Bootleg kits?! ~Review~
Well, I happen to come across pirated or bootleg Gundam kits at my place, and hence you have a choice of Bandai or Bootleg stuff like Little White Dragon, GHD, BENDI, etc.
Before i’ll start briefing on these stuff, i’ll just have to admit that i admire China. They are pretty good at producing bootlegs and pirated stuff other than just Gundam kits. I was dissapointed i forgot to take some photos of these items when i went to Shanghai last year. I visited a Mega-sized mall, nope, Giga sized mall that will take you a few days to visit every shoplot and has more than 50 entrances. Yes, after i went though the Electronics section, my first words are: “you gotta be kidding!!!”. I saw a phone that looks like the Sony Ericsson W910, 90% similar, except it doesn’t have the Sony Ericsson logo. It was named “Suny Ericsson”. I laughed. “Suny” at the same time is a vulgar word in tamil. Next, you see a Nokia N82 look-alike, named “N88″. Where the F*** did N88 ever existed? Of couse, a W910 at a price of a K700 phone. That’s China.
Here’s a comparison of Bootleg and Bandai stuff, the boxart. The 2 boxes on the left are pirated/bootlegs. Quite obvious for familiar Gundam collectors. They give good names to the Gundams.
As usual, China’s masterpiece.
As for the manual, good details for the LWDragon brand, translated in chinese and English, at least the details are 70% accurate. Not bad. But, other brands do not have such details given.
A photostat of the ori kits, just translation.
I happened to buy a few, err… 3 kits, bootlegs for experimental purposes and out of curiousity. The quality is still decent, but not as good as Bandai.
Trust me, this kit may look better than expected, cuz i did some work on it, i’ll tell you, pirated plastics melt in contact with thinner/turpentine. The paints will corrode if you spray a new color on it, and result in mixing of colors. I happened to lose the crest on the head of this Abyss. Some parts are slightly loose, but not a problem to me, while some parts just don’t fit nicely, and i’ll need to sand the ‘poles’ that fits into the ‘holes’ in the interior, or make the hole bigger. If you put some extra work in it, it’ll be good enough even for poses. As you can see, the legs particularly, the linings just ‘melt’ after i sprayed lacquer, may be due to 2 reasons: I sprayed too much, or the bootleg plastic couldn’t take much paint and absorb.
Well, i have the Legend which i’ll just keep it, not assemble, since i have the idea of building a Providence Zaku with that. Even i bought these bootlegs, there’s no way i’ll continue buying it in future nor supporting it. I always try to avoid things from China, whether it is food, toys, electronics or just anything, and i never believed in super cheap stuffs. Even now mobile phones and laptops are getting cheaper, i still doubt those that are super cheap though having good functions. As usual, quality is the top priority. ^ ^
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