

Yeah, they're real, unfortunately in some cases. I've been an avid Godzilla figure collector for over 20 years now and the Bandai vinyls have always been my favorites for their simplicity and nostalgia value, and some of them really are great sculpts, but the last few years have not been exactly stellar for the line. Anyone who picked up the Anime Ghidorah knows how bad some of their efforts have been lately. I pre-ordered two of the Ghidorahs pictured above for me and my brother but otherwise I'm sticking with NECA this time around for affordable but decent looking representations of the characters. Just can't really bring myself to want to blow the money on most of these, especially that Rodan....my gosh did they drop the ball on that one.

Yup. Rodan sure looks atrocious
Zwei Wing is the best singing duo. Change my mind.

Godzilla looks okay (at best), and King Ghidorah just looks like a generic dragon (I expected more with the latter.), but what happened to Rodan and Mothra? Mothra looks like she's diseased with something that gave her discoloration while adding black and while also misshaping her body and head, and Rodan looks like someone tried to mix the Showa and Millenium designs together, but it failed miserably because they messed up on the head and wings and they didn't go back to fix it.
"Let's just wait and see." - MinecraftDinoKaiju

YukisSpecial #TeamRodan
"...but the last few years have not been exactly stellar for the line."
I am assuming they engaged in cost-cutting at the expense of quality?

I have no insider knowledge whether it was simply cost cutting or laziness in general that's hurt the line, but either way it's just evident in the final product. The 2014 release for the make MUTO was clearly just a blown up version of the smaller playset figure, and most of the figures released since have just been reissues of old stock. The only figure I got really excited about which had good sculpt work and was a worthy addition to the line was the Biollante that came out last year, great little figure for the price point. Otherwise the anime figures were ok, and the Anime Mechagodzilla did look great but it was part of their "Master Detail" line which so far has exactly one figure in it.
If I had to guess Bandai is probably hoping more fans are going to put their money behind the Monsterarts line and hasn't been putting their full resources into the vinyl series, assuming the die hard collectors will default to the higher quality Monsterarts, but that's only my assumption. I just know I can't afford to drop what would be between $400-$500 for the full KOTM series of Monsterarts when I can grab great looking pieces from NECA for less than half of that for the whole cast.