One of the aspects of the toy collecting community I tend to avoid is the relm of third party figures. It wasn’t too long ago that I posted a review of the Manipple Studios arms accessory for the S.H.Figuarts Wolverine. Technically a third party product, it wasn’t something that I had any real conflict with when it comes to ethics. It was an unlicensed add-on for a pre-existing figure. I don’t know where those arms were sourced as far as the molds went, but in order for it to be of any use to anyone they would have had to have purchased an official product already. When it comes to a full, third party release, my ethical side gives me pause. These releases are, at worst, unlicensed figured of properties owned by someone else. There are plenty of people out there who will rationalize it as the owner doesn’t need more money, but that doesn’t make it right. And it’s usually easy for me to just ignore such releases. I bare no ill will towards folks who do like and review them, but they’re usually not for me. Obviously, we’re only talking about this because I’m stepping out of my comfort zone with this one – the Demoniacal Fit The Coming One – Top Gun, which to anyone with a little bit of knowledge on the subject would recognize as Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Z.
Demoniacal Fit has been around for a little while and seems to have a pretty good reputation in the toy world when it comes to quality. Third party, or bootleg, figures have a reputation for being poor, but that isn’t always the case these days. For me, there are two distinct types of third part offerings. The true third party, unlicensed, action figures are creations by an actual third party of a licensed character sold without a license. A bootleg, to me, is different as that’s a copy of another company’s licensed offering. Through either reverse engineering or outright theft of tools, bootlegs are just copies of varying quality of something being sold (or was once sold) through official channels. Some of the more popular bootlegs have been the many incarnations of NECA’s Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 2008. Rumor has it that those molds were stolen and since NECA lost the license for a time they were bootlegged to Hell and back. A more recent example is CT Toys which has been bootlegging MAFEX figures for incredibly low prices. Many have claimed that Medicom is so preoccupied with CT Toys that it’s the reason for why the company has seemingly prioritized reissues over new figures.
This Demoniacal Fit offering of Future Trunks is basically a hybrid of the two approaches. There are definitely parts here wholly ripped-off from the Bandai S.H.Figuarts release Future Trunks – The Boy From the Future. It is, however, a depiction of the character that Bandai has never done and there are some new parts utilized to make this figure somewhat unique. It’s a figure I had seen when it first was announced and I did think it looked pretty neat. It’s Future Trunks as he appeared in the movie Bojack Unbound which just put the character in a cut-off version of his blue Capsule Corp jacket while also giving him the long hair he sported towards the end of the Cell Saga. It’s a look I’ve always liked for Trunks as I find that the long-haired Super Saiyan look resembles a morning star and it just works. I never got the figure, but recently I was at a toy convention where someone had a sealed copy for sale. Ironically, I was all set to buy an official Dragon Ball Super Future Trunks, but the person running the table was off somewhere else and after hanging around for 10 minutes or so I went back to the guy with the bootleg. I confess that I was curious to see what the quality was like compared with an official release – it certainly looked good in the box. And it was a look I didn’t have in my collection nor do I know if it’s one on Bandai’s radar. Obviously, I took the plunge and while I don’t want this to come across as an endorsement for bootleg action figures, I’m guessing there are other people like me out there curious how this does compare to an official product.
This figure appears to be comprised largely of parts from the official release of Future Trunks by Bandai and Tamashii Nations. The items that appear identical to me are the face plates, the torso, belt, hands, crotch, feet, and portions of the legs. Demoniacal Fit re-sculpted the right thigh and left shin to add some torn fabric. I checked other official releases I have with similar distress marks and couldn’t find any matches, but I don’t have every release out there. The arms are bare and I was curious if I could find a source for them, but my collection turned up nothing. I thought maybe Super Hero Gohan or even the old Trunks or Vegeta arms just cast in flesh instead of blue, but that does not appear to be the case. That doesn’t mean they’re not from some other release, I just don’t have it. The jacket turned vest looks almost identical, but they did have to re-sculpt it because the edges are torn where the sleeves used to be. It’s split in the back just like the jacket on the official release and the paint is pretty much the same. The painted part of the exposed chest is actually slightly cleaner on the bootleg while the boots look softer in sculpt to me (which makes sense if they reproduced a mold from the official release). Like the official release, because the figures are designed to wear a jacket of some kind there’s basically nothing to the sculpt in the shoulder area. If you pulled the vest off of this one it would look ridiculous so it’s staying on. The same is true of the official release, but since it didn’t have bare arms there was no need to ever take the coat off. The only other negative about the bootleg vs the official is the top of the left thigh swivel on mine is slightly chewed up. It looks like it didn’t come out of the mold clean and I may attempt to lightly sand it down, or just live with it.
