What grabs you when purchasing a figure?

When I was collecting early on, it was any Mecha figure I could find that would combine or transform. It was hard in the early days to get anything from Japan. I remember getting a DanCougar unit from K B Toys (toy discounter) in the early days. They actually had some of the early transforming robots directly from Japan. Never knew why they did and not Toys R Us.

Later, I got caught up in the Neon Genesis Evangelion addiction and again had most of the earlier figures. All of which I eventually sold many years ago. Then it was the Gundam MS in Pocket series and other Gundam model kits. Most of which were lost in a fire 9 years ago at our apartment.

It has only been recently that I have been trying to narrow down my likes to certain series (i.e. Queen's Blade & Yoko from Gurren Lagann). But there are so many damn nice figures that it makes it hard to keep it to one series. I have managed to keep all my Twin Tandum figures - for now. But now my eyes has caught the attention of the Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny figures. They are nicely detailed and are available in different versions. ARGH - when will the madness stop!

Ikkitousen GG - 1/8 Sonsaku Hakufu

What grabs you when purchasing a figure? - Would it be the series or the figure itself?