What is S.H.Figuarts?

S.H.Figuarts is a popular toyline of poseable action figures of various characters from different forms of media. S.H.Figuarts is made by Bandai under the brand of Tamashii Nations, and are known for their figures of a wide variety of characters. These characters include anime characters, miscellaneous characters from american movies/shows, as well as characters from various series of Tokusatsu like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

S.H.Figuarts are made of PVC and ABS plastics, with ABS being used for a numerous amount of parts including any armor, as well as most joints of the figure. PVC is instead used mostly with bits that need to be more flexable, like swappable hands, certain accessories, skirts, and possibly areas of the figure that show skin. In some joints, S.H.Figuarts will have minor areas of metal parts for stability and construction strength. Standard S.H.Figuarts come with accessories relating to the character, likely weapons, and Kamen Riders might have belt accessories with gimmicks for display. At the very least, S.H.Figuarts come with multiple pairs of hands for display options.

S.H.Figuarts tend to have a lot of variety in their offerings, and have done figures for many different types of shows. Some popular ones include their Dragon Ball figures like their numerous Goku figures of his many forms and appearances. Another thing S.H.Figuarts are known for are their tokusatsu figures, as they made a lot of figures for both Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, although some Sentai rangers are unfortunately P-Bandai, so you might have to pay premium for a whole team. Other than that, they've done a few other figures from anime, and quite a few non-anime/Japanese characters like Iron Man, Darth Vader, and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

These action figures tend to have have very nice poseability with their joints and engineering, although as expected, joints of skin don't tend to look as fantastic. The joints on S.H.Figuarts are hidden decently well most of the time, however areas like the knees and double jointed elbows might not look as good. Despite possible gripes however, the poseability on these figures is definitely a strength of S.H.Figuarts, and it definitely helps if your figure doesn't show a lot of skin, like with Kamen Riders and Sentai rangers.

S.H.Figuarts are in the end a good figure line with quite a large variety of action figures, especially for tokusatsu figures like Kamen Riders. Their paintwork is nice and is typically good looking, however paint chipping is an issue due to this, so be careful with painted surfaces. Another issue with a few S.H.Figuarts, specifically some of the older ones, are their face prints don't always capture the character. They can sometimes look really off, unlike the faces of a Figma figure. This makes some of their figures have lifeless-looking or creepy, like with S.H.Figuarts Master Asia. On a better note though, articulation is really good due to the joints and construction, and they're quite decently priced for what you get, and I think most of them are fair deals for figures of them. So I do think they're an excellent choice to go for if you want a few of their figures.