The oldest anime figure in our building is a chibi Deku that arrived in December 2018. He has outlasted two store layouts, one pandemic and three Demon Slayer movies. Nobody has bought him yet, and this week we went into the back room to figure out whether that is his fault or ours.
Here is the thing most collectors eventually learn: the newest figure on the wall is almost never the best one. New releases are what a manufacturer thinks will sell in 2026. Older stock is what survived, and a surprising amount of it survived because it was made during a stretch, roughly 2019 to 2022, when Demon Slayer money and a strong dollar let companies greenlight characters they would never touch today. A Nendoroid of a guy who is in two episodes. A Q Posket of a 1973 manga doctor. A POP UP PARADE for a film that had already left theaters.
So we pulled ten of them, ranked them, and argued about it. Everything below is in stock as we write this, listed on our site between 2018 and early 2022, and lives in The Back Room, our collection of older shelf stock. We sell this stuff and we say so; the ranking is still ours.
How we ranked this
Three questions per figure. Would we buy it today at full price if it were a new release? Could you get an equivalent today for the same money? And does it have a reason to exist beyond "popular character, generic pose"? Fail the third and you are a fine purchase but a boring one, and you do not make this list no matter how long you have sat.
10 to 8: the cheap ones that aged well
10. Banpresto Kyun-Chara Izuku Midoriya, $15.99. That December 2018 Deku. Kyun-Chara was Banpresto's super-deformed prize line before Q Posket Petit ate its lunch, and the proportions are rounder and dopier than anything they make now. It looks like a mascot, not a figure, which is the point. With My Hero Academia having wrapped its final season, this is the cheapest way to put the original green-suit Deku on a desk, and we have four of them. Honest note: the paint on a 2018 prize figure is simpler than a 2026 one. For sixteen dollars, we do not care.
9. FuRyu Noodle Stopper Rimuru (Slime Ver. B), $28.99. This is Rimuru as the actual slime, perched on the rim of a cup of instant noodles, and it is the figure that explains what a Noodle Stopper is to anyone who asks. Newer entries in the line are mostly human characters sitting pretty; the slime version is funnier and takes up two inches of shelf. We have 21 of them, which tells you the line got popular after this one shipped. Prize figures like this are still the best value in the hobby, and this is one of the few that is also a joke that lands.
8. SEGA SPM Yotsuba Nakano, Bride Version, $28.99. If you have not finished The Quintessential Quintuplets, skip this paragraph. The bride figures came out as a set of five because SEGA could not say which sister Fuutarou marries, and the manga's answer, Yotsuba, turned this one from a 1-in-5 guess into the canon figure. The other four are a cosplay; this one is a wedding photo. Twenty-nine in stock, still at the price it launched at in 2021.
Kyun-Chara Izuku Midoriya · $15.99
Noodle Stopper Rimuru (Slime Ver. B) · $28.99
SPM Yotsuba Nakano (Bride) · $28.99
7 and 6: Q Posket at its weirdest, which is its best
7. Banpresto Q Posket Black Jack (Ver. A), $26.99. A Q Posket of Osamu Tezuka's scarred, unlicensed surgeon from a manga that started in 1973. Nobody asked for this, Banpresto made it anyway, and it is quietly one of the smartest things on the Q Posket shelf: the line's huge-eyed, big-headed style is a direct descendant of Tezuka's own, so Black Jack looks more at home in it than most modern characters do. The cape, the two-tone hair and the stitches are all here. Pinoko exists in the same wave if you want the full clinic.
6. Banpresto Q Posket Sojiro Seta (Ver. A), $26.99, and Enishi Yukishiro (Ver. B), $26.99. Two villains, zero heroes, which is how you can tell this wave was made for people who had actually read Rurouni Kenshin. Sojiro is the smiling kid from Shishio's Ten Swords who fights Kenshin to a standstill in Kyoto. Enishi is the white-haired brother from the Jinchu arc, the one the 1996 anime never got to animate. The current remake has worked its way through Kyoto; if it ever reaches Jinchu, a $27 Enishi with four left on our shelf will not stay $27. Sojiro we have plenty of. Buy Enishi first.
