Figmas are poseable action figures commonly of anime characters (primarily girls) produced by the illustrious and industrious Max Factory and Good Smile Company. Figmas differ from Nendoroids and posed PVC statues in the sense that they are extremely poseable, come with a wide variety of accessories and are often very show-accurate in terms of design. They are usually 125-145mm tall, with figures of the same series usually in scale with each other.
The first Figma was a special edition Haruhi Suzumiya based on and bundled with the PS2 game, Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi. It was released on January 31, 2008 with the product code SP 001. In 2008, the first mass produced figma, Yuki Nagato from the same series was released. Since then, the line has covered a plethora of popular anime including Lucky Star and Puella Magi Madoka Magica, as well as other franchises like Fate/stay night, Fireball, Spider-Man, The Avengers (2012) and RoboCop (yes, you did read that right).
Due to their inherent posability, they tend to be great fun to either simply mess around with or have set up in elaborate dioramas, aided by mostly interchangeable parts and a fairly consistent scale. There are lines of supplementary accessories targeted solely at Figmas due to how popular they are, such as EX:ride and di:stage.
Figma currently leads the market in anime action figures thanks to its plethora of popular licenses, although there are contending lines, the most popular being Figutto!, Full Puni! and Gutto-Kuru. Revoltech's Fraulein line offers larger and sturdier figures, but they tend to be less articulated and the joints are not particularly suited for humanoid non-robotic bodies.
Tropes specific to this toyline:
- Armed Legs: Bionic Joshikosei from Arms Note, an original character designed by FPWORKS
, wears a pair of bionic boots that comes with two blades named "Charge Blades". The blades are also articulated. - Artificial Limbs: Guts from Berserk has a prosthetic arm which double as an Arm Cannon.
- Badass Cape:
- Casca and Guts from Berserk. Casca's cape is made of soft plastic and can be plugged onto the stand. Guts on the other hand has a cloth cape.
- Lucina from Fire Emblem: Awakening has a deep blue PVC cape with two articulated joints.
- Saitama from One-Punch Man has a white PVC cape with two articulated joints.
- Sayaka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica has a white cloth cape with two wires for posing.
- Thor from The Avengers (2012) has a large red cloth cape.
- Batter Up!:
- Sayaka comes with her regular baseball bat and her magically enhanced bat.
- Goro Majima from the Like a Dragon series has a jet black baseball bat. Unlike Sayaka, he actually uses it for combat.
- Beach Episode: The Swimsuit Body Ryo and Emily are dressed in swimsuits, and you can swap their heads with other Figmas.
- BFG:
- The Trope Namer comes with the Doom Slayer from Doom Eternal.
- Black Rock Shooter from Black★Rock Shooter has the Rock Cannon, a huge gun that rapidly fires rocks.
- Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica has the AT-4 Rocket Launcher.
- Sinon from Sword Art Online has the Hecate II anti-material rifle.
- BFS:
- Black Gold Saw from Black★Rock Shooter.
- Guts from Berserk has the Dragonslayer.
- Red Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 has a giant cleaver.
- Chainmail Bikini: The figma Styles original character Makoto was first released wearing bikini armor with Combat Stilettos on her greaves.
- Cosplay:
- Konata has a figma in her Haruhi costume from Lucky Star episode 16.
- Kagami has one in the Hatsune Miku costume from that series' OVA.
- Crowbar Combatant: Nyaruko carries a crowbar, namely "unspeakable bar thing".
- Dude Looks Like a Lady:
- Griffith and Femto from Berserk.
- Kirito (GGO ver.) from Sword Art Online is based on his rare in-game randomly generated avatar, which most players including Sinon would confuse with a girl.
- Eagleland:
- Iowa is a definite Type 1. Beautiful, boisterous, and definitely on the side of the good guys.
- Hand Cannon:
- Homura's Desert Eagle, although it doesn't have a barrel.
- Ein's Colt Python, a .357 magnum.
- Humanoid Abomination:
- Nyaruko a.k.a. Nyarlaphotep from Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!.
- Femto, Void and Slan from Berserk.
- Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2
- Improbable Weapon User:
- All figma accessories can be switched with each other.
- Who is to say swinging leeks isn't a good idea? They're included with some Miku figmas.
- Homura's golf club is one.
- Japanese Delinquents: The original character Makoto has been released as the Sukeban Body, complete with a black facemask, her hair dyed brown instead of her usual black, a long skirt, a bokuto, a pair of knuckledusters, and even a hand Flipping the Bird.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Deadpool comes with his two katanas, and Heavily Armed High School Girl Ichi, an original character designed by neco, comes with three katanas named Harmonics Blade.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler:
- Lucina a.k.a. "Marth" from Fire Emblem: Awakening suffers from this. It doesn't help that she has her real name printed on the box, as well as that Cool Mask and Compressed Hair.
- Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica became a Walking Spoiler since all three versions of her are available as figures. note These were all announced after the anime's finale aired and the third movie was released in Japan.
- Samus Aran, see below.
- Mobile Shrubbery: Solid Snake is guilty to this. Now you can even make your own cardboard box.
- More Dakka:
- Homura and Mami. The former has a Desert Eagle, a pipe bomb and an AT4 rocket launcher for magical girl version, or an M249 and a RPG-7 for school uniform version. The latter has 6 muskets.
- Asato Miyo from Little Armory. She comes with an M4 model kit, a pistol, six M4 magazines, five pistol magazines and several Gun Accessories for customization.
- Particularly everyone from KanColle, due to being warships.
- Non-Standard Character Design: While most figmas are of anime-styled characters, some were modeled after real life people like Michael Jackson (in his Thriller music video appearance), Western live-action characters like Spider-Man, Captain America and Homelander (from The Boys), Retraux 3D polygon characters like Akira Yuki (from the first Virtua Fighter), and statues like The Thinker.
- No Swastikas: Prinz Eugen doesn't have them. Instead, she has the German Ritterkreuz throughout her uniform.
- Revolvers Are Just Better:
- Ein from Phantom of Inferno comes with the Colt Python, a magnum revolver pistol.
- The Flyboy Zombie from Dawn of the Dead (1978) comes with the Ruger Single Six, a single action revolver pistol.
- Deadpool comes with his revolver
- Samus Is a Girl: Samus Aran, literally.
- Sinister Scythe: Dead Master and White Rock Shooter's weapons from Black★Rock Shooter.
- Sniper Rifle:
- Long Range Joshikosei from Arms Note has the Herzog HGS-11, an original bullpup bolt-action sniper rifle.
- Maria Teruyasu from Little Armory has the Barrett M82A1 anti-material rifle. Being a collaboration with Tomytec's model kit series, her rifle is a model kit and you need to assemble it on your own.
- Sinon from Sword Art Online has the Hecate II anti-material rifle.
- Speech Bubbles: Phoenix Wright comes with speech bubbles for "Objection!", "Hold it!", and "Take that!", both in English and Japanese.
- Super-Soldier: Solid Snake.
- Sword and Gun: The Hunter From Bloodborne comes with the Saw Cleaver and Hunter Pistol, and he wields both of them at the same time. Deadpool also comes with both of his swords and two guns, and the deluxe version comes with 2 machine guns, in addition to both of his swords and guns.
- Units Not to Scale: While they're mostly 1:12, their sizes vary due to being in different franchises.
