About three weeks ago, I decided to roll the dice on a Zecora from China. After reading up on the % chance hat it will come filled with asbestos and painted with lead, I decided that my health was worth the risk. Apparently that sort of thing isn't too common anymore. Onlyfactory may have bit the dust on pony stuff, but I figured I'd review it anyway. Not much harm can be done when they are closed down after all!
So, just how good were these pony bootlegs before the inevitable axe? Head on down below the break for all the fun little details on ZECORA.
From the images above, she does indeed look really good from a side angle. They ran with dual sided cutie marks showstyle, similar to what we came to expect from 4dE changing the game. Both eyes are fully embroidered, along with the mouth, and they did a really good job with her jewelry. Color me impressed.
There were a few issues though that you probably wouldn't run into with someone legit like 4de. First off, the mouth is pretty oddly sewn on. The seam in the fabric goes right through it, giving her a very strange look in the front.
From the back view, she looks right up there with some of the better plushies in quality. Both hooves have the usual joints at the top that some of the cheaper plushie manufacturers decided to ignore, and the flanks are about as accurate as you can get
Her packaging really bent the hell out of her mane though. Everything you see on her that is the green color is actually painted on as opposed to woven into the fabric, and if these spots bend to far they chafe off. This issue only really popped up here, but it's still pretty glaring in an otherwise impressive plushie.
The hooves come from a completely seperate swatch from her overall gray, which surprised me. I was expecting more paint.
Lets finish this off with the king of show accurate plushies to compare with, and I swear I'm not saying that just because we have a 4DE ad on the side bar. Zecora is about an inch and a half bigger (12 INCHES total to be exact if that brand they put on everything is anything to go by), but there are a lot more seams on her and the mane isn't nearly as detailed. 4de also beats them on softness, and I'd argue that their front view is much better too.
Side view, you can tell 4de put more effort in hiking up and rounding the flank more, and their hooves are much more stable. It's really hard to fault Zecora on much though. She's pretty much exactly what was advertised in the images.
Did we lose something with OnlyFactory being shut down? Only for a while. If 4DE didn't exist, I probably would have gone all out on them. With spaghetti manes taking the Walmart share, we were in a bad position. I still feel bad for all the little girls out there that ended up with those... things.
Luckily 4DE has this on the way, so the future looks bright.
And with that, I'm out! Unfortunately I don't think Zecora is available anywhere anymore outside of the possibility of her popping up on Ebay or at convention vendors, so uhh, go buy Twilight instead while we wait for the 4DE one!
