The Bizarre Thailand Sonic The Fighters Bootleg Plush Set

one of the most famous song the Hedgehog plush sets of all-time is the one made for Sonic the fighters released in Japan in 1997 exclusively as prizes from UFO catchers this will forever be one of the most legendary and cherished sets of Sonic the Hedgehog plushies given the game's extensive roster this set is noteworthy as it contains many characters seldom seen in merchandise form including the likes of team hooligan SPO and supersonic making it undeniably the definitive classic sonic plush set with the set including so many plushies of obscure characters it's the most demanded classic styled Sonic plush set out there with each character even Sonic demanding a high price on the second-hand market on top of the set including rarely seen characters if the plushies are also genuinely very high quality these are premium plushies and are near perfect replicas of the characters they're based off of these guys are absolutely worth the hype surrounding them they're full of style charm and classic plush appeal at the time of me making this video I owned Sonic Tails knuckles and Fang from the set unfortunately I haven't been able to find the others yet but hopefully someday I'll have the full set and whenever that happens if not sooner I'll make a video on the official set but for now let's have some fun while the fighters said will forever be remembered for its quality and variety there's one offshoot of the set that's worth discussing for its absurdity and how much of a mystery it is in this video I'll be taking an in-depth look at the bootleg Sonic the fighters plush set as I try to make sense of it all here's some facts this set of 10 plushies are clearly based off of the Japanese fighters plush set and originated from Thailand as the set contains ripoffs of every plush in the set - super sonic well many people will recognize these and plenty of people even own them no one truly knows the backstory behind them who made these when were they made why do they look so strange I'll attempt to answer all of these and more in today's video let's begin now boo legs of older plush sets are not uncommon for example Takara's UFO catcher Kirby's Adventure plush set from 1993 has a nearly complete bootleg set of it with every character - d2d having a fake equivalent if he started showing up around the mid to late 2000s on sites like eBay and Aliexpress if they're actually quite good for replicas sure freeze Kirby's frown was turned into a terrifying smile but for what they are if they could have been a lot worse if the thing with these is their replicas of the official plushies if they use similar materials and their patterns are clearly the result of reverse engineering the official products if these are the types of bootlegs I could never support direct copies of official products only serve to hurt the market of genuine quality goods I hate bootlegs that are nothing more than cheap copies of official products as they drive away sales for the genuine articles tons of people purchase knockoff goods as replacements for the official products or even do so unknowingly which hurts the official products bottom line on top of supporting shady sellers and bootleggers however if an unofficial product has no official equivalent I'm a little more okay with it for example for years now bootleggers have taken this in a Bowser plush and customized it into various variants such as dry Bowser Dark Bowser and my personal favorite King Koopa if there will likely never be an official plush of King Koopa but there is a market for it so I'm fine with this bootleg existing as it fills the gap in the market if official companies aren't going to recognize the potential of certain designs or characters it's fine with me for bootleggers to do it instead which is why I've purchased quite a few of these Mexican made Sonic bootlegs these Mexican bootleggers have taken a basic sonic pattern and have made plushies of various characters and forms that would rarely get the official treatment now we have plushies of dark sonic hyper sonic dark spines sonic scourge even silver sonic mark - and that's awesome these boot like fighters plushies unlike the Kirby's Adventure fakes share a little in common with their official counterparts they're completely different plushies which in my eyes makes them pretty interesting there is one fake of a plush in the fighters set that falls under the replica boot like mantle though if that being this bootleg of the Fang plush somehow bootleggers got ahold of a sample of the official thing plush and completely copied in the earliest documented sighting of this plushies from sonic here's how to avoid fake Sonic merchandise page being added around 2008 I'm not sure if this bootleg was around earlier than that but archived eBay listings back up him first showing up around the late 2000s around 2007 to 2009 to be honest this is a really good copy of the plush sure he's a lot cheaper looking and his eyes and nose aren't made of plastic but the actual pattern is basically all there since he's such a good replica many fans of the character who can't find the official plush settle for this guy and I understand that he's certainly a lot better than this Thailand bootleg who's rocking a red hat in a dopey face back in the mid-2000s these plushies claiming to be from the official Sonic The Fighter set started showing up for sale online all coming from Thailand what is set to fake huh because this means we have bootleg plushies of not just Fang but also bean bark Metal Sonic Espio all being characters rarely seen for the longest time it was debated whether or not these were authentic despite their inaccuracies maybe this was an obscure lesser release of the fighters set I mean and not many people know this but there already is the second official fighter set they also made these keychains of six of the characters Sonic Tails knuckles Amy and even Fang an S Bo got the mini keychain treatment if they're great if not a little flimsy though yes that does mean that actually two official Fang plushies exist anyway if that second mini set does support the potential of a third official fighters set existing as well these all come from Thailand maybe Sega made a different set for that market ya know the touch tags on the plushies appear to be legit but that's all they've got going for them there is no way these are official so let's take a closer