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Spotting Bootlegs


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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23669
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:29 am Reply with quote
Well, I dunno. The version I have is the one from the image you found online, murph76 and it is a single-sided DVD. According to DVDAF, the version I have is the one that was released 2000-07-14. I've only been able to find three versions of TB on DVDAF and Amazon.com. There's mine, which was the first issue, there's the re-issue that came out in 2003 and the front cover looks like this:



...and there was a second reissue that came out in 2005 and has a blue cover. Note that none of the covers look like yours. Very odd.
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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:41 am Reply with quote
Just to make life more interesting, mine is similar to the above but is different in details. I suspect that the company did mulitple print runs. If your disk appears commercially printed on the hub it is probably legitimate. I can't see a bootleg going to that kind of trouble.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:23 am Reply with quote
That was my thought, too, Alan. Hey, murph76 - you might have some supah-rare version that is worth a lot of dough!
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 9:54 am Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
Just to make life more interesting, mine is similar to the above but is different in details.

This cover, right?



Taken from DVD Empire, the wrinkles on the paper show that this picture is scanned from a physical jacket, not from its pre-production electronic file.


Blood- wrote:
That was my thought, too, Alan. Hey, murph76 - you might have some supah-rare version that is worth a lot of dough!

I've witnessed something similar: me and a few friends bought Saint Young Men vol. 7 at the same bookstore, then one friend found something different: while the covers of most volumes were coarse with a special effects coating (except on faces of Jesus and Buddha and selected objects), the cover of his was completely flat and smooth:



(Click the thumbnail for a bigger picture)
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murph76



Joined: 26 Jul 2006
Posts: 3291
Location: Akron, OH
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 9:58 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
Yours is fine.


Thanks! Good to know it's just old and odd.

Alan45 wrote:
If your disk appears commercially printed on the hub it is probably legitimate. I can't see a bootleg going to that kind of trouble.


True. I kinda thought the same thing.

Blood- wrote:
you might have some supah-rare version that is worth a lot of dough!


Heh. You wanna buy it? I'll cut you good deal. Wink

Just to make it more interesting, I bought the other two versions Amazon was selling. Anime catgrin + sweatdrop They were $5 a piece; I think shipping cost me just as much as the product. I'm curious about the differences.

Thanks for the help, everyone. I truly appreciate it. Very Happy
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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 12:17 pm Reply with quote
@ Dormcat

Yeah, that's the one. Mine does not have "Copyrighted Material" on the bottom, which is likely an artifact of the web page.
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 12:48 pm Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
Yeah, that's the one. Mine does not have "Copyrighted Material" on the bottom, which is likely an artifact of the web page.

DVD Empire always adds that watermark on cover arts. Anime smile + sweatdrop
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EricDent



Joined: 28 May 2008
Posts: 997
Location: Georgetown, TX
PostPosted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 1:15 am Reply with quote
At a local Half Price Books again (seeing if they had anything good).
Saw some kind of set of Berserk, with a "F/X" logo on the side.

Looked pretty suspicious (plus they want like $60 for it).

Still don't get how the buyers at HPB can't figure out this stuff?
I would guess they have some way of determining if a book is rare & legit, but not on movies?

Especially when you sell (or attempt to sell them) something way OOP.
Yet they give you chump change for it, and then it sits on a shelf for over a year with no buyers (saw some of the stuff I sold to them at various locations).
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Dessa



Joined: 14 Jul 2004
Posts: 4438
PostPosted: Fri Sep 28, 2012 11:41 am Reply with quote
EricDent wrote:
Still don't get how the buyers at HPB can't figure out this stuff?
I would guess they have some way of determining if a book is rare & legit, but not on movies?


It's not that they can't figure it out, it's that they don't care. I've brought up obviously bootleg anime DVDs to the counter, explained in numerous ways why this was a bootleg (this was one of the obvious "region free, description in Chinese, Chinese/English subs" ones). I even offered to get them a guide to spotting bootlegs. Not only did they decline my offer, but the next time I was in the store, the bootleg was right back out on the shelf.

Heck, when our local HPB were selling at Sakura-Con, I saw a bootleg CD sitting right next to the official release, despite the con's strict no-bootlegs policy (I reported it, but wasn't able to get back to the Dealer's Hall to see that it had been removed).
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EricDent



Joined: 28 May 2008
Posts: 997
Location: Georgetown, TX
PostPosted: Sat Sep 29, 2012 12:12 am Reply with quote
Yeah, I used to try to tell HPB about the obvious bootlegs, and though they grabbed them from me, they most likely put it on the shelf later.

When did Sakura-Con start that policy?
Cause when I went (about 5-6 years ago) there were obvious bootlegs such as the Star Wars Holiday Special & Macross Zero.

