The Otaku Box "Unboxed": April 2020

Otaku Box April 2020 art by caitaron

Another month, another rubbish box sent out by The Otaku Box.

The Figure

This might just make the unlicensed Raphtalia they sent out look good.

Yet again this is an unlicensed figure, which means that The Otaku Box don't have the approval to manufacture it. REAL Japanese anime figures are vetted by the studios and publishers of the anime to make sure they are good enough quality to be official merchandise for a series, which is why these are so poor in comparison.

Another thing is that Liz constantly seems to be confused about what scale these figures are. On the actual sheet that comes with the box, it says "Prize Figure".

Prize figure is a generally accepted term for figures of a lower quality that would commonly be found in UFO catchers or other arcade machines in Japan. They are relatively cheap, around $20-$30 USD new and are not sculpted to a particular scale, i.e. 1/7 or 1/8 are the most common.

BUT, when you go to order a box, Liz claims the figures that arrive are 1/12 SCALE figures.

Having seen, bought and sold scale figures in Japan I can tell you that the unlicensed figures (Raphtalia, Albedo, Rias and now Jibril) are definitely not 1/12 scale figures, the quality of the sculpt and painting is inferior to even a Banpresto prize figure, let alone an S-Style 1/12 Miku figure (which they actually included a fake counterfeit model of back in a previous box).

But wait, there's more! On Trustpilot, and some pages on TheOtakuBox.com, Liz is now claiming the figures are 1/6 scale!

These claims came out before the current box was sent out, so surely this Jibril figure is 1/6 right? Let's compare it to the size of previous figures:

So which one is it Liz, prize figure, 1/12 or 1/6 scale figure? They are straight up lying to their consumers. Also yet again note the generic "JIBRIL" box as I predicted last month, a sure sign that this figure is unlicensed.

By the way, this is what a real 1/8 Jibril scale figure looks like. So when Liz uses the term "scale figure" she's either trying to mislead you or has no idea what she's talking about.

The T-Shirt/Print

Yet again the shirt and print is art drawn by caitaron, this month it's Yae Sakura from Honkai Impact 3. Again they make the weird choice to print the art on both the front and back of the shirt, why not just the front? It's funny watching unboxings by influencers this month since none of them seem to know who the character is yet are still super enthusiastic. Would a real otaku want a T-shirt of a character they care nothing about?

The Lunch Box

It's got different caitaron art as well as TheOtakuBox logo, so when you take your lunch to work everyone can see that you own fake anime figures!

Seriously no piece of actual anime merch would have characters from all different series like this, pretty weak item.

The Lanyard

This is shaping up to be the weakest box for a while, a bootleg-looking lanyard with Asuna from Sword Art Online on it. It's also really awkwardly sized, what are you meant to do with this? A quick search for "anime lanyard" on AliExpress reveals thousands of choices for $1 USD each, why get the box when you can pick out exactly which off-brand unlicensed lanyard you want for yourself.

The Badge

The loser of the vote this month was Weiss Schnee from RWBY. Is RWBY even considered anime? Again the art is caitaron, maybe they've fired Sevie or she's decided not to work with them any more? Can't blame her.

The Card

I can't believe they consider this a full item in every box... You can't do anything with it, it doesn't even look nice since it's got Otaku Box branding all over it!

The Sticker

A sticker this month that looks like some stolen art of Rias from High School DxD. If it's stolen art, you can just buy the exact sticker you want without rolling the dice with a subscription.

Pretty ecchi, speaking of which did you know The Otaku Box is launching a digital art subscription? Don't know how that's going to go considering they use the same artist over and over. Why not cut out the middle man and buy it direct from caitaron?

Interestingly this month was meant to have chopsticks and an acrylic stand. Guess they're struggling, because I don't think a lanyard like that and one sticker are really valid replacements. If I actually paid for this I'd be pretty mad.

This month was pretty awful, would anyone be happy with this amount of stuff considering how much you have to pay?

Total Value

Yae Honkai Impact Print: $5

Lunch box: $3

Rias Sticker: $3
Asuna Lanyard: $1

Asuna "Collectible" Card: $1

Weiss Badge: $1

This comes in at a grand total of $14 of value without extras, for $30 dollars!

Another reminder that the shirt and figure that you see all the influencers on YouTube unbox costs extra, add those and the price goes up to a whopping $54.93 per month.

Don't subscribe to The Otaku Box, it's a waste of money, you're never going to be happy with what it comes with. You're better off saving the $30-$50 dollars and buying merch of characters you really like. Thanks for reading.