I must say, I really enjoyed the Counterfeit Canada series of articles in the National Post (see also here). Of course, Adrian Humphreys went to a shopping centre in Chinatown in Toronto and found all manner of bootlegged stuff. No shit, Sherlock... I could have easily told him that, anime fans like myself (at least those of us that buy some degree of merchandising) being very knowledgeable in terms of how to spot bootlegs, and rule number one in avoiding bootlegged anime merchandise is "Don't shop in Chinatown." (Actually, that's not entirely fair. One of the CD stores in Montreal's Chinatown has a handful of legit anime soundtracks from Japan, but they are outnumbered ten-to-one by the SonMay (SM Records) and Ever Anime CDs (all Taiwanese bootlegs).) Also, according to Adrian Humphreys, bootleg merchandise has been found in upscale shopping centres like the Centre Eaton in Montreal. Yeah, I thought some of that Pok�mon stuff in a certain souvenir/sporting memorabilia store looked rather dodgy, at least the stuff with the Chinese lettering in the logo.
For information about how to avoid bootlegged anime stuff, please see the Pirate Anime F.A.Q., and I'd also suggest that you'd check out Mike Toole's "Hilarious Bootleg Toy Showcase" columns over at Anime Jump, but he reformatted his site and he hasn't put those back up yet, so, instead, just enjoy his review of Mad Bull 34, still the worst anime I have ever seen, "and I've been on Safari".
posted by Steve Brandon @ 6:59 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home