Plus fan-art of famous anime characters (obviously without permission to be sold).
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Tetsuryu



Joined: 07 Oct 2012
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:33 pm Reply with quote
Many years ago I stupidly bought a bootleg box set of Hokuto no Ken.

Now that Discotek has released better DVDs with even better subtitles, the bootleg is about as useful as tits on a bull. Should I just coldly chuck it into a garbage bin or does anyone have any idea for a better use for these bloody things?
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Nobuyuki



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 10:50 pm Reply with quote
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 10:49 pm Reply with quote
How can you tell a bootleg wallscroll? I suspect that some of the wallscrolls I have might be, yet they're of superior image and cloth quality to my definitely official (ie sold on TRSI) Gurren Lagann wallscroll. The GL has plenty of copyright and logos all over it, the others don't.
For example, I have this mystery Macross wall scroll, which at first I thought was Macross 7, but now I notice Myung and I think Ishtar on the side (Minmei is obviously there, but since I've yet to see 7, maybe she makes a cameo for all I know). I got this one from a comic shop that had a lot of stuff hoarded in the back and they were having a sale, so I got it for pretty damn cheap (not sure exactly how much, got a bunch of stuff for $35)
I have not one, but somehow two Hikaru no Go wallscrolls. I'm sure none were made specifically for the US (as it bombed in sales), but I dunno if either of these are legit Japanese ones. I got the second one from a convention for $5 along with the next one, they're not allowed to sell bootleg merchandise at cons, but if they don't know, how would the people in charge know? It's not like you can look up a list of wallscrolls by publisher as you can with DVD or a manga. Or look on the back and notice suspicious Chinese subtitles.
I also have a Martian Successor Nadesico wallscroll, but it has the German title "Meteor Schlachtschiff Nadesico", so that makes me suspicious.
I also have a 2003 Astro Boy one and a Zelda: Twilight Princess one that were both bought in US stores, and a Digimon Adventure one that my step sister got from a friend ages ago (what kind of person would give away a Digimon wallscroll? Not me), so I have no info on it.
But I feel like the only one I know for a fact is legit is the only one with like 3 company's logos on it, so now I'm all suspicious of the others. They must surely be made, but if any of mine are, they're clearly of higher quality than bootleg DVDs (perhaps it is harder to mess up a piece of cloth with Engrish?), but at the same time, it's not like I could replace any of these with legit US ones, because as far as I can tell, they don't exist. So, what's the diagnosis, are any of my wallscrolls bootlegs? Any way you can tell for sure?
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potatochobit



Joined: 26 Aug 2009
Posts: 1373
Location: TEXAS
PostPosted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 12:55 am Reply with quote
95% of all wallscrolls are fake

if you did not buy it from like rightstuff or gamestop or import it from japan it is most likely not authentic.

as you know, official merchandise quality is crap.
in the 90s, before the internet, most anime goods were not authentic.

I would not worry about it at all

without the slip that came in the packaging it is hard to tell if you have an authentic item
do you see a copyright logo somewhere in the bottom corners?

but if you have something newer, you can check japanese sites like amiami.com to see if the same design scroll is listed for sale

when the bootleg merchandise is far better quality than authentic items and at far cheaper prices you really have to question if something is wrong with the industry. I do not buy dakimura but I have seriously considered if it is better to purchase the bootlegs in the past.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 1:13 am Reply with quote
potatochobit wrote:
95% of all wallscrolls are fake

when the bootleg merchandise is far better quality than authentic items and at far cheaper prices you really have to question if something is wrong with the industry.

Ah, well then I'll assume that all but the Gurren Lagann one (I didn't buy it off TRSI, but they did used to sell it on TRSI) are bootlegs. Didn't know that so many of them were bootlegs, I don't have much trouble finding them honestly. I do see copyright claims on the Nadesico and one of the Hikago ones though.
It seems like with a lot of things, DVDs, figures, the official are better than the bootleg, but wall scrolls don't seem to be one of them. I don't need to get that close to my GL wall scroll to see the color dots while with some of the other ones, they're still solid even up close. But the other thing about these wall scrolls is that I haven't seen any US equivalent. And they're not region locked or anything, or have subs written by Chinese people with only a basic understanding of English. But yeah, it does make me question why we can't get legit wall scrolls as nice as some of the fake ones I have in as wide a variety (do we really need 50 Naruto wall scrolls and not a single Hikaru no Go one?) Still, I just use them for decoration purposes.
Oh but one time, my friend got me this cute Astro Boy clock, and I've never seen a more obvious bootleg in my life. This is because it played the Dragon Ball theme tune. It's still cute though.
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