FAKE MERCHANDISE FAQ

With so many shops selling pirated merchandise internationally and in Singapore, this is KKnM's guide to our customers on how to spot a fakie in the market.

Here are some of the details to look out for:

- Blurish printing: Printing for 99.99% of original merchandise have CRISP and CLEAR printing and the colours are brilliant and bright.

-  Packaging has blur printing: Most pirated merchandise copy the original packaging, however, because these images are usually scanned, the printing is ALWAYS blur. Pictures on original packaging is ALWAYS crisp and clear and the colours are also brilliant and bright, like a postcard or poster itself.

- Obvious Mistakes: Sometimes, the name on the packaging doesn't match the name of the character sold. For example, a Roy Mustang fastener mascot comes in a packaging that says "Edward Elric". The character's hair color is wrong, the character details are wrong etc etc.

-Bad Paint Job/Bad Make: Usually, paint jobs on original merchandise is precise and the colours are brilliant. Fake merchandise have bad paint jobs, the colour is either faded or the paint job is bad (i.e. patches in the wrong places). Outlines are also not well made for things like fastener mascots.

- Copyrights: Usually, pirated merchandise do not give credit to the original production company who produce these merchandises. One such "brand name" would be Long Tu, whose packaging makes NO REFERENCE to the company which created the anime or manga. Other such products include so called "Naruto" cosplay items like headbands and weapons and necklaces with dogtags of which packaging has pictures from the anime but makes NO copyrighted reference to the original creators.

- Original Sticker: In cases where the packaging is a direct scan of the original packaging, of course, the copyrights references will be there. However, when in doubt, look out for the original STICKER of the creator company. Original Character goods usually carry that sticker of its original creators. For example, Gundam merchandise will always carry a Gundam Sticker, specific to the Gundam series it came from!   
 

If the deal is too good to be true, most of the time, IT IS too good to be true. You can tell between fake and real merchandise when you do put the two side by side with each other.  We will post pictures for your reference soon.