Where official figures are actually made
Japanese manufacturers design and sculpt in Japan and manufacture abroad. Good Smile Company, Bandai Spirits, Banpresto, FuRyu, Kotobukiya and MegaHouse all use overseas production, predominantly in China and increasingly in Vietnam. Funko, an American company, does the same.
This is not a secret or a corner being cut — it is simply how painted PVC figures at these price points are produced. A 1/7 scale figure involves a large amount of hand-finishing and hand-painting, and that labour determines where the factory is.
Which means the country-of-origin line on the box is a manufacturing fact with no authenticity content whatsoever. Using it as a test fails in both directions: it clears recasts, which are also made in China, and it condemns genuine pieces.
What to check instead
- The licensor copyright line — naming the mangaka, publisher or production committee. Recasts omit or corrupt it far more often than they get it right.
- The manufacturer’s logo, printed cleanly and in the right place for that line.
- Facial printing on the figure itself: sharp, symmetrical, correctly registered.
- Seam finishing and paint edges.
- A scannable JAN or EAN barcode.
A related misconception worth clearing up
Figures sold outside Japan are sometimes described as "Asia exclusive" or carry packaging with additional English or Chinese text. That is a distribution arrangement, not a quality tier — manufacturers licence regional distributors and the packaging reflects the market. An Asia-release figure from a named manufacturer is the same product from the same tooling.
What is genuinely worth knowing is the difference between a prize figure and a retail scale figure, because that determines price and finish far more than anything on the country-of-origin line does.