My Pokepastas - 2019-2020

Cheap Figures (1/8/19)

I've always liked bootleg toys. They're hilariously awful, most are way cheaper than stupidly artificially-rare collectable pieces, and they're usually much more fun conversation pieces than the real things. I know it's not great to be supporting illegitimate sources, but everyone's a cog in the money machine anyway, so I'm living for fun.

You could call me a garbage collector, or something. Either way, I prefer to scour the 'net for the oddest fakes I can find. I've got a whole shelf dedicated to phony toys and trinkets for all sorts of things like Sonic the Hedgehog, My Little Pony, Mario, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon... you name it.

Enough bragging about things only I find cool though. I want to talk about an unusual find I got off Ebay, before it's too late for me.

I had found one of those cheap listings for knockoff Pokemon figures in bulk. Ebay's crawling with 'em, but this one in particular caught my eye just by how bad they were. The photos were unique to the specific listing instead of being the same stock photos used by several, and the location was supposedly in my state rather than some unspecified place in Hong Kong. And when I saw the figures in those photos, I knew I'd found the holy grail.

You see, most bulk bootleg Pokemon figure paint jobs look wonky at best and nearly unrecognizable at worst. Sometimes their faces are sloppy and off-center, sometimes they're missing details, sometimes they're entirely the wrong color. Usually, though, the Pikachu in the set looks perfectly fine, if a little off. I mean, everyone knows what Pikachu looks like, how could you screw it up? Plus, they tend to put the better-looking figures in the front, hoping you don't notice the half-painted one-eyed puke-green Breloom in the back behind the perfect little Pikachu they want you to look at.

So when the stock photo for the lot had a weird grey-pink Pikachu with askew eyes front and center, I knew it would only get worse (or better) from there. And upon inspection of the image, I was right - there was literally not a single Pokemon that looked right. Rarely were they ever the right color, and several had their faces completely screwed up - sometimes even with more or less features.

The best part? It was about $2.50 for a lot of 30. That was like, less than 10 cents a figure. So obviously I bought them immediately.

Even though the figures were supposedly shipping from my state, they took like a month or two to get here. Packing troubles, I guessed.

The day I got it, I eagerly tore the box open and placed the figures on the table. I won't describe them all since, y'know, there was 30 of 'em, but they were as bad as the photos had shown. I was very pleased to see that I got the weird Pikachu - which I had dubbed Pinkachu - but I also got some other good ones. Such as: a neon blue Flareon with a red ruff of fur and one eye way, way lower than the other; a dark yellow Rayquaza with simple white lines in place of its markings, a missing arm, and eyes that looked more like a Charizard's; and a hot pink Snubbull that looked like someone had dipped its bottom half in black paint, drew dots for the eyes, and called it a day.

I gathered them back up into the bag and took 'em to the living room where I kept my knock-off shelf, but I didn't end up displaying them then since when I came in a sudden migraine came on and I had to lay down on the couch. I felt awful, my head was spinning and I thought I was gonna throw up, but I must've either fallen asleep or passed out.

I woke up eventually feeling way better - though way too groggy. There was a nasty taste in my mouth and my hands were sore. Then I woke the whole way up and found out that I tore the plastic bag apart in my sleep and apparently was trying to cram the figures in my mouth.

Spitting a neon green Dratini and a three-eyed grey Panpour out of my now-numb mouth, I probably should've immediately called Poison Control next because I didn't have a clue what could've been in the paint on those things, and I definitely should not have been losing all feeling in my mouth, but I didn't. I don't know why I didn't, I guess it just didn't cross my mind because I was too busy freaking out.