Have you ever ordered a product online that turned out to be nothing like how it looked in the photo? You feel disappointed, annoyed, and slightly betrayed. It’s probably the same kind of feeling an artist gets when a product based on their designs doesn’t turn out quite like they expected.
When it comes to large anime franchises the original creator may be the one who gets all the credit, but they’re not necessarily the one who does all the work. They have teams of designers and illustrators working with them who will oversee things such as promotional material, images for magazines, merchandise, and so on. These people have a responsibility to make sure everything is in-keeping with the creator’s vision. Twitter user Yuna is one such illustrator who has done work for many famous anime, games, and other otakuish things.
Unfortunately, not everyone is so serious about fidelity to a series. Yuna was in charge of the original illustration work for a figure of hit anime Attack on Titan‘s (Shingeki no Kyojin) Corporal Levi. Unfortunately the finished model based on Yuna’s designs was quite different from what was expected.
And this isn’t just a case of changes being made further on down the line and not being communicated back. Apparently Yuna was actually sent a photo of the final figure for approval and gave the go ahead. However, when the figure arrived, something was very off. You could blame differences in positioning and lighting, but when you look closely at the eyes, which are one of the most important things in any anime character, they give a completely different impression from the original.
“Regarding the figure design I was in charge of, I got a call that the face was completely different. The image on the left was sent to me for quality checking so I replied with the OK, the figure that arrived on release day is on the right. Honestly, I’m shocked.”
Yuna has over 40,000 followers who are always eager to see what the artist has been working on, and so feels a sense of responsibility for encouraging them to buy a product that turned out so poorly. And so the artist took to Twitter to voice their disappointment.
▼ “I was really happy to hear ‘I ordered it!’ and ‘I can’t wait!’ from my followers since I made announcements about it thinking it would be the quality shown on the left, but now it’s arrived… I don’t know what to say…”
Naturally people were shocked by the difference in quality, but they didn’t blame Yuna.
▼ “It’s so bad you’d think it was a knockoff lololol”
▼ “It’s not Yuna’s fault… this is all the producer’s fault… I was shocked to see the photo. I can’t believe this happened.”
▼ “Sorry to butt in, but I saw this figure too when I was shopping in Nihonbashi. But I think the one I saw was the better one (on the left) that Yuna gave the OK to.”
▼ “I saw the one on the left in Lashinbang, but I guess then this happened… it’s shocking…”
From the above comments it seems likely that there was a dud batch that sneaked through quality control. We’re sure the issue will be resolved soon as it can’t be good for the producers to have their artist publicly lambasting them in front of the people who would be buying their products!
▼ A compilation video of Corporal Levi’s badassery so you can see his usual expression. Admittedly it is a unique character design, but that’s all the more reason to get it perfect.
What do you think? Would you return this figure if you received it in the mail? Let us know in the comments section below.
Source: Twitter via Hachima Kikou