For kids growing up the 90s, no childhood was complete without the mousey-faced, rosy-cheeked Pikachu and his array of Pokemon friends who challenged fans to “catch ‘em all!”
Few Japanese franchises have been as influential as Sailor Moon. As an award-winning manga, Sailor Moon helped redefine the “magical girl” genre. As an anime, the series helped to cultivate the acceptance, and popularity, of anime in the United States and around the world. Today, Sailor Moon is lauded as one of the best-selling, most recognized influences of Japanese animation in Western culture.
A star-studded array of Sailor Moon merchandise is mass produced each year to please the franchise’s enormous fanbase. We’ve compiled a list of ten of the most unique, beautiful, and popular items that every Sailor Moon fan deserves to have in their collection of memorabilia.
Despite ending its serialization in 1995, Dragon Ball continues to hold the #2 spot in best-selling manga… almost twenty years after its completion.
Carrying on the franchise’s legacy are its many anime adaptations—Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Kai—along with a variety of action figures that have continued to be released throughout the series’ span.
With literally hundreds of Dragon Ball figurines on the market, let’s take a look at some of the most rare, limited, and expensive ones available that are most worthy of a true collector’s cabinet.
If you’re into manga and anime, you’ve most certainly heard about Naruto—the spikey-haired, orange-suited ninja with dreams as big as the Village Hidden in the Leaves. As the third best-selling manga franchise of all time, Naruto has made itself readily available through multiple outlets—books, anime, movies, figurines, and more.
Since the debut of its one-shot pilot chapter in August 1997, Naruto has spanned over seventy volumes and seven hundred chapters as a manga franchise. It’s no wonder that, with over 200 million copies sold, Naruto has become the third most popular manga series in the world, just behind the likes of One Piece and Dragon Ball.
The overwhelming success of the Naruto series resulted in an anime adaptation, multiple animated films, and a plethora of merchandise—the most popular of which are the Naruto figurines and action figures.
In commemoration of the series’ ending, let’s take a look at the best of the franchise’s figurine lines, examining some of the most detailed, masterfully crafted, and must-have pieces to add to your Naruto collection.
One Piece is widely recognized throughout Japan as the most popular manga currently available, which can easily be understood due to its compelling story line and well-written characters. The series has never stopped building momentum since its early days in 1997, and has now become a worldwide sensation selling more than 345 million volumes. And of course, with any popular franchise, the demand for licensed merchandise is never far behind.
