Bootleg Toys in Taipei, Taiwan

In Taiwan, a lot of people buy their produce at traditional markets. They are crowded and raucous affairs, with granny carts and elbows flying, booth owners shouting out discounts on fresh watermelon, and the odd stray dog jostling for scraps.

Sometimes, there are also shops lining the markets. You'll have everything from clothing repair shops to stores selling daily goods. A common type of shop is a 雜貨店 (zha huo dian). They sell your standard low-cost kitchen wares, household products, etc. They also sometimes have toys.


Quick backstory about why I was there. I was on my way to an old neighborhood, and I had a feeling a neighbor might invite me in for coffee. Well, when you go into someone's house, you remove your shoes first. That morning, I had discovered that one of my socks, bought years ago in Korea, had developed a hole in a toe. Not a good look. As a bit of preventive defense, I went searching for a new pair of socks. Lucky thing I found some, since I did wind up visiting with the neighbors. Embarrassment prevented!

Back to the shop. Here's a look at some of the colorful KO toys they had:

We'll start with an oddly named "Deformation" toy. This Transformers KO has even reappropriated the packaging. Thorough job!

And where would we be without LEPIN, one of the many LEGO knockoff brands? Instead of Ninjago, this is the renamed Ninjag line. Maybe they ran out of letters.

The girls have toys to choose from, too. 

This "Star War" gun may be a sort of Nerf/Transformers KO? Nerformers?

 More after the jump:

Quite a jumble of Legoish lines here. We have itoys, JLB, and Lele.

Pretty Cool Ultra knockoff.

Props for creativity! This is a line of Go Go Gadget style helicopter heroes. Iron Man and Captain America self-propel through the city as part of the Max Superhero Squad!

Now this is just some crowded font work. May I present the tongue twisting Taikongshenrs line. Let's see if we can defunk this one. "Tai Kong" (太空) means space in Chinese. "Shen" could be God (神), so maybe these are the Space God(rs)?

 

Nice graphics work. Kind of a wholesale bite on the most famous Autobots, but still pretty.

Some sort of Yugioh inspired belt.

Licensed Disney cup. I guess the store doesn't want to mess with the mouse (though plenty of others in the area do).

Finally we have the Jinrun Space Wars line and the LEBQ Star Wars figures. Hey, if I were Mr. Magoo and spotted a LEBQ toy, I might well think I was seeing LEGO.