To be honest I have thought about writing this post here for quite a while. However after some back and forth, some consulting with community friends and looking up chats & forums online, I have decided to do it. Before starting, I like to say that I do not have any grudge with the two brands I am writing about here but I do feel that there is some controversy worth addressing.
XTC Japan and Seiraku Toys are names that have been floating around forums for quite a while. Both brands appear as they were from Japan which got a lot of people interested in these newcomers. Many wondered however why these brands were exclusively available at Dutch retailer Motsutoys only at first, later followed by onahole.com which appears to be the same company.
While surely at times there are brands or usually specific products exclusive to a store, it seemed weird that no one else had been selling their items. I personally ordered a few of them and was kinda wondering about them as the quality and presentation appeared to be rather poor and very different from any Japanese maker I know. The boxes were cheaply made and thin and the artworks felt kinda off. I can’t even say why but they just felt cheap and not from Japan if that makes any sense. They felt more like a Chinese knock off (no offense here), however with a Japan product price tag.
Having a collection of about 80 Onaholes, perhaps nothing to be proud of, one does start to wonder what this is all about. One thing you should know is that I have been a die hard fan of everything japanese from my early ages. One thing I personally hate though are Bootlegs, fake products or fake brands, pretending to be something they are not. Sadly it seems that both XTC Japan and Seiraku Toys are not from Japan and at this point, I even question if they are real companies at all or made up constructs by the people behind Motsutoys.
I do have some contacts in Japan that I asked to look into this. Every business in Japan needs to be registered and there are information about them at the chamber of commerce to be found, both are non existent for either XTC Japan or Seiraku Toys unfortunatelty.
After doing more research over several weeks as this topic kinda bothered me, I feel now safe to say that both brands are just made up by Motsutoys and/or onahole.com and are so called “Fake brands”, pretending to be from Japan to attract Otakus and Japan fans like me.
Not only do I personally feel fooled about this, to pretend to be something you are not also seems unethical in my honest opinion and I feel sad for those who fall for this.
I am saying by no means that all of their products are bad. The ones I had were not good but I haven’t tried of all of them so I rather not judge what I do not know. However, fooling your customers into believing something that isn’t, is not good at all.
Producing your own toys as a shop is cool. Producing your products in way that attracts Otakus like myself is also cool but lying and pretending to be something your are not isn’t and for that very reason, to warn people about the scam I feel XTC Japan and Seiraku Toys are, I wrote this article.
Let us know your thoughts about this cause it matters a lot to us.
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