Merchandise FAQ

A lot of One Piece goods are still mainly produced in Japan for the Japanese market. Then the other countries of the Chinese cultural sphere get their own fair share. Eventually, the Occident replenishes its stocks through the gray market, taking over a consequent volume that was initially provided for Asia. A situation that should change in the near future...

This FAQ is intended to this third audience. Its goal is to get rightful answers to several common subjects that fill forums with heated debates. Although the subjects are mainly related to the figure markets, some are easily generalizable to the the global Japanese animation market.

Bootlegs
[To be completed]

For more information on spotting bootleg figurines see Fake Vs Real

The Toei official sticker
The famous Toei sticker is put on products deriving from Toei animated productions and distributed by Bandai. A lot of bootlegs are produced mainly by Chinese/HK counterfeiters. So, one reliable way to recognize official products is by spotting the little Toei sticker put on boxes. However, collectors that got their goods from untrusted sources must still be vigilant as sticker faking activity is known to be true since late 2009 / early 2010. Fake stickers are easily recognizable because of their poor print quality.

Those stickers come into several flavors:
 * A golden or silver sticker with Japanese lettering shows that the figure was originally designed for the Japanese domestic market.
 * A silver sticker with English lettering indicates that the figure has been exported by Bandai for international markets (be it for remaining Asia, Europe or America).

The general consensus among fans is that stickers put on products designed for the Japanese domestic market should all have a golden background. That's why, although several kinds of stickers are put on official products, collectors prefer to search for goods with golden ones.

However, Toei stickers for the Japanese domestic market seem to appear following these rules:
 * For products below ¥5,499, stickers should have a golden background with black lettering.
 * For products in the range of ¥5,500-6,499, stickers should have a silver background with black lettering.
 * For products above ¥6,500, stickers should have a silver background with red lettering.

Despite these general rules, some scarce cases can prove otherwise. Sometimes, stickers show a number on their top right corner. It mainly hold true for products under the ¥4,000 mark, so with the golden sticker. It seems to be a way to indicate price ranges further without having to rely on a more complex color code.

The same kind of rules should be applied for stickers on products for international markets. In this case, they all retain a silver background but with several letters coloring, as black, blue, red or even green.

Moreover, genuine stickers have their backsides filled with the Toei logo as watermark. But to check this, it requires to peel stickers off boxes.

Finally, it should be noted that products exported from Japan by different companies than Bandai may not have the Toei sticker at all. It's generally replaced by other stickers: For books or the video game market, where a professional work of translation / adaptation is required, a fully worldwide distribution system is already in place, so no stickers are apposed on them on this kinds of products.
 * Figures exported to the USA by AAA Anime Distribution should have both FUNimation and AAA stickers.
 * Figures exported to Europe by Abyss Corp should only have an Abyss Corp sticker, sometimes no sticker at all.

Japanese Ver. versus the world
[To be completed]