figuarts or mecha? - kamen rider or sentai?
 

im a fan of both sentai and kamen rider, but ive never bought any toku merchandise... the best i have are some signed power ranger (not sentai) autographs.

so i have been watching alot of figuart and sentai toy reviews lately, and i just finished watchink kamen rider den-o and got to ep 12 of ryuki.

i love den-o and really want to collect the den-o figuarts and action liners (and maybe get into some other rider figuarts), but i also want to collect sentai figuarts/mecha (namely kyoryuger/goseiger/gokaiger/gaoranger and possibly a few others)

but i really know nothing about the toys/collectables so i dont know what to collect or which to collect first. plus i dont know what are good prices and im on a unidentified but most likely small budget.

so what do i do?

First and foremost with your smaller budget ... don't ever use eBay! That's a last resort option if you can't find what you want at a decent price anywhere else, you might find a "diamond in the rough", but eBay now is just like Amazon ... a bunch of smaller "stores" throwing up their stuff and eBay works simply as a portal for them. Sucks.

I'd say for starters, prioritize! Realize that a lot of the older stuff is going to probably be more expensive. So figure out what you want to get first and go forward from there with saving, etc.

Second, don't "trigger shop", meaning don't pull the trigger on the first item you find (unless it's an INSANELY good deal, like $20 cheap kind of deal).

Third, research and familiarize yourself with the online store Mandarake. You will find many things for incredibly cheap there as long as you don't need or want super duper minty fresh perfect box toys.

Example: I bought SH Figuarts DekaBlue there for $45. If I were to buy from any of the actual online toy stores, I'd be dropping $90 to $120.

Mandarake will help you build your collection from the ground up. Just watch out for big shipments and EMS shipping :)

Welcome to the forums!

Well, collecting is really just up to you how you want it to be. Some people like complete collections for display, some people (maybe just me :D ) get whatever we want with no care into how they fit with each other. Don't rush things, and take it slowly, and ensure you savour and love what you get.

For information, our galleries here and YouTube are the best sources for in-depth reviews. Also feel free to ask here in the forums anytime!

thanks for the advice guys

so... ive decided to go with super sentai for my first delve into toku!

im trying to decide between go-onger, shinkenger, abaranger, hurricanger, goseiger, kyoryuger and gaoranger!

which would you guys suggest?

Hmm... my favorite of that list is the Abaranger mechs because of the motor functions, but they're rather expensive. On the other hand, the Gaoranger mecha are both awesome and affordable - even I have a couple, despite my crap budget.

gaoranger/wild force was what got me into toku in the first place so i really want to collect them first, except i thought that they were pretty expensive right?

Not really, they're actually some of the cheapest. At least, they were last time I checked.

cheapest?

awesome then i guess im going for gaoranger!

btw where would i aquire them?

I actually got mine from eBay, but Mandarake is also a good place to look (here's the searh results for "gaoranger"). Jungle-scs also has some Gaoranger mecha, and they get new stuff in often. But remember, avoid the korean versions like the plague. They are the individual zords in the vertical boxes as opposed to the horizontal ones. All the metal is replaced with plastic, and the joints have almost no friction.The full mecha sets are a bit harder to explain the differences in. Here's the Japanese Gao Hunter's box:
http://www.tokunation.com/attachment...1&d=1403572413

...and here's the Korean "Jungle Hunter" box (note the English text reading "Jungle Hunter" along the bottom, as well as the different overall box color and layout.):
http://www.tokunation.com/attachment...1&d=1403572551

Alternatively, the PR Wild Force versions aren't that different. Almost all of the metal is retained and only the elephant wasn't released.