

ngl my first question is: where'd you buy these advent calendars from bruh. like are we talking "bought these from pokemon center dot com" or "found these at target" cause you'd be shocked how easy it is for bootlegs to pass as official merch

that said..........i've gotten newer figures (usually 2015 - present) in ebay lots that SEEM as official as can be but have weird flaws you almost never see on older merch. so like. yeah i'm genuinely unsure about the quality control on pokemon stuff. either official stuff is sloppier or the bootleggers are just putting in more effort

Is he catching a snowflake or flipping us off? Like did they really have to put it on his middle finger? 😭

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