Accessory Figures

When I recently pre-ordered my Tamashii Effect Thunder (Blue Ver. and Yellow Ver.) I realized how excited for them I was, as well as the whole Tamashii Effect series.  Accessories like these are unique in that, they do not belong to specific character or even type of figure.  They promote creativity by allowing you to use them in many different ways and with almost any figure.

The blue one's going straight to my Sasuke Uchiha figure.

There are three levels of specificity for an accessory.  It can be intended for one particular character/figure, a subset of figures, or, as is the case with the Tamashii Effect series, be designed to be usable by the widest range of figures possible.  While the first two levels are necessary to accurately represent most fictional universes, I'm quite surprised how few companies are producing accessories of the third level.  Figure bases (the accessory type this blog gets its name from) are common, but this new wave of accessories is much more exciting to me.

Robot Damashii Strike Gundam is the king of character-specific accessories.  (Most pictured above are sold separately.)

They give new ways for collectors to display figures they already have.  While obvious, this fact is an amazing value.  Having new life breathed into an older action figure is a feeling difficult to come by.  Even after you've posed your favorite mecha figure a hundred different ways, by surrounding it with billowing flames, you can instantly transform the familiar "feel" of it into something much different, thereby reinvigorating the figure in your eyes.  Its presence in your display will increase as well, letting you shine a new spotlight on an old favorite.

Accessories such as this also give new dimensions of creativity when used with other figures.  New potential poses and dioramas become available, letting you set new scenes with believability.  Then, when you're bored of those scenes, the accessories seemlessly transfer to new figures, multiplying your whole collection's value and fun.  You're not buying just one new toy; you're buying an incremental upgrade to your whole collection.

Needless to say, I'm super stoked for the future of action figure accessories such as these.