Be picky when buying anime figures

Weird title, right? I’ll explain. And yes, I collect a few figures as a hobby.

Context

I recently came back from vacation (post coming soon), and I bought a character figurine during that time. It’s an older Alter figure of Black Heart, because I still have a little spot for the Neptunia series to this day. It’s the 8th in my collection.

Figure collecting paradox

That’s the context. I bought my 8th anime figure during vacation, and it took almost 7 years to grow my collection to this size. So it got me thinking about the people who go really deep into the hobby. I’m talking about people that probably have tens or even hundreds of figures. These people own collections like a dragon hoarding a mountain of gold. Monetarily, their collections can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Physically, their collections might fill an entire room with boxes and display cases. It’s incredibly impressive on one hand.

As someone who is only lightly involved into figures as a hobby, I have questions to parts that I don’t understand.

you bought all of this in 1 month?

why do you have 20 mikus?

you bought this character because they look cute/hot/cool, but don’t know anything about them or their series?

Most of my questions can be answered objectively, or with “it’s my decision”. Fair, it’s not my business. But there’s one question that I have to a small number of collectors.

why are you liquidating 80 - 100% of your collection?

And the answers to this question are often one of these:

1. Something happened in real life
2. I lost interest in the hobby or these figures
3. I don’t have enough room/I’m moving and need to get rid of luggage

If the seller is forced by events in life, godspeed to them. And losing interest in a hobby? That happens. Good on the seller for selling and recouping. But the third answer? That’s an odd one.

And it’s not uncommon to see this. On r/animefigures, there are some people wanting to downsize their collection. Others show a massive 30 liter box shipment they got this month. And some show their new collection that got bigger than mine within one year.

Put together, I highly suspect someone out there does this:

1. Consoom a ton of figures
2. Realize their mistake and sell, often for less than aftermarket price

But why? What causes this? My collection isn’t small and is definitely not cheap, but I don’t have a collection that I can’t manage. Why do some people fall for this trap?

I think there are three answers, and the first two are the big problems:

1. FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
2. Financial mismanagement
3. Being rich

My rules when buying figures

1. I must know the character
2. I must like the character a lot
3. Quality over quantity. 1 figure max for a character
4. Avoid plain/repetitive poses/outfits/colour schemes
5. Set a reasonable price limit

It’s a simple set, but I think they’ve held up well over time.

Knowing and liking the character

This is the biggest issue I have with the FOMO people. Anime figures, especially scale figures, are made in limited production runs. They aren’t continuously produced products that you can casually buy in a store, only small batches are made according to demand. Some figures might only get produced once, meaning that only a few hundred will exist in the world.

If aftermarket demand is strong, it can push prices up to insane levels. I’ve seen a $150 figure sell for almost $1000. Anime figures are like vintage computers that enthusiasts hunt for, except figures become rare the day they come out of the factory.

Oh no! if I don’t get this now, I’ll miss out on it forever! It might be expensive, but I have to get it now!

FOMO can become so strong that it drives extremely impulsive purchases, physical or digital (looking at you, gacha games). Companies can take advantage of FOMO-induced panic to get people to buy things they would otherwise not consider. Being resistant to FOMO is the most important thing to know when collecting figures. It’s also generally very useful for everything in life.

If someone buys a figure of a character they don’t know and justifies the purchase with “he/she looks cool”, that’s a terrible purchase in my opinion. Figure collecting is one of those hobbies where objects tend to have sentimental value. If I had a figure of a character that looked cool but I didn’t know, it wouldn’t be very exciting.

How many Mikus do you need?

Sometime, someone might have an entire bookshelf dedicated to just Miku figures and nothing else. And new Miku figures are always being announced. And the same people with a Miku bookshelf will probably drool over the new Miku too.

I think this is a bad way to spend money on figures. Personally, I want to maximize the diversity I have with my limited funds; different characters, poses, outfits, themes. I could only buy 1/4 bunnies, but that would be boring.

This isn’t a Miku-exclusive problem. Every once in a while I’ll look for what products are ready for pre-ordering, and I still see a Megumin or Rem figure up. Jeez, I get they’re popular, but still. Do people not get tired?

The cost adds up

Living in Canada has a lot of downsides. I’m Uncle Sam’s next door neighbour, but get few of the benefits he does. Instead, Canada gets the honour of comical shipping fees, since there aren’t many domestic things here. So a Canadian figure collector has to go through these steps for every purchase:

1. Eat the >1.3 CAD:USD exchange rate
2. Get screwed on shipping because companies love UPS and DHL
3. Use cheaper national post services but still get screwed on duties
4. Try to take advantage by buying from companies with US warehouses but still get DHL’d and pay duties

Over time, the overhead compounds badly. A Nendoroid that cost $40 USD became $100 CAD. A 1/7 scale that was $150 USD became $300 CAD. A 1/4 bunny that was $300 USD shreds your bank account to pieces. Maybe you could buy in bulk from Japan, but of course you need a plane ticket for that.

But let’s say this is a Canada problem. Maybe you live in CONUS so you deal with fewer problems. So you go ahead and pre-order 10 figures you want. A few are scales, and the rest are Nendoroids or prize figures. A year later or so, the invoice hits you. You might not have anticipated the total to be $700 USD, so now you have to cancel some orders or deal with financial strain.

If you didn’t anticipate the cost, that’s on you. Pre-order pricing is clearly shown when browsing the product’s page. And despite the clear warnings, some people still post about how they pre-ordered too much and can’t handle the cost. It’s just poor financial management.

Hobbies are weird

In the end, I am picky about buying anime figures. I’ve noticed that my rate of spending has increased over time, most likely because I began to earn some money. However, my collection size is still manageable and I don’t fall for FOMO.

I think this is the ideal way to collect figures, especially scale figures. If you can’t control your spendings on luxury goods (which is what anime figure are ultimately), that’s not a good projection for your overall financial decisions. Be picky about what you buy.

Bonus: My collection

I guess I should put this out, as transparency for my own opinion. 8 purchases over 7 years.