look at them to really get to the bottom of this in my collection I own six of the ten plushies in this set I have team Sonic and team hooligan and you know what some of these aren't that bad sonic Knuckles and beam especially look pretty decent keep in mind that my sonic is a little faded most of them are a much richer blue than this my bark is also missing his oddly colored bandana whatever this is it's clearly not as green scarf so my apologies for showing a naked bark but it's all I have anyway the plushies all have plastic eyes basically all their details are there if not simplified I personally like them a lot I think they're obvious off model Ness is quite charming as they all have goofy expressions are comically small and have next to no quality control but are they official oh come on absolutely not believe it or not there actually is some debate over the authenticity of these if you look at the touch tag on them it almost checks out however there is no mention of the fighters name only Sega Sonic but the real nail in the coffin here is the copyright year printed 1995 this is odd I select the fighters itself came out in 1996 the plushies weren't released until 1997 it's also humorous aside out characters like bean and bark or even finalized by 1995 so why does the touch tag say this well it's because this touch tag is actually a copy of the one from the Sega sonic suction cup plush set this set contains four plushies all having suction cups on them allowing you to hang them wherever you please these were released in 1995 and the touch tag on the fake fighters set is a near direct copy of theirs the font and sizing is all slightly off but it's clear this was the source of their touch tag in fact nothing regarding these bootlegs were taken from the official plushies apart from their vague likeness I guess because of that I believe these guys aren't technically bootlegs are the official plushies instead they're better classified as original unlicensed plushies if that are merely based off of the fighters set I highly doubt the designers of these had actual samples of the fighter's plushies to work with because if they did if their twitch tags would be based off of that sets and I doubt the plushies would look nearly this wrong I believe that instead these fakes are based off with a set image for the fighters plush set and there's a lot of evidence supporting this event image showcases printer tapes of the fighters plushies with each character showcasing differences compared to the final released plush this is most noticeable with characters like SPO Fang and Metal Sonic the bootlegs being based off of this image and not the actual plushies would explain many of the strange design choices they have such as knuckles having weirdly attached dreads Robo tonics pointing Poe's bark having this weird black and white ascot instead of his green scarf Metal Sonic not being made of vinyl and crucially there being no fake super sonic super sonic was a chase plush and the official fighters set being treated as a secret made to be rare variant of the normal sonic it's unlikely more than one of him was included with each case of the plushies as such he isn't shown in the set sheet which explains why the bootleggers didn't make him as they probably weren't even aware he was part of the set if the bootlegs are shockingly accurate to the said image though it's really fascinating to compare the official prototypes with the bootlegs as it's obvious this is what they were based off of unfortunately we don't have access to a high-quality copy of the set image but I'm sure that if we did you'd be able to spot even more similarities there are some aspects of the plushies though that are just wrong like again fangs hat is red and not brown for no reason he's also lacking his entire gun setup since I have both the official and boot like Fang plushies here's a comparison between the two I don't have the more accurate bootleg Fang but just comparing these two wow if you want me to summer how cheap that Thailand Feng is he doesn't even have a tail though again neck does make sense as despite being an integral part of his design you can't see a tail on the sentiment he does have his thing though next to that are his cheek tops which are stitched above his muzzle huh these guys are so off model and goofy looking you just have to love them don't get me wrong these aren't good I mean I guess they're made of decent quality materials but they aren't well made or designed but it's uncommon for such a lack of understanding of the character designs to be put on to a plush bootleg or not most bootlegs copy a character's design extremely well I mean the whole point of most boot likes is to trick people who don't know any better into buying them instead of the official products right so to see unlicensed plushies be so incredibly off-base with their design is quite amusing these all remind me of play by plays 2001 plush of sonic the only difference is that this guy was actually officially licensed yeah wrap your head around that one so these 10 are all there are in the set right well for years that was believed to be the case but in the world of bootlegs anything goes many fake sets have offshoots are variants made of them if you can make a fake sonic plush why not also make a fake red Sonic plush for example while widespread variance of any plush in this set aren't a thing as far as we know at least there does seem to be at least a few floating around out there back in April of 2019 at Island based seller on Instagram made a sales post with this photo showing a lot that included very odd-looking versions of the fighters bootlegs knuckles a Mia metal sonic look fairly standard if not a little faded but tails and beam are noticeably off-colored and the two Sonic's well okay this sonic looks pretty standard only being slightly off colored and having tilted eyes he's nothing compared to this sonic who looks completely different and bizarre not only is he purple with pink skin he has shoes that look like tails only flipped no socks and a centered goofy looking smile if this is the only time I've seen a sonic that looks like this where did he come from I wish I knew the origins of the standard bootlegs are already enough of a mystery but this listing is the only time one like this has gone up for sale I'm pretty sure everyone here besides purple Sonic are the normal ones only sun-damaged meaning there isn't