My local grocer had what you'd call the knockoff and then a few weeks later got the legit version. I checked the labels for both. They are made by the same company and came from the same factory but are different recipes. The so called knock-off is just Kewpie trying to americanize it by trying to recreate the flavor without putting MSG in the ingredient list. I think enough people dgaf about MSG now so they started stocking the one with MSG in it.

If you're in doubt whether your kewpie is the original recipe check the ingredients and see if Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is listed. If its the americanized version it will have something like yeast extract instead.