Chinese Figure Manufacturers
A vibrant and growing scene where fresh artistic perspectives meet bold creative ambition
The Chinese Figure Scene
China’s figure manufacturing sector has grown into a creative force that is reshaping collecting. Powered by deep manufacturing expertise in Guangdong Province and a booming domestic market fueled by hit games like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Arknights, Chinese companies have built their own artistic identity, design traditions, and dedicated collector base. Companies like Myethos, APEX, and Solarain are not following anyone else’s playbook. They are writing their own.
China’s figure scene stands apart through the breadth of creative influences these companies draw from. Myethos pulls from classical Chinese painting and mythology. APEX brings a technical precision and dramatic flair shaped by the aesthetics of Chinese game design. Solarain experiments with bold poses and vibrant color work that feels fresh and confident. These are not companies defined by comparison to anyone else; they are defined by the artistic perspectives they bring to figure collecting. The domestic Chinese game industry has also created a licensing environment where Chinese manufacturers often have first access to popular new character properties, or intellectual property (IP), giving them a creative advantage that plays to their strengths.
By 2025, Chinese figure manufacturers have earned enthusiastic collector followings around the world. They have done it the way it has always been done: by producing beautiful figures that arrive matching or exceeding their promotional photographs. Companies like Myethos now have dedicated collector communities, strong secondary-market demand, and a creative reputation that stands entirely on its own merits. The pace of new studio launches and quality improvement across the segment shows no sign of slowing down.
Myethos
Myethos helped change how international collectors view Chinese manufacturers. Founded around 2013, the company built its reputation not by copying Japanese aesthetics but by developing a visual identity so distinctive that collectors recognized a Myethos figure at a glance before reading the box. Their FairyTale -Another- line reimagines Western fairy-tale heroines as elegant anime figures with elaborate sculptural bases. Its specifically Chinese design sensibility draws on classical painting, historical costume, and mythological imagery.
The quality that Myethos delivers at their price point is what helped broaden collector attention beyond traditional Japanese manufacturers. Their paint work, particularly gradient effects, translucent materials, and specialized finishes, consistently earns praise from reviewers who evaluate figures across manufacturers without national bias. Elaborate costume details, layered robes with sculpted embroidery patterns, and headdresses with multiple independent elements receive treatment that rewards close examination rather than cutting corners for production convenience. Collectors who had never previously purchased a Chinese manufacturer’s product found themselves adding Myethos figures to their shelves on reputation alone, which is a trust barrier far harder to clear than it sounds.
Beyond their original lines, Myethos produces figures based on popular games and anime, including Arknights, Honkai Impact, and Genshin Impact, that position them as direct participants in the mainstream licensed figure market. Their Genshin releases compete comfortably with Japanese manufacturers’ versions on quality while often landing at more competitive price points. The company also introduced the Gift+ sub-brand for more affordable figures, broadening their reach without diluting the main line’s reputation. Myethos is not a curiosity or a budget alternative. They are a serious player whose early FairyTale releases are already becoming sought-after collector pieces with appreciating resale values.
APEX
APEX has established itself as a premier name in the premium figure space. Founded in Shanghai around 2018 as APEX-TOYS, the company gained serious international attention through game character releases that displayed exceptional paint work, sculpt accuracy, and finish quality. Review after review from Western collectors noted the same thing: APEX was producing premium-caliber figures with a distinctive visual identity. Curiosity converted to real enthusiasm once figures arrived in hand.
The Arknights license is where APEX built its strong reputation. Their 1/7 scale figures, made at one-seventh of the characters’ full size, depict operators like Kal’tsit, Amiya, and Ch’en with a fidelity that feels like the developers themselves sculpted the prototypes. Elaborate, scene-setting bases with futuristic metallic paint, dynamic action poses, and fine texture work have become APEX signatures. The company also expanded into Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, Azur Lane, and Girls’ Frontline, consistently choosing characters with devoted international fanbases and producing figures of those characters that Japanese manufacturers either had not attempted or had not executed as successfully.
