SH Figuarts



A popular collector-oriented line of toys produced by Bandai of Japan, well-known for its focus on sculpt quality, natural yet effective articulation and large accessory count. The line mainly produces Kamen Rider figures, and as of 2011 Super Sentai too, but it has ventured into various anime licenses such as Dragonball Z, One Piece, Tiger and Bunny and Pretty Cure.

Since its launch in 2008, it has become very popular thanks to its introducing of a robust yet highly articulated humanoid base body, and now has several spin-off lines:
 * Figuarts ZERO, a line of statues primarily covering anime licenses such as Naruto.
 * D-Arts, focusing on action figures for video game franchises.
 * S.H. MonsterArts, articulated figures for Kaiju series such as Godzilla.

Tropes specific to this toyline are...

 * Development Hell: Quite a few, depressingly enough. Gosei Knight was revealed in mid-2010 and finally announced for release ... in April 2012. As a web exclusive. Some don't even get that far, such as the Kamen Rider Saga prototype that was shown and then shelved for reasons unknown.
 * Let us not forget about Vegeta, and the DBZ sub-line in general.
 * This appears to happen quite regularly; something will be shown at a Tamashii event and then either disappear completely after it, or pop up months later with almost no foreshadowing. It's probably based on potential market demand.
 * Fan Nickname: Type-1 hips and Type-2 hips originally coined by Vangelus.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The Dragonball Z figures were far more popular in the US than in Japan, which led to the line being distributed there locally by Bluefin.
 * Henshin Hero: Their main distribution seems to be the Kamen Rider franchise.
 * No Export for You: Anything that is a Tamashii Web Exclusive, including the Tamashii Festival Expo sets.
 * A special aversion: to promote the airing of Power Rangers Samurai, Bandai had the SHF Shinken Red and Shinken Gold sold in Toys R Uses; and yes, they're being sold in the original packaging and labeled as Shinkenger figures rather than being repacked and called Samurai figures. (Although, according to rumor, there is some resistance from the higher-ups in Japan to having the rest of the team make it stateside, presumably because the others are Web Shop Exclusive.)
 * Spiritual Successor: To the Souchaku Henshin line.