FuRyu

The blood-pressure-monitor company’s entertainment spinoff that swings big and keeps collectors guessing

At a glance

Status: Active and publicly traded.
Based in: Shibuya in Tokyo Japan.
Known for: Noodle Stopper; F NEX; BiCute Bunnies; TENITOL; formats spanning affordable prizes and premium scales.
Good fit: Noodle Stopper collectors seeking playful desk displays or gifts; F NEX buyers willing to research an ambitious premium release.
Before buying: study preview photos and early owner photos for the exact F NEX figure; quality varies between releases.
Research coverage: Solid

TL;DR

Independent, publicly traded OMRON spinoff spanning affordable figures made for arcade crane games, premium F:NEX collector figures, games, and anime production. Quality variance on F:NEX has been a collector talking point, but the trend is improving.
Noodle Stopper and other figures made for arcade crane games ($7-$20 USD) anchor the affordable end. F:NEX figures ($100-$200+ USD) are the premium line, with high-concept sculpts and elaborate effects.
Rewards doing your homework on specific releases instead of buying on brand name alone; when F:NEX hits, the results are striking.

The Photo Booth Spinoff

FuRyu traces its corporate DNA back to blood pressure monitors. In April 1997, OMRON Corporation (the Japanese industrial electronics giant best known for blood pressure monitors, factory automation sensors, and railway ticket gates) launched an internal entertainment venture called the “Columbus Project” at their New Business Development Center. The first product wasn’t a figure or a plush toy. It was a purikura machine, one of those photo sticker booths that became ubiquitous in Japanese arcades during the late 1990s. The entertainment division was formally organized within OMRON in 2002, the same year it entered the arcade prize industry.

The division was renamed FuRyu Corporation in 2006, and in April 2007, the management team executed a buyout, acquiring the business from OMRON and taking it fully independent. This wasn’t a corporate parent offloading an unwanted division; it was the people running the entertainment business betting on themselves. The company is headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TYO: 6238), and has grown into a diversified entertainment company.

The purikura footnote is worth knowing. OMRON’s photo sticker machine business was enormous, at one point commanding roughly 70% of the Japanese domestic market. After competitor Make Software went bankrupt in 2018, FuRyu’s lineage traces back to a near-monopoly in Japanese teen photo culture. Your fantasy-anime figure from an arcade machine and a Japanese teenager's sparkly photo sticker share the same corporate family tree.

Noodle Stoppers and the Premium F:NEX Line

FuRyu operates across an unusually broad product spectrum for a company its size. At the foundation are affordable figures made for arcade crane games, covering mainstream anime series like Re:Zero, Demon Slayer, and Honkai Star Rail in the ¥1,000-¥3,000 ($7-$20 USD) range. The real signature product is the Noodle Stopper line, whose figures are designed to perch on the rim of an instant noodle cup lid. The line became a viral sensation and created an entire category of perching figures, with Noodle Stopper Rem credited with popularizing the format.

F:NEX, launched in 2017, is FuRyu’s premium collector line. Its figures are built at 1/7 scale, roughly one seventh of a character's full size, and cost ¥15,000-¥30,000+ ($100-$200+ USD). That puts them in the same price bracket as premium figures from Alter and Good Smile Company. F:NEX has made smart licensing decisions, producing figures from properties that leading premium manufacturers largely ignored. The Rem Crystal Dress, the Violet Evergarden, and the Taiga Aisaka from Toradora are all cited as landmark releases.

Expanding beyond prizes, FuRyu launched the TENITOL line for budget-to-mid-range, and BiCute Bunnies as their bunny girl line that deliberately undercuts FREEing’s famous 1/4 scale bunnies. FuRyu is also a video game publisher, responsible for titles like The Caligula Effect and The Alliance Alive, making them one of the very few companies that both publishes games and manufactures figures. They even launched an anime production studio in 2025.

Two Tiers, Two Conversations

FuRyu operates across two very different tiers under one name, and judging one by the other will lead you astray. Collector discussion generally treats its standard arcade figures as straightforward, affordable releases rather than elaborate display pieces. The Noodle Stopper series is charming, affordable, and well suited to desks or gifts. F:NEX is a different product class entirely, with different quality targets, pricing, and resale-market behavior.

F:NEX limited runs can become hard to find after release, so homework pays off. Study preview photos, wait for early photos of finished figures, and check buyer discussions. Quality has divided buyers. The early Chainsaw Man F:NEX figures are still referenced as examples of growing pains, including messy paint, warping, and fragile parts. Reports indicate that 2025-2026 production runs are meaningfully tighter. When F:NEX hits, you get a striking centerpiece at a competitive price.

The Anime Studio Pivot

The 2025 anime studio launch adds another production arm, and FuRyu of America (mid-2024) opens a direct Western channel. Tariff uncertainty and rising shipping costs have complicated importing, but FuRyu’s aggressive value positioning in TENITOL and BiCute Bunnies actually benefits when collectors are more price-conscious. The F:NEX quality arc is worth tracking: each release cycle brings the consistency closer to matching the ambition.