2023 is apparently the 15th anniversary of Tamashii Nations’ S.H.Figuarts line. What started as an improved version of the Souchaku Henshin series, and I assume that’s where the “S.H.” came from, exploded into a premium figure line covering multiple franchises and properties. To celebrate this milestone, they have dedicated a section of Tamashii Nations Store Tokyo into a show floor of upcoming and “display only” figures. We are going to focus on the latter as in the Marvel section, they are showing new Iron Man figures from the MCU.
And before we delve deeper into this rabbit hole, let me remind you that all of these have no planned release dates and have the dreaded “display only” tag.
I can’t remember if any of these were already displayed in a previous show, but these figures seem new to me. All of these also come from Iron Man 3 as part of the House Party Protocol. First, we have Iron Man Mark 24 “Tank” and Iron Man Mark 17 “Heartbreaker”, which are basically the same molds just with distinct color applications. I remember really liking these designs and I’m glad that Tamashii Nations at least has an awareness of these designs to create display-only samples.
They also have the MCU version the Silver Centurion armor, or technically Iron Man Mark 33. It’s another better-known design from the House Party Protocol thanks to its comic book origins. I already have the Comicave Studios version of this armor, as well as its blue-colored counterpart Blue Steel, so I’m likely to skip on this one. But I’m hoping both Tank and Heartbreaker will get actual releases.
Then there’s these two, and if Tamashii Nations is going to cheap out and keep all of these items in release limbo, they should at least go ahead with these two as they are re-colors or slight retools of the Mark 7 armor. We have Mark 21 “Midas” which is just the Mark 7 done in different shades of gold and hence the name, and the other is Iron Man Mark 8 which I believe is the armor Tony Stark was using when he had that mental breakdown episode in Iron Man 3. Most, including me, assumed it was the Mark 7 due to their similar designs.
I would like to emphasize that these are NOT confirmed figures for release and are basically teases, because that’s how Tamashii Nations work. But the optimist in me believes that they will eventually get the light of day and get released. But I won’t hold my breath on that, especially if other companies are starting to get a good hold on the 1/12 scale Iron Man collector market. I actually feel Tamashii Nations is somewhat threatened by the excellent Iron Man figures threezero is releasing in their DLX line, hence the reason for these display samples.
But as always, we’ll just have to wait and see.
