Ultraman ZERO Ultra Monster Series: Arch Belial EX figure

 October 18, 2019  Toys

---

SERIES DETAILS

Let’s face it. Monsters from many Japanese series and films are totally a thing even for westerners. Mostly, the monsters from a lot of Godzilla movies made the Japanese cinematic universe feel alive. Although as time went by, that movie monster cycle got toppled over by galaxy saviors like Ultraman who work day by day defeating massive and atrocious monsters.

In the movie, Ultraman ZERO: The Revenge of Belial, the hero faces a galactic emperor whose ambition is to conquer the whole galaxy. It may sound cliche, there’s no doubt about that, but we’re only in it for the action, aren’t we?

Ultraman Zero will have to defeat Arch Belial to stop the evil from reigning over the galaxy. And you’ll have to guess who’s on the front seat in making a figure of Arch Belial. Well, if you haven’t guessed it yet, it’s Bandai. With the reputation of the manufacturer alone, you’ll have to bet that the Arch Belial EX figure will be a well-defined figure. It’s expected to be something that’d catch your eye on your first look.

On the other hand, the Japanese figure didn’t only catch the eyes of notorious figure pirates, but it also gave them a chance to do crime by selling out cheap bootlegs of the figure — let alone making one.

ORIGIN OF FAKE

Bought on: AliExpress
Origin: China
Vendor: headone Store
Distribution Area: Worldwide

There are plenty of websites where you can shop for high-quality action figures. On the down side, there are more places where fakes are found and one these websites is AliExpress.

If you think about it, the website is crawling with a lot of bootlegs post after post. Type in a specific figure on the search bar, then you have results which will leave you suspicious. But to be fair, there may be authentic stuff in there, but you’re just playing a game of russion roulette if you’re planning to buy a toy figure from AliExpress.

Nevertheless, we’ll show how you can spot a fake figure, and this time, we’ll be doing it on the fake Arch Belial EX figure.

DESCRIPTION OF FAKE

The fake Arch Belial EX figure is only wrapped in thin plastic. The plastic has holes in it, as you can see, and it’s because of the figure’s sharp edges. Well, it isn’t the fault of the figure’s design to begin with. The packaging is just too fragile for the figure, and that plainly means that it’s an improper way of packing this figure.

At first glance, you could feel the air of the atrocious monster within the figure. For a bootleg, of course, it does feel a bit tricky since you wouldn’t mind getting fooled by overview pictures of the item from the website it’s from.

For all we know, item postings on sketchy websites like AliExpress can be deceiving. Most of the time, the pictures used to show the item are from legitimate sources, so that you’ll raise your expectations a bit. However, based on our experience, items that get delivered do not really look exactly like what most item listings have shown. It’s kinda disappointing, to be honest, but that’s the reality of shopping figures from such a website.

Initially, the fake figure was packaged with its tail detached. Oh boy, would you believe how hard it is to attach that tail into the figure. It was nerve-racking!

On another note, there’s a lot of fishy details on the figure. For a first, you can see a stain of red paint on its right horn. While that’s not the worst yet, there are a couple of overlapping red paint on the body as well although that’s not the real highlight for now.

The real noticeable flaw in the shown area would be its eyes. You’d totally ask yourself how questionable the details of the eyes are. It looks inaccurate, for a start, and you’ll see the particular feature faded from either ends.

There isn’t much difference from how the body looks from the overview photos. However, you’d want to take a closer look since the flaws will blow minds like what it did to us.

A bootleg may be a copy of an authentic item, but it will never reach the quality of an authentic item. For that reason, they’re cheap and ugly. And as for the fake Arch Belial EX figure’s body, you can see that it’s full of faded paint as well as those that overlap a certain area.

For example, the red paint on the arms are noticeably jagged. Not only that, you can see that there are spilled red paint on the figure’s stomach area. It’s ridiculous if you think about it. How will you be able to bear with that anyway?

At the back, you can also see that same flaws as the front body. On the other hand, you’ll also notice a small dent on the spine. From what it looks like, the area also has some dirt on the green spine.

Overall, you could say that the fake figure is plainly bad, and that it’s just like any bootleg that you will see. Nevertheless, they’re all made from cheap materials, or worse, even harmful chemicals. Unlike an authentic figure, they’re only good for being thrown in the trash bin since there’s always room for error when producing figures even if that’s a tiny bit margin.

Compared to the fake, the real Arch Belial EX figure has some intense details. You must be thinking now that the fake isn’t worth spending a dollar on. From head to toe, there’s a lot of difference between the two figures. It’s only up to you to decide whether you’ll be giving in on a cheap fake or settle with a permanent collection. And so that you can get a top-caliber figure, you also must be ready to spend a handful especially if it’s a rare figure like this.

PRICE

For an absurd price of $5.49 USD, you’ll be able to get an uncultured piece of figure if you’re even willing to add it on your collection. Let’s be honest. You won’t even be proud of showing off this figure to your friends. Most likely, it’ll only be a laughing stock because of its sheer awfulness.

Current price range of the Arch Belial EX figure can go up to $130 USD for a brand new figure. It’s an awesome item indeed, and there’s no doubt about its current price tag since authentic collector’s item do go up in resale value since probably that’s how in demand it is. Considering the truly atrocious quality of the real figure, fans of monster figures are eyeing on such an item.

WHERE TO GET THE REAL BANDAI ARCH BELIAL EX FIGURE

For a figure that was released back in 2010, same time as the movie, the possibility of not finding any stock of the figure at all is high. Luckily, there’s one reliable website for buying your figure collection from.

Plamoya may have a simple website, but you wouldn’t want to question the unlimited stocks of figures that they have. While they also have old figures like the real Arch Belial EX figure, they also have an up-to-date catalog of figures. Most items on the website are fruits that were sowed from Japanese culture since the company is originally from Japan. Good news is that they ship worldwide as well.

The Arch Belial EX figure can be found on the website for a whopping $130 USD. Considering that it was only around $30 USD on the time of release, the price gain is already huge. Regardless, the real deal just proves it all. No matter how bootlegs can copy an item, they’re what they are.

Another on getting an Arch Belial EX figure is on Amazon, however we won’t recommend getting figures from the website if it’s sold by a third-party merchant. The reason being is that third-party merchants can be unreliable, and sometimes, there are instances that bootlegs get mixed up with real items in Amazon fulfillment centers — as some news articles have reported.

If you’ll take a bit of caution in getting authentic figures, then you’ll absolutely have no problem on getting one. Just remember that.

OUR VERDICT

The fake Arch Belial EX figure is an utter disgrace to movie monster figure collectors. Truly, it’s a wicked piece, not because it’s an embodiment of your worst nightmare.

The details on the fake figure are so inaccurate that it triggers OCD on every figure collector. The materials used to make the bootleg look like it hit rock-bottom. You can really tell between the real figure and the fake when you put them side by side. Hence, we’ll be putting a 90% awful bounty on this bootleg — stay away from it!