SH Figuarts: The Best Figuarts Lineups

S.H Figuarts: The Best Lineups

S.H.Figuarts: The Best Lineups

Published on: August 16th, 2024 by The HLJ Team

S.H.Figuarts: An Unparalleled Posable Figure Series

The S.H.Figuarts series has been an established force in the lives of fans and figure collectors since its inception, offering quality, highly poseable action figures based on a huge range of iconic characters. Much like other action figure series such as figma, MAFEX or Revoltech, the S.H.Figuarts line from Bandai offers non-scale action figures with detailed articulation and accessories - and we love them!

With so many S.H.Figuarts releases since the series debut in 2008, the S.H.Figuarts series contains within it a huge number of different character lineups based on popular media franchises. Of course, If you’re just getting into collecting action figures, you’re probably looking to display your own custom lineup of your favorite characters.

But when it comes to S.H.Figuarts specifically, you might want to know - which popular series are represented the best in the line? When it comes to character diversity, style and frequency of releases, which series does S.H.Figuarts do the best?

To answer that question, we’ve compiled a list of our five favorites S.H.Figuarts lineups based on all these factors!

S.H.Figuarts One Piece

If you’ve read or watched any of the epic 20 year long pirate action adventure series One Piece, you’ll know it’s a series with a huge amount of characters. At over 1000 chapters and ongoing, the series is finally ‘winding’ down, but that doesn’t stop them from introducing new characters at a rate of like, five per chapter.

The S.H.Figuarts lineup hasn’t tried to create action figures for all of the characters, but it has covered all of the essentials: The Strawhat Pirates such as Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Sanji, Robin, Franky, Brook and even Jinbei all have figures, and many of the iconic villains and supporting cast from various arcs also made it to the series. The iconic art style of Eiichiro Oda is recreated in each of the figures, with the character’s signature quirks and vibrant colors making their way into their designs.

Beyond this, there are multiple versions of each major character in unique outfits, such as the recent Gear 5 version of Luffy which recreates his bright white ‘sun god’ look, or the Raid on Onigashima outfits from the recent ‘Wano Country’ arc. If you want to create a dynamic display of iconic fight scenes from the anime or manga, the S.H.Figuarts series will let you do exactly that!

S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider

The Kamen Rider series is unique in the sense that its long (50 year) history has also involved the series re-inventing itself nearly every year. With each new series, the show introduces a new masked hero, theme, setting and story.

The result is a huge variety of different characters bearing the mantle of the ‘Kamen Rider’ with completely different designs. And if you’re a fan of this show, good news - the S.H.Figuarts series seems very committed to creating just about every character in the series as action figures. This makes it incredibly easy to collect every major character from your favorite rider series in the show, such as Kamen Rider Gaim’s collection of fruit-themed samurai warriors, or Kamen Rider Ex-Aid’s eccentric gamer doctors.

The huge amount of S.H.Figuarts of Kamen Rider characters has made it popular amongst fans of the show and figure enthusiasts alike - heading into any used figure store in Japan, you’re likely to find a small museum of past S.H.Figuarts Kamen Riders.

With such a huge array of colorful designs, the Figuarts series is the perfect home for Kamen Riders, and the articulation of the series lends itself well to recreating the dynamic heroic poses of the series, such as the infamous ‘rider kick’ pose, which is very easy to make with S.H.Figuarts.

S.H.Figuarts Star Wars

Star Wars is one of the most popular sci-fi franchises ever, and it’s made its way into lots of different figure styles and series in its time. Really, if you’re a Star Wars fan, you’re actually pretty spoiled for choice when it comes to figures. But when it comes to action figures specifically, there’s no denying that Star Wars and S.H.Figuarts make a good pairing.

Characters from all three key eras of Star Wars are represented in the S.H.Figuarts series with characters from the original trilogy, prequels, sequels and even various spin-off media. In addition to iconic Jedi like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka Tano, minor characters like nameless Stormtroopers are also included in the series, as well as characters most fans might not be familiar with.

There is of course a consistency in design here that makes it possible to create your own dream-team Star Wars character display: because of the consistency in design, it won’t look odd having characters from the prequels alongside characters from the sequels, and accessories such as lightsabers and blasters can be shared between characters!

S.H.Figuarts Marvel Cinematic Universe

Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and related Marvel projects, the broad appeal of Marvel continues to grow. In the S.H.Figuarts series, we’ve seen Marvel characters get the action figure treatment for their cinematic forms.

In terms of the action figure releases for the MCU, the S.H.Figuarts series is about as good as it gets! Characters are designed with consistency in mind, making sure they conform to a shared style that recreates the look of their live action appearances with careful attention to detail.

Ongoing new appearances in the MCU has meant that characters also get to various costume changes, which have also been recreated in the series: for example, the ‘Five Years Later’ version of key characters, based on their appearances after the timeskip in Avengers: Endgame.

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball

If there’s one series that I consider to be synonymous with the success of the S.H.Figuarts brand, it’s Dragon Ball! And all things considered, this might be the best S.H.Figuarts lineup for a series.

Dragon Ball and S.H.Figuarts have a long history together, and the collaboration between the beloved martial arts battle series and the figure has produced a lot of cool figures of some iconic characters. Much like One Piece, Dragon Ball is another series with a lot of characters to produce figures of, but Dragon Ball also has the added benefit of having multiple forms for a lot of its main characters thanks to the series ‘Super Saiyan’ mechanics.

But it’s not just the heroes that have gotten the Figuarts treatment - minor characters and villains are also effectively represented, and at this point, the released figures for the series has almost completely encapsulated the most important characters of the series, including each level of Super Saiyan and beyond. Even the dragon Shenron has a figure!

In addition, Toriyama’s signature design style is preserved in the figures, which shines through in each of the designs. As a result, they look excellent when displayed together as a full lineup, and using the often included effects parts, you can easily recreate classic Dragon Ball fights on your shelf! For all these reasons and more, Dragon Ball easily has the finest S.H.Figuarts lineup.

Whatever characters you prefer to collect in the S.H.Figuarts series, HobbyLink Japan is here to support your interest. We offer as many S.H.Figuarts preorders as possible, and regularly have a variety of them In Stock and ready to ship - whether you’re a season collector or just starting on your figure journey, hlj.com is the place to be for all your collection needs!

S.H.Figuarts: The Best Lineups

S.H.Figuarts: An Unparalleled Posable Figure Series

S.H.Figuarts One Piece

S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider

S.H.Figuarts Star Wars

S.H.Figuarts Marvel Cinematic Universe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball

Related Products

In Stock S.H.Figuarts

Preorder S.H.Figuarts

All Action Figures!