actually a teal bean variant but purple Sonic is for sure different and it makes you question the rest are there more purple Sonic's out there you can't make out if he has a touch tagger not either and if he doesn't maybe this is a prototype of the boot like or at least a bootleg of the bootleg he does have a keychain attached to his and not the black string the rest have so really who knows unfortunately by the time I had found this listing it had sold so I hope whoever got them is treating purple sonic with the respect he deserves he truly is a special boy I mean that's a face only a Thailand bootlegger can love that's not all four variants of this set though but this one is legitimately very cool on July 7th 2019 a listing for five of the ten plushies went up for sale on Facebook Marketplace unsurprisingly once again from a seller in Thailand up for grabs were Sonic Tails knuckles Amy and silver Sonic well a silver-colored metal sonic which i think looks close enough to the silver Sonic from Sonic to making this in my opinion probably the coolest plush we've seen from the set at first after noticing that despite being a silver color he stowed blue stitching I assume that this was nothing more than just a standard faded Metal Sonic and while that still could be true feeding from such a dark blue to gray would be pretty strange look at this if the seller actually had two of them and hey if it really is sun damage that made him look like this and then it's the coolest damaged plush I've ever seen so now that we know that there might actually be more plushies besides the main ten it just makes you wonder even more where did these come from specifically I mean we know they came from Thailand and they weren't made in limited quantities either even today I see these for sale often from sellers in Thailand but I've never been able to get to the bottom of where they come from or when they were made them being based off of a set image and having a touch tag from 1995 could imply they were from before the official set even released which would place them around early 1997 but these didn't start showing up online until the mid to late 2000s so it's almost impossible to place a real date on these guys all we know is that they were made sometime between 1997 in the mid 2000s and that they come from Thailand we still don't know stuff like when they were put into production or how long they were produced for a few years ago huge lots of these plushies started showing up again on eBay they hadn't been listed in bulk like this for years did they go back into production or were these listings just of stock that had never been sold it's all such a mystery these bootlegs aren't the only connection of fighters plushies Hamm to Thailand either in recent years many sellers in Thailand have been getting consistent stock of the official plushies - well these were originally released in Japan it seems many of them made their way to Thailand and other Asian countries as well need I mention that $16 Philippines supersonic there's actually a pretty large underground plush market in Thailand if there are huge Facebook groups for example where people ask for specific characters or series plushies and sellers comment with what they have for sale on many of these posts you'll find people selling the fighter's plushies among others for very cheap here's one person who sold a tagged espyo for a hundred and seventy back which in USD is five dollars and 53 cents this SPO is probably the same one - given the seller is also from Thailand this same seller also had several of the fighter's plushies up at the same time including two different SuperSonics one tag than one tagless I can only dream of how cheap those were originally given Espio was $5 imagine getting a $5 supersonic if this seller may have lived that dream and this seller is just one of many who sell the fighter's plushies often from Thailand and don't even get me started on how many I've sold on Facebook from Thailand which is likely where most of this stock comes from so there's clearly some connection between the fighters plushies in Thailand which could explain why bootlegs were made there in the first place maybe back in the day the fighters plushies were commonly circulating around Thailand so bootleggers then them as a popular set to fake if there really is no way to figure out the truth behind these bootlegs though without somehow getting in contact with the people who made them who obviously are even more mysterious than the plushies themselves I don't think many bootleggers would want to be known publicly for obvious reasons and there you have it everything we know about the Thailand bootlegs sonic the fighters plush set what an interesting book bizarrely confusing set this is there's still so much we don't know why do some people claim these are official when they're clearly fake who made these when did they come out what is the connection with the fighters plushies in Thailand where did teal beam come from we may never know all these questions may never have answers but these plushies will always be out there to speculate about to be honest I think it's pretty cool these have such a mysterious feeling to them it's really fitting for a sonic the fighters plush set if the official set is this well-known legendary set of sonic plushies even owning just one is a big accomplishment in the collecting community so they're also being this weird bootleg set that no one even knows the true nature of is really fitting it's also great that this was the set that was faked because it means there are bootleg plushies of the likes of bean bark and Fang given how limited their official plushies are I'm sure many fans of the characters appreciate there being a cheaper alternative to them if only there was a bootleg super sonic if they don't compare to the official ones at all but hey now there are technically two classic espía plushies so that's something while I doubt we'll ever know the full story behind these guys if they're really interesting to speculate and think about if there are so many obscure sonic plush sets from around the world but these guys may just take the cake as the strangest and most fascinating [Music]

Channel: PatMac

Views: 171,605

Rating: 4.9526353 out of 5

Keywords: Plush, Sonic Plush, Bootleg, Bootleg Toys, Sonic The Hedgehog, Kids, Toy, SEGA

Id: AAkdOTOfLPw

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 24 2019