APEX’s broader significance is that the company has expanded the definition of what premium figure-making looks like. A Shanghai company producing figures with this level of craft and creative ambition enriches figure collecting as a whole. Popular APEX releases sometimes resell for well above their original retail prices. The creative energy that APEX, alongside Myethos and a handful of others, brings to the market means more variety, more ambition, and more exciting releases for collectors everywhere.
Good Smile Arts Shanghai
Good Smile Arts Shanghai represents a different model of Chinese figure manufacturing, not an independent challenger rising from the factory floor but a strategic bridge built by the industry’s biggest name to connect the Japanese and Chinese collector markets. Established in 2018 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Good Smile Company, the Shanghai office was created because the Chinese figure market exploded in the late 2010s and GSC needed a local team to handle Chinese-exclusive IP, faster development turnaround, and the cultural nuances of a market that was rapidly becoming too large and too distinct to manage from Akihabara alone.
The subsidiary’s most visible contribution is its role as the development hub for much of the Pop Up Parade budget line. Those shorter development cycles that make Pop Up Parade figures arrive faster than mainline GSC releases are possible largely because the Shanghai office handles them, taking advantage of proximity to Guangdong Province factories and streamlined production processes. Good Smile Arts Shanghai also manages licensing relationships for Chinese game IPs like Azur Lane, Arknights, and Genshin Impact, which have massive domestic audiences and require different handling than traditional Japanese anime licenses.
For the collecting world at large, Good Smile Arts Shanghai matters because it validates the Chinese market’s importance at the highest corporate level. When the industry’s dominant company invests in a full subsidiary to serve Chinese collectors and develop Chinese IP products, it signals that China is not a secondary market to be serviced with leftovers from the Japanese catalog but a primary market worthy of dedicated resources and creative attention. The subsidiary also functions as a talent pipeline, training Chinese sculptors, painters, and product developers within GSC’s quality framework.
Solarain
If Myethos is the Chinese manufacturer that convinced Western collectors to pay attention, Solarain is the one testing how far that attention can stretch. Both are Shenzhen-area companies. Both produce 1/6 and 1/7 scale figures with bold designs. But where Myethos built its identity on classical Chinese painting references and fairy-tale elegance, Solarain leans into kinetic energy: vibrant color gradients, dynamic mid-action poses, and translucent parts that photograph beautifully for the social media era.
The catalog mixes licensed properties (Guilty Crown, A Certain Scientific Railgun) with original character work. Solarain designs and manufactures domestically, giving them tight control over timelines and costs. Early releases showed some paint inconsistencies and fragile elements, the kind of growing pains every new manufacturer works through. Subsequent waves have improved visibly, and the quality curve points upward.
Pricing tells the comparison story clearly. At ¥8,000 to ¥28,000 ($54-$190 USD), Solarain undercuts Myethos on most comparable releases while delivering ambitious sculpts and strong color work. The trade-off is that Myethos has a deeper track record and more refined finishing. Solarain is the higher-risk, higher-reward pick: the figures have more personality and visual punch per dollar, but the catalog is thinner and the brand is still proving itself. Collectors who got in early on Myethos and enjoyed watching that brand mature will recognize the same energy here.
A·DIMENSION
A·DIMENSION has staked out specific territory in the Chinese figure market that immediately tells collectors what they are about: large-scale, visually commanding figures with an emphasis on bunny suits, swimwear, and confident character presentation. Operating at 1/4 scale and above, the company targets collectors who want shelf presence that commands a room rather than blending politely into a display case. Their releases tend toward bold, flirty designs with eye-catching bases, occupying territory that overlaps with FREEing’s famous bunny line but at price points that Chinese manufacturing makes much more accessible.
The company has shown willingness to tackle both licensed anime properties and original character work, with early releases demonstrating a sculptural ambition that goes beyond simply replicating a character illustration in three dimensions. A·DIMENSION’s figures feature semi-transparent veils, metallic paint accents, and engineering complexity that goes well beyond straightforward character reproduction. Their collaboration with studios and their work on properties such as Chainsaw Man and A Certain Scientific Railgun have earned attention from collectors who had not previously considered Chinese alternatives in this category.
As a newer entrant, A·DIMENSION is still building the release history needed for collectors to form a complete assessment. What is visible so far is promising: solid sculpt quality, pricing typically in the ¥15,000-¥35,000+ range ($100-$235+ USD) that undercuts comparable Japanese large-scale figures, and design choices that show real creative thinking. For large-scale impact at competitive prices, A·DIMENSION is delivering.
