Anime Figure Collection Culture: Girl, My Plastic...
How much plastic can I fit on my shelf before it's considered a problem?
A secret guilty pleasure of mine is watching room decoration videos and shelf tours. It’s the one time I understand why HGTV has such a grip on suburban moms: sometimes watching people decorate a space is really calming. This tendency, combined with me never clearing my YouTube history, is what thrust me into the periphery of the world of collection culture in the anime(ish) fan community, particularly figure collectors.
Every interest has a community of collectors in it. I’m sure many of my beloved co-writers could rebuild the Criterion Closet on their own with their collections put together. But, be it video games, books, VHS tapes, box sets, CDs, etc. a lot of these collection communities are built around the preservation of physical media. All of these items have an intended use and level of interactivity. Obviously, anime isn’t exempt from this; a lot of people, including me, collect manga and soundtracks and DVDs. I’ve seen people with like 900+ volume collections, people go crazy when collecting manga.
My current manga collection (featuring screenplays)
But, that’s not the side of anime collection culture that’s enraptured me. I can understand manga collections entirely: no need for an online subscription, no risk of your pirate site going down, and it’s nice to just read something physical. Sure, 900+ volumes is a little overkill, the space requirements alone are absurd, but the main rationale behind collecting physical volumes is the same. What I want to discuss is figure collecting, more specifically, the wide variety of anime collectibles designed to simply be displayed: figures, plushies, badges, acrylic stands, the whole kit and caboodle.
I know the stereotype of a figure collector is some guy with a bunch of plastic girls in skimpy outfits lining his walls. That’s not true: girls have rooms like that too. There’s also people that just collect from one series, people that collect one character, people that collect based on aesthetic or artist or figure manufacturer. Some collect based on quality, some based on quantity, and some just fill rooms because they can. In “analyzing” a borderline concerning amount of figure collection hauls and room tours, I’ve noticed a few patterns and practices that baffle me such as:
The Gatchapon/Blind Bag Collector: A quantitative approach to merchandise collection. These collectors descend upon stores and arcades to test their luck on pulling out a tiny figure, trading card, pin badge, or keychain out of a tiny plastic ball. Blind bag collectors fit in this same category, although those extend to acrylic stands and small plushies as well. People manage to fill entire shelves with these tiny things, but usually these items spice up a manga shelf or desk.
The Ichibankuji Enjoyer: An ichibankuji is a random chance, ticket-based lottery system. There is a set list of prizes, usually ranging from A to G, with the higher-value prize being figures and the lower-value prizes being acrylic stands, pins, towels, stickers etc. Some collectors pull thousands of yen worth of tickets with the miniscule chance of pulling an A or B ticket while some go even further to get the “last chance” prize: a rare figure reserved for those who pull the last kuji ticket. Again, another quantity not quality approach to collecting, but at least the “bad” prizes have a bit higher quality than anything out of a gachapon.
The Waifu Collector (Gender Neutral): The waifu collector is self-explanatory: someone that collects (largely) figures of their favorite characters. But, that’s an intentionally broad definition. This is where the stereotype of figure collectors tends to fit fair and square, which is a fair assumption: there are whole figure manufacturers dedicated to making lewd figures or other forms of merchandise. I’d also include people who collect a significant amount of merchandise of several favorite characters, gender non-inclusive, in this category as well. Diversity is the key here.
The Gacha Waifu Collector: A subset of the Waifu Collectors (gender neutral), but distinct enough to warrant its own explanation. Gacha games–Fate: Grand/Order, Arknights, anything by MiHoyo–make profit by dangling really hot characters over their playerbases’ heads on a little string. These games turn a massive profit by encouraging them to sink money on extra “pulls” to hopefully acquire that smoking hot JPEG or collection of pixels. But, if your favorite character won’t come home, there’s another way: buy merchandise of them. Obviously, if this merchandise comes from gachapon or ichibankujis, there’s still a little gambling risk going on but by and large buying figures and plushies of gacha characters seems to be the way to go.
The Completionist: This is where figure collecting starts to get serious. The Completionist buys every conceivable piece of merchandise for the series they’ve finished. This includes alternate color versions, alternative poses, and rereleases with the most minor tweaks. Now, some series obviously produce more merchandise than others but either way this is a considerable financial investment. Typically, the only limitation is if the collector enjoyed the show and how much shelf space they have.