We’ll talk more about what’s bootlegged when we get to the accessories, but the overall look of the figure is pretty nice. Even with the lack of paint, it’s not shiny. I like the sculpt of the arms and the portrait out of the box looks nice and it’s just one of three looks the figure possesses. For the non-Super Saiyan look we have a hair down sculpt and one where the ends of his hair is blowing in the wind slightly. As far as I know, both are unique creations as the only long-haired Trunks I’m aware of by Bandai has his hair in a ponytail. The connection in the neck is the same as The Boy From the Future so you can use these interchangeably with that release, if you wish. What also works in the bootleg’s favor is it has a nice in-hand feel. The original release of The Boy From the Future is somewhat notorious for the bad quality control on display. Reissues have reportedly been better, but I only have the first one to judge and it’s not great. The figure is floppy, the bicep loves to detach on the left arm, and the paint’s not great. Mine also had a reversed abdomen out of the box that I actually didn’t even notice until I got this bootleg release. That had me running to the internet for pictures to see which way it was supposed to be facing. By comparison, this release from Demoniacal Fit is much tighter, the articulation is smoother, and the overall look is pretty much spot-on. To an outsider, the official release would probably feel like the bootleg.
The non-Super Saiyan portraits are nice, but what really attracted me to this figure was the Super Saiyan one. It has that big, spiky, appearance that I love about this look from the movie. The sculpt is great and the approach to the color is my preferred one with a pale yellow plastic and some darker yellow shading. For expressions there’s a yelling one, a stoic one, and a teeth gritting one. For the non Super Saiyan look, there’s stoic, yelling, and a slight smirk. The sculpt of the faceplates appears to be the same as the Bandai ones, though the eyes are slightly larger. For hands, we have fists, gripping, angled gripping, clenching, flat palms, open, and open with pegs. The pegs are utilized with the effect part – a little, yellow, translucent ball of energy that’s a copy of the same that came with Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta. The only difference (apart from the color) is this one has no paint on it. Where the bootleg nature of the figure does seem to come into play is with the hands. The gripping ones, in particular, are not easy to put on. The hole is at an odd spot (it was on the original) and doesn’t seem to be wide enough. One of the gripping hands is a bit soft in the sculpt too with extra material making it hard for him to hold anything with it. You’re probably going to need some hot water to get these on. And he has gripping hands because Trunks also has his sword which, again, is just ripped-off from the official release. The one difference is they cast the sword in translucent pink, but painted silver over most of the blade leaving just the tip this purple-pink shade. I don’t know what the purpose is here. Did he make the blade glow in the movie? I didn’t even remember him using it, but I did screen grab a pic from the movie back when I reviewed it of him with his sword strapped to his back. As for the strap, it’s just as fiddly and annoying to work with as the official release, but doable if you want him to wear it. Just don’t touch it once you get it in place.
Articulation for this Trunks is the exact same as that of the official release, it’s just smoother. Nothing was too loose or stuck on my release out of the package and the range at most of the joints is pretty good. This is one of those releases copying the Bandai look with the oddly shaped thigh swivels which I don’t like. The ball hinges in the wrist are a bit more exposed on this figure than is typical, but they also benefit with improved range as a result. It’s almost a shame I don’t think much of the sword because he can probably wield it better than the previous version. All of the hair pieces are pretty restrictive when it comes to allowing the figure to look up. The purple hair also can be a pain with looking down. The collared portion of the vest can also get in the way, and like many figures, the crotch area is all hard plastic limiting the range on splits in both directions. He’s still going to largely pose the way you want him to, but you do have to watch some of the edges of the joints. In particular the thigh swivels since they need to slide under the hips so they can suffer from rubbing. There’s some light scuffing on my figure’s right thigh and I honestly don’t know if he came out of the box like that or if I did that while handling the figure, but it may be something to watch out for.
I will say, Demoniacal Fit largely lived up to their reputation as a producer of Dragon Ball bootlegs that are on par, or sometimes better than, the official releases from Bandai. Does that mean I feel like this is an ethically sound release? No, not at all. There’s far too much copied from the official figures to make me feel great about owning this. I’m not going to lose sleep over it or anything, but I don’t foresee this being the start of something bigger for me. I should point out that there are two versions of this figure. If you look up The Coming One you may find the Trunks with shorter hair. That one is designed to have a removable coat making it like an end of Cell Saga, return to the future, version of the character. It looks solid, but isn’t unique enough of a look for me to need it in my collection as it’s basically regular Future Trunks just without his coat. If this is a look for Trunks that you have really wanted in your display then I suppose it’s a release made for you. Prices seem to vary on it, but expect to pay anywhere from $65-$95 depending on where it’s being shipped from. Judging it strictly on its merits as an action figure, it’s a pretty good release. The sculpt is great whether you’re talking about the new parts or the stolen ones and the quality is good as well. If this were a Bandai/Tamashii Nations release I’d be plenty happy with it apart from how annoying the hands are to swap. And hey, if they want to rip-off this Super Saiyan hair for an official release (maybe on a new, ascended Saiyan body) I’d say that’s a good way to strike back and something I’d buy. As always though, if this is something you want I leave that decision entirely up to you. I can only tell you what I think of it and how it makes me feel.
For some official Trunks figures as well as the source for this look check these out:
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