Q Posket Black Jack (Ver. A) · $26.99
Q Posket Sojiro Seta (Ver. A) · $26.99
Q Posket Enishi Yukishiro (Ver. B) · $26.99
5 and 4: the ones that will never be re-run
5. Good Smile POP UP PARADE Hodaka Morishima, $41.99. Makoto Shinkai's films get lavish scale figures of the heroine and almost nothing for the boy. This is the exception: Hodaka from Weathering with You, umbrella and all, from the first couple of years of the POP UP PARADE line, when Good Smile was still figuring out which licenses would carry it. Film figures do not get re-runs the way long-running shonen do, because the audience is one-and-done. Twelve left, still at launch price, and we have Hina on the regular shelf if you want the pair.
4. Nendoroid Sabito #1569, $79.99. Here is the clearest example of a figure that only exists because of when it was made. Sabito is in two episodes of Demon Slayer's first season. He is Urokodaki's dead student, the fox-mask kid who trains Tanjiro and vanishes at Final Selection. In 2021, at the absolute peak of the franchise, Good Smile looked at that and said yes, full Nendoroid, with Makomo as the companion release. Nobody will greenlight that character again. Three left. If you have ever teared up at the Final Selection reveal, this is the one figure on this list we would tell you to buy before you finish reading. Everything from that era is on the Demon Slayer shelf.
3 to 1: the MegaHouse and Trigger corner
3. MegaHouse Chimi-Mega Buddy Series Sasuke and Itachi, $62.95. MegaHouse made a short run of these two-character chibi sets in 2019 and the pairings were chosen by someone who had read the books. Sasuke and Itachi in one box is a pairing that only makes sense if you know how their story ends, and the forehead-poke energy is right there in the sculpt. Two sets left. For comparison, a single MegaHouse G.E.M. figure of either brother would run you three times this.
2. Nendoroid SSSS.Gridman #1050-DX, $81.99. Studio Trigger's 2018 Gridman is the best tokusatsu anime of the last decade and the figure market mostly ignored it in favor of Rikka and Akane. This is the hero himself, the DX version with the extra parts the standard release skipped, and it is the only Gridman figure we have ever been able to keep in stock long enough to recommend. Eight left. If you came to the franchise through Dynazenon or the Gridman Universe film, this is still the one to own; the design barely changed.
1. MegaHouse G.E.M. Series Giyu Tomioka, $195.95. One left, and it is the best figure in the back room by a distance. G.E.M. is MegaHouse's premium line, the one Naruto and Demon Slayer collectors chase, and this Giyu has the translucent water effect that cheaper Giyus fake with painted plastic. Sculpt quality from 2021 holds up against anything in our $100 to $200 range today, and new G.E.M. releases have not gotten cheaper since. Its shelfmate is the G.E.M. Hashirama Senju at $199.99, three left, which we wrote about when Black Clover came back and still have. If you only buy one expensive figure this year, buy the one that is already sitting here rather than the one on pre-order for next spring.
Chimi-Mega Sasuke and Itachi · $62.95
Nendoroid SSSS.Gridman DX · $81.99
G.E.M. Giyu Tomioka · $195.95
G.E.M. Hashirama Senju · $199.99
What the back room taught us
Every one of these was a bet somebody at Banpresto, Good Smile or MegaHouse made when the money was easy, and most of the bets were on characters, not on sales charts. That is exactly why they are still good. The 2026 release calendar is Gojo, Luffy and Tanjiro in a new pose; the 2020 one was Sabito, Black Jack and a slime on a noodle cup. We know which shelf we would rather browse.
The honest counterargument: older stock can have shelf wear on the box, and some of these counts are down to one or two, so if you want one, do not wait for a second post. Here is the part we are supposed to mention once: everything in The Back Room is 30% off automatically at checkout through November 30, 2026, no code required. Most of the list above drops under thirty dollars after that, and the G.E.M. Giyu lands closer to $137 than $196. The Naruto Shippuden and under-$30 shelves are where the rest of the older stock hides.
Flat $5 shipping anywhere in the US. First order? WELCOME10 takes 10% off, once per customer.