Where do you plan to get them? HLJ has set 4 in stock(the guitar guys are great!) with set 5 planning to hit this month. The previous 3 sets and the Monster Hunters are, *poof*, gone and unlikely to return as I understand these to be made with disposable molds. If you want to experiment with just one fig, you could go the ebay route; but if you're gonna get set 4 or 5, HLJ will be the better route even with overseas shipping as you'll get the whole set of 8 in the box and have a spare to do whatever you want with.

Them WinSpecter figs remind me of some BeetleBorgs I'd once gotten on sale on a whim, their body armor looks pretty much identical.

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Really, you shouldn't have expected Monster Hunter to last long. While not so popular here, it is insanely popular in Japan.

I've only had articulation problems with one figure, and that was Hibiki(purple drumstick guy) because his inner shoulder ball wasn't designed long enough to give him a decent area of movement. thankfully they fixed that problem with the subsequent Oni they've released. As far as paint apps, my Den-O Liner form has some pretty bad paint apps, but he's the only one and he's not really all that cool of a figure anyway.

AV, there's a reason the Winspector guys remind you of Beetleborgs(B-Fighter).
*Tokusatsu rant mode*They were made and designed by pretty much the same people. There's a genre of super hero shows in Japan called the Metal Heroes which started in about 1980 with Gavan(who Megahouse has also made a figure of in scale with the Winspector set) which revolved entirely around heroes who used high tech equipment/armor or in the case of Metalder, were robots. A lot of VR Troopers borrowed stuff from three of these shows. Toei is the company that produced all of these shows, included B-Fighter and B-Fighter kabuto which both comprised Beetleborgs along with Winspector as well, not to mention Kamen Rider and all of the Super Sentai shows(of which a lot of Power Rangers gets its material from). Its very possible that the B-Fighter series used the same suit designers that Winspector did. *end tokusatsu rant mode*

But will Bandai or Megahouse make any new figures of any of these guys? Nah.

Right now I'm not in a financial position to get much of anything, nor, sadly, can I make them a priority. And I realize that these are limited edition sets that aren't likely to have additiona production runs (Disposable molds, though? What the hell is that!?)

However, when it comes to this sort of thing, and Lord knows I've encountered it before, I have to take a rather philosophical approach, which goes something like this. IT EXISTS. That means it's NOT impossible to obtain. Difficult? Perhaps. Expensive? Possibly. Impossible? Hopefully not.

The number of times I've had to use that particular little philosophy -- I'd rather not discuss.

To me they look somewhere between BeetleBorgs and Power Rangers, but perhaps a little cooler than such, especially the BeetleBorgs.

How dare you compare Kamen Rider to some wrestlers

Seriously though, the sets are still available on ebay for a higher price than they were on HLJ.

The action works series is cool too even if they are slightly bigger figure. I have the Gavan figure and its really cool though they would be more fragile than the MRS figures.

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Here's an odd question. A friend of mine that I contacted about these (who has a friend in Japan), said that these figures are typically known as "trading figures" and generally come in "mystery boxes". That certainly doesn't seem to be the situation here, as one can purchase complete sets. And I've generally equated "trading figures" as being rather low quality, but the descriptions I'm reading here certainly don't seem to indicate that, either. So, is my friend off-base on this one? Or am I missing something (besides a lack of understanding of Japanese toy culture) ?

They are mystery figures because they are in closed box and you don't know which one you get when you buy them off the counter. When you buy a set from HLJ for instance, you actually buy a whole box which contains a full set, a secret figure and a double which are randomly packed while on ebay, the sellers open the little boxes to make sure you have a full set and you don't get the double which they usually sell alone.

Hope that helps you and welcome to the great world of MRS figures.

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Okay, that makes sense, and helps. Now I'll just need the $$$

Yah, the word you're looking for is 'gashapon', I believe. Altho these would be very high-end gashapon.

The case box a set comes in is meant to have its top ripped off and the bottom be a display tray and set next to the register for impulse buys. They're similar to the Kotobukiya RoboCop ministatues/figs and even more so the Hot Toys Aliens and AvP sets.

Oh, and take a gander at the Appleseed figscoming down the pipe. There's 2 complete sets in each case, and Liftoff and I are gonna split a case. Then I'm gonna beat him up to make sure I get the version of Briareos I want.

I *believe* the category of 'trading figures' was invented to allow multiple companies put out essentially multiple versions of the same property. I'm guessing here, but I see 'trading figs' from Japanese/Chinese companies being sold over there at the same time similar-scaled action figs from American companies. Their placement in the store and their blind-box packaging allows them to sell them as technically a different product. The license owner gets to get royalties from two companies instead of just one.

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Nah, Gashapons are different than trading figures.

Trading figures are the ones AV just described, Gashapons are the bubble gum machine type deals, where you get a random figure in the plastic bubble thing.

As for the Motion revive guys, the only thing I think could be better are the ankle joints. They are well engineered, but don't go up and down enough. Granted, I've only got Momotross so that might just be him that has the problem.

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Meh, what's the Japanese word for 'trading figure', then?

And all the MR figs have ankles like that. I too think they should've been done with the peg going down into the foot; but it's loads better than no ankle joint at all.

/And about your blue DragonKiller; I'm waiting for Aly to get back to me about duping weapons. I'm sure I'll eventually let you have him, but you'll have to put up with a lot of [LASER BLAST] and moaning from me about it.
//And yes, that means more than usual.

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Ah, well, I like what I see, and the descriptions I've read in here certainly attest to the quality (and I have very seldom been disappointed by anything Bandai has created), so really, they can call them what they want. I just now want to get some of them...

Actually, the Japanese word is trading figure. They just use the english words in katakana. Trust me, Trekker, you won't be disappointed by any MRS you get except maybe for Den-O and his goofy Liner Form.

Got a specific link to them so I know which you're referring to?

this is the Liner Form
http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN949503

Its just doofy looking with that giant helmet and like I said, of all the ones I've got, this one has the worst paintjob of the bunch.

YES! my box came with Kiva,...and my double figure is KIVA!!! i'm so happy, now i have an extra one to play with in the car. My Secret figure appears to be the original KR, with the red scarf.

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