YJA (and eBay) are looking to collect their fees on sales. I do not think they care about counterfeit toys on their markets. I have reported counterfeit and repainted toys and collectibles on eBay before, but they rarely take action unless it's a large scam with dozens/hundreds of items with links to an external site/phishing. I would be interested if anybody has had any response from YJA with complaints regarding counterfeit items.
Pretty difficult to tell, since the pics are so far away, but at first glance, it does look legit. Specifically the shade of the fur vest, and the way the hairs are splitting. For as skeptical as I am about under market prices, I'm also skeptical about really high Buy it Now prices too.
2 kinda crappy photos from the same angle is suspect. Hopefully legit sellers will be more thorough with their pics now that this is widespread.
Heck, YJA is pretty casual about a lot of stuff, even missing parts of orders sometimes. I'm just happy that they don't have a tack-on fee for refunds...
Why does Akametenshi seem to get a pass in the Godzilla collecting community even though he is bootlegging on a production level scale? He rips off Toho and even official Toho collabs like Godzilla x Evangelion, selling them for $600USD or more and making many variants, but collectors still buy them. I think if more collectors knew about what happened with his previous company Stickfas and why he was arrested (gross) they would be less likely to support him, but these days I do not know. In my book he is a scumbag.
I assume because Toho is not an indie sofvi artist People may also be more lenient with unlicensed toys based on Toho and Tsuburaya properties because the hobby has a long history with them, and we owe a lot of cool designs to unlicensed or straight up bootleg kaiju. I'm sure the variety helps. If you absolutely need a spikey hyper-detailed Godzilla mashed up with Venom and a pile of steroids, there's a toy for you (please seek help). Although on that note, I seem to remember some controversy because they sold a Cookie Monster/Shin Godzilla mashup, which looked similar to another artist's design. I'll look for the details later. Edit: the design was Shin Cookiezilla, sculpted by Gabriel Marquez and produced by Bottleneck Gallery in 2021. Marquez passed away that year. Spoiler: Ripoff? You decide! Marquez Akametenshi So, what happened with Stickfas?
He went to jail for 3 counts of sex with minors and lost the licensing deal he made with Hasbro. He is still very wealthy and with fancy sports cars. You can find many news articles online about it.
Dang, spill that tea. What a piece of garbage. glad I never got close to his overpriced cookie cutter godzilla-lahs. Or whatever the name is.
I found a news report that explains it. You can spot him driving off in a Ferrari from the courthouse at the beginning of the video.
There are only four videos on that person's channel and they are all about that case. Weird. https://youtube.com/@georgechan142?si=_D1V-gR2uTgBGtSh
Fear of repercussions perhaps? Ppl that drive fancy cars and abuse minors would be the kind of folk that go out of their way to keep others quiet about said abuse.
