The online Marvel figure collecting community caught fire last week when Bandai Tamashii posted a certain image on their site showing a double-digit number of MCU characters from the “Captain America: Civil War” movie with the text “And More!” proudly plastered on top of the image. But while many individuals and sites are interpreting that image to mean a ton of SH Figuarts Civil War figures are in the way, I think it’s important to manage expectations…

Ordinarily I do my very best to avoid making posts where the central element is based off of speculation and not facts, which is why I haven’t posted about last week’s potentially big Marvel Figuarts news just yet.

While I hate being a Debbie Downer, I’d hate it more if thousands of collectors got their hopes up about an extensive line of S.H. Figuarts Civil War figures and then had those hopes dashed, so let me weigh in on this week’s Bandai Tamashii SH Figuarts Captain America Civil War lineup rumors.

Yes, Bandai Tamashii Nations did post a poster image this week showing the main characters of the Captain America: Civil War movie facing off against each other.
This image featured the following characters:

• Captain America
• Agent 13 (Sharon Carter)
• Falcon
• The Winter Soldier
• Hawkeye
• (Shrunken) Ant-Man
• Iron Man
• Black Panther
• Black Widow
• War Machine Mark III
• The Vision

And yes, the Bandai teaser image did put the words “and more” over this image. All of this is true.

But! While some people are taking that text to mean that we’ll be getting all of those characters “and more”, I think some people are being way too optimistic here–and not taking into consideration that the words “and more” are stuck directly under the prototype photos of Captain America and Iron Man. I think a more realistic interpretation would be “These revealed Iron Man and Captain America figures…and more!”

Bandai Tamashii is one of my favorite companies in the world, and  I’ve been collecting their S.H. Figuarts lines for what seems like forever. But as masterful as their figures are, one thing Tamashii doesn’t do is release a ton of supporting characters or figures with unique tooling for one movie in one short amount of time. It’s just not the way Bandai Tamashii does things.

Take a look at the Dragon Ball Z S.H. Figuarts line–unquestionably Tamashii’s most successful line in the U.S.  In five years, only 26 total figures have been released. And of those 26, 12 are versions of Goku and Vegeta, and there are less than ten figures with a majority of unique tooling. And that’s in five years and encompassing an entire series and a movie.

Meanwhile, virtually every figure in a potential Captain America: Civil War Figuarts line will require a vast majority of unique tooling and have limited reuse potential. This isn’t Power Rangers or Sailor Moon which share almost a whole tooling library–these character designs are almost wholly unique.

Yes, Bandai Tamashii Nations has invested in a lot of new tooling for their SH Figuarts Star Wars line, but that’s because the vast majority of characters they’ve chosen so far has parts that can be reused ad nauseam to be repainted into other Clones, Stormtroopers, Battle Droids and Jedi. With the MCU, that potential just is not there.

Now, I have no doubt that Bandai is going to bring an amazing display of Civil War “prototypes” to some events this year to show off, but Bandai Tamashii unfortunately has a list of “shown but unproduced” Figuarts figures that dwarfs the number of cancelled Marvel Legends.

And unlike Hasbro, Tamashii doesn’t typically go back and release old prototypes. Even if they show off a dozen or more Marvel Figuarts figures from Captain America: Civil War at an upcoming show, showing off prototypes does not equate to “intent to release” with Tamashii (as crazy as that sounds). Let’s not forget those prototypes of AOU Hawkeye and Black Widow (and Iron Man 3 Tony Stark) which will probably never see production.

I’m not saying that we should all hangs our heads in resignation that this year’s MCU Figuarts line will consist solely of Cap, Iron Man, War Machine and Winter Soldier or anything like that, but I don’t think it’s important to have realistic expectations to avoid massive disappointment down the road.

Based off my own experience collecting Tamashii, I think it’s likely that the Civil War action figures we’ll actually get for this movie will be:

• Captain America (Confirmed)
• Iron Man (Confirmed)
• War Machine Mark III
• Winter Soldier w/ Unarticulated Mini Ant-Man Figure Pack-in
• Black Panther
• Black Widow

Widow would almost certainly be a Tamashii Web Exclusive. I can’t see secondary characters like Falcon or Sharon Carter being released at all, although I wouldn’t be too surprised to see web exclusives of Hawkeye or Vision. Even Black Panther I feel pretty shaky about seeing as a regular release.

I’ll post updates regularly here and to the Marvel Toy News Twitter and Facebook Pages as more information regarding the future of the SH Figuarts Captain America Civil War line comes to light.

What are your expectations for the latest Figuarts MCU line, Marvel collectors? Do you think Bandai Tamashii would ever actually release a double-digit number of characters from one Marvel movie? And given the expense/difficulty in acquiring Figuarts MCU figures in the United States, would you even want them to?