Not dead, but very quiet. If you want more active discussion, the
Zoidspoison forums are more lively, by which I mean "a couple of posts per day" compared to "a couple of posts per week".
For Zoid buying, your best bet at this point is to watch eBay and Amazon. If you know Japanese or are willing to shop through a proxy site, Japanese sites like
Yahoo Auctions and
Rakuten tend to have more available, although very few non-Japanese models. There's also sale/trade sections here and on Zoidspoison, if you're looking for something specific.
As for the releases, I wrote a fairly thorough overview
here (which then got attacked by the wiki because there's no official names/definitions for many releases). Here's a quick summary of the main lines:
- OAR [Original American Release]/Mechabonica/Starzeta: A handful of early 80s windups, plus some battery-operated models in the OAR.
- OJR [Original Japanese Release]: A wide variety of windups, battery-ops and related merchandise (including a loose collection of books, magazine stories and such known as the Battle Story), sold in Japan from 1983 to 1990.
- OER [Original European Release]/Robo Strux: The European and US imports/recolours of selected OJR kits. The OER had a Marvel comic series as backstory.
- Zoids2/Techno Zoids/Zevle: More recoloured OJR kits (often rather garish) sold during the hiatus period in the 90s.
- NJR [New Japanese Release]: The biggest Zoids line to date, starting in 1999 and continuing to at least 2004 (depending on what you consider part of the line). Includes battery-ops, windups, posable kits, weapon sets, and the modular Blox subline. Associated media include multiple anime, manga and video game series as well as a continuation of the Battle Story. Mexico got a few direct imports of early NJR kits, and Korea got most of the main NJR, Fuzors and Genesis lines (sometimes with only a sticker to distinguish them as imports).
- NAR [New American Release]: US imports and recolours of most NJR kits, including Blox, as well as a couple of US-first and US-only designs. Supported by dubs of the anime; one manga and a couple of video games also got translated.
- NER [New English Release]/NPR [New Pacific Release]: Overseas equivalents of the NAR line, but with less (and sometimes slightly different) kits.
- Fuzors/Genesis: Short-lived Japanese model kit lines based on anime series. Fuzors consisted entirely of NJR/NAR recolours (including Blox), while Genesis had a mix of old, improved and new kits (including the posable Bio Zoid subline).
- Neo Blox: Another short-lived Japanese line, this one containing only modular/posable kits (no motorised ones).
- Monthly Graphics/Rebirth Century: Late 00s Japanese lines focused around the OJR Battle Story. Mostly composed of OJR reissues, although Rebirth Century included a couple of upgraded and new motorised kits.
- MSS [Modelers Spirit Series]: A recent Japanese line of half-sized, non-motorised reproductions of OJR designs.
- Zoids Original: Four recoloured and upgraded kits from the NJR, with web story and manga tie-ins. Released via Takara Tomy's online store.
- HMM [High-End Master Models]: The only line that's still going strong, these are incredibly detailed, non-motorised reproductions of various OJR and NJR Zoids, as well as a handful of new variants.
If you like your Zoids motorised, NAR/NJR/Fuzors/Genesis kits are probably the best option. 80s and 90s kits tend to be quite expensive, and the Original kits are also somewhat pricey. If you don't mind complex non-motorised kits, HMM kits seem to be the most common these days (particularly in Japan). There's also a variety of Zoids action figures - high-detail ones (ThreeZero), highly-posable ones (Revoltech, King of Flexible Mobile), die-cast ones (Yamato), tiny electronic ones (Hasbro action figures) - but they tend to be rarer and more expensive.