A+
A+ (also stylized as A-Plus and sometimes referred to by the Japanese reading Eipurasu) is a manufacturer that has built its identity around a single proposition: figures large enough to be room statements rather than shelf accessories. Specializing in 1/4 scale and above, the company operates in a size class that most manufacturers avoid entirely because the technical demands are fundamentally different from standard scale production. At 1/4 scale, every paint gradient, every surface texture, and every sculpt decision is visible to the naked eye from normal viewing distance. There is nowhere to hide the way a 1/7 or 1/8 scale figure can forgive minor imperfections at arm’s length.
The company maintains one of the lowest public profiles of any active manufacturer, with minimal corporate information available and a catalog that speaks through its products rather than its marketing. Their releases feature characters from franchises like Azur Lane and Touhou Project, rendered at a scale that transforms familiar designs into commanding display pieces. Engineering at this size requires heavier materials and metal support rods to manage weight, and A+ has developed real expertise in solving the stability problems that plague large-format PVC figures.
The large-scale collecting audience is inherently smaller than the standard scale market (the space requirements alone limit participation) but it is intensely engaged and willing to invest heavily in pieces that meet its standards. A+ serves that community with figures that deliver commanding presence at prices below what equivalent Japanese premium large-format releases typically command. For collectors with the shelf space and the budget who want their collection to command attention when someone walks into the room, A+ delivers exactly that.
Quality Compared
Chinese manufacturers are now competitive at the premium tier. That sentence would have been controversial five years ago. It is not controversial in 2025. Myethos’s FairyTale -Another- figures are collected for their aesthetic vision and meticulous craft. APEX’s Arknights figures earn praise from the same reviewers who cover Alter and Max Factory releases. Solarain’s bold designs have built a following on visual personality alone. These companies did not get here by copying Japanese manufacturers. They got here by developing visual identities and production strengths of their own.
Japanese premium brands have advantages that decades of operation provide: deep institutional knowledge of paint chemistry, material behavior, and quality control processes refined across thousands of releases. Alter’s paint shading and Max Factory’s sculptural engineering reflect accumulated craft that newer companies are still building. Chinese manufacturers have advantages that come from operating inside the manufacturing corridor: proximity to factories, lower overhead, faster production iteration, and first access to the Chinese game IP that drives a growing share of collector demand.
For collectors making purchasing decisions, the flag on the box matters less than the name on it. An APEX Arknights figure and a Kotobukiya Bishoujo occupy different aesthetic worlds; comparing them by country of origin tells you nothing useful. Check collector reviews, study photos of released products, and look at the specific manufacturer’s track record on recent releases. The work speaks for itself.
Where the Market Is Heading
The Chinese figure market is not slowing down. The domestic Chinese collector base has expanded dramatically, fueled by the global success of Chinese-developed games like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Arknights, and Azur Lane, and by a generation of Chinese consumers who grew up with anime and gaming culture as native entertainment rather than exotic import. That domestic demand gives Chinese manufacturers a home market large enough to sustain ambitious production even without international sales, which fundamentally changes how much risk they can take.
The licensing situation is shifting in ways that favor Chinese manufacturers. Game developers like HoYoverse and Hypergryph have shown increasing willingness to license their characters to domestic Chinese figure makers, sometimes granting exclusive or priority access to specific designs. Japanese manufacturers still lead anime licensing, but the biggest new character IP in the figure world increasingly originates from Chinese games rather than Japanese animation studios. Collectors who chase the latest popular characters will find themselves buying from Chinese manufacturers more frequently whether they planned to or not, simply because those manufacturers hold the licenses for the characters they want.
For collectors exploring this growing market, the approach is simple. Evaluate manufacturers by their track record, not their country of origin. Check recent collector reviews and unboxing photos before pre-ordering from any manufacturer without an established quality history. Understand that Chinese manufacturers’ pricing advantage is structural, rooted in domestic production rather than corner-cutting, and likely to persist. The collecting scene is richer, more creative, and full of exciting options because of what Chinese manufacturers contribute to it.