The Shrine-Maker: A notable subset of the Completionist with Waifu Collector sprinkled in. In lieu of buying every piece of merchandise for a series, they buy every piece of merchandise for a single character. Depending on character popularity and the type of merchandise collected, a shrine can extend from a single shelf to an entire room. If blind bags and gachapon are factored in, duplicates and alternative colorways are more than okay. The name of the game is getting everything of their favorite little guy or gal.
The Overachiever: Beyond the Completionist is the Overachiever: people that collect figures for the love of the game. It doesn’t matter if they haven’t seen the series or if they haven’t finished the game a certain character is from, if the figure is good then they’re getting it. The Overachiever tends to skip over the smaller pieces of merchandise and just go for the figures and plushies, although it depends on if the Overachiever has Shrine-Maker tendencies . This is where collecting becomes less of a hobby and more of a lifestyle choice.
The thing is, I would not be writing this if the call wasn’t coming from inside the house. I’ve been collecting figures since 2021, and could extend that back to 2020 if I wanted to include all collectibles. I get the base appeal of having physical representations of favorite characters because I too like staring at my favorite little guys whenever possible. But, as the photo shows, my collection takes up a small shelving unit on one wall of an apartment. Most of the figures are “prize”, as in made to be won from a crane game or ichibankuji (in the case of the Geto figure), or “non-scale” which are a bit less detailed, but typically less of an impact on the wallet. For space and budgetary reasons, I get figures maybe a few times a year.
My anime merch collection (optimized for minimal cat interference)
That’s because figure collection, or really any collection of anime collectibles, isn’t really an egalitarian hobby. Arguably, no form of collecting is. Like with any other form of collection, there’s a certain amount of space requirement involved. However, unlike DVDs or vinyls or books, figures vary wildly in size and aren’t really built to be stacked. Additionally, figures are three-dimensional objects designed to be seen from all angles, so a more expensive glass or plexiglass display case is ideal. But, figures also come in boxes and those boxes ALSO have to be stored. So, whatever display space is needed for a figure collection essentially has to be doubled. Typically closet space or floor space becomes the sacrifice, although craftier collectors create box-specific storage cabinets/risers to place under their display cases.
The other big universal thing with taking up collecting is the monetary investment. Depending on manufacturer, scale, and rarity figures can start at a few dollars and go up to a few thousand. Additionally, unless you live near a good secondhand store or chain, buying figures outside of East Asia comes with insane shipping costs attached. Some companies, like Kotobukiya and Good Smile Company, have international websites that factor shipping costs into pricing, but most do not. So, despite the conversion of JPY to USD (for example) seeming pretty nice, the DHL cost tacked on sometimes exceeds the price of the actual plastic doodads. Many collectors, both hardcore and not, try to avoid this by either pre-ordering figures en masse or using proxy services to minimize processing and shipping costs. However, these also have their downsides: pre-orders may be delayed and, thus, shipped separately while proxy services can also include extra fees.
Naturally, with collecting comes the promise of re-selling and secondhand. This is how I get most of my figures; re-sellers are sometimes extremely kind with their pricing, and you can hypothetically get an entire original Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children collector’s set for $85 total. But discussions of the figure aftermarket is where I get morbidly curious about the SERIOUS figure collectors. Not only do they track the value of the JPY relative to their own country’s currency with obsessive precision, they also track the aftermarket prices of figures and predict which ones will go up and down. The website MyFigureCollection, ostensibly dedicated to logging and sharing figure collections, doubles as the figure collection stock market. Users track the value of individual figures, debate the prices of impending releases, and buy and sell figures from each other.
Truly, I am baffled by the hardcore merchandise collection community. On one hand, the level of dedication some people have to creating immaculately styled figure displays, building entire room’s worth of displays, and curating their collection is admirable in a way. On the other, much larger hand I can’t help but go down the “capitalism and its consequences” route. Some collectors spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on painted plastic in the shape of fictional characters and even more on accommodating the space required to display and store figures. This is most obvious when anime merch collecting moves towards a completionist mindset. Any community that prioritizes or platforms the “haul” mindset runs the risk of almost glorifying overconsumption. I may personally find this kind of overconsumption a bit more egregious because the merchandise simply exists to be stared as opposed to something with utility and preservation, like massive DVD or book collections. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare the two. Perhaps I will remain perpetually intrigued. One thing’s for sure: girl, where do I put my plastic?