I rarely post but bootlegs/k.o. Figures will always be trash to me, because while they short-term work for a very small amount of people, they long-term hurt the official product with collectors like myself, who consistently buy all the official merchandise. My opinion.

That kinda sounds like a you problem
if KOs (that aren't floppy messes) make it easier to get some characters, I don't really see the harm, especially when the people making them are apparently as committed as these guys are

They shouldn't be put down just because you've decided to buy everything Bandai releases

I wouldn?t mind having information about good bootlegs and perhaps places where to get them.

Collectability and value are not interchangeable. Knock-offs in almost any industry will exist when the original manufacturer cannot meet demand. According to the ideas of free market capitalism, KOs and imitators actually drive innovation and force companies to cater to buyers who now have a choice.

^^This^^

I use ShowZ/Gundamit to get these. The maker is datong or DT Studio. Up till now they've listed datongs 1.0 KO of SS eternal, 1.0 KO of SS Eternal red flare, and SS Joker. The eternal listing on their site rn is the 2.0 even if it doesnt specify. It has the same box as the 1.0, but its a 2.0 restock as they sold out of the 1.0 and the factory now only cranks out the 2.0's, my copy came from this restock. Their website also reactivated the SS red flare listing as that sold out of the 1.0 too and the 2.0 restock of that is on the way. So its listed as a preorder. They've been selling well, so they should have SS kamen rider cyclone and the SS hardboilder listed soon enough.

Hope this helps!

I was agreeing until you made it a "Me" problem.

In a case like this, you have knock-offs that are either releases never done by Bandai like Cyclone or are of extremely hard-to-find and expensive releases like Eternal.

I also tend to avoid knock-offs, but I'm not gonna casually drop 250 to 300 dollars to try and get a real Eternal. If Bandai's not gonna consider reissuing it and a 3rd party company comes along and puts out a knock-off that is confirmed to be good quality and actually improves on the real thing, I'm swallowing my pride and going with the knock-off.

I normally advise against most knock-offs or supporting them, but when it comes to situations and examples like this? That becomes an exception until Bandai either reissues harder-to-find releases or redoes them.

Obviously plenty of respect if you choose to hard-no knock-offs wholesale though, that's totally understandable.

Interesting topic! I don’t think anyone’s opinion is wrong here.

Personally, as long as the knockoff is not trying to deceive anyone ie: the packaging is different and it’s clearly marked as not from Tamashii, I’m ok with it. Mega bonus points if they fix errors with the tamashii product and/or do completely original sculpts that tamashii might not bother with.

However, I personally think there’s no defending the ones that package a knockoff product in a box that looks exactly like the official tamashii boxes.

If it's Datong being this, I'm not going to risk it, I remember when they were doing those 1.0 of Dragon Ball and they were a disaster. (Now you have Demoniacal Fit who does a great job...)

i think they're dt studio and gundamit just marks the listings as datong, these guys seem to be completely different trust me. Shin Henshin got the first version ko of SS eternal and he can tell you its really good. The second version is all of that plus better paint application, redone proportions, sturdy joints and plastic, redone head and fixed wired cape. I have him standing among my shfs and you cant tell by handling or displaying him that he's a ko, unless you look at the box.