@Ra:
I suppose if they wanted to make obscure characters they would just do it without a poll. Kind of a no brainer that Law and Nami are the most popular characters out right now. Definitely disappointing that they didn't just pick something different.
Pretty sure they're going to make most of the featured female characters though. I would be shocked if we didn't see a Rebecca POP in the future. (barring any huge financial catastrophe)
What buggers me is that I feel tricked by MH. They could have chosen a closed poll with different options instead of an open poll, but besides that, Law and Nami are already their business. Nami has had at least a POP every single year since 2010. She has already a POP comming for 2014 and a possible Z version on the way. Nami was gonna be made despite the poll.
And the same can be said with Law. He has already a third POP comming, less than a year after the second one. And now they are going to make a 4th. They could easily made Dresrossa version the poll one.
I feel that MH will not stop there and keep doing Nami's and Law's until the end of time, which makes the poll totally pointless… Those POPs were going to be made no matter what, so why not give a chance to other characters?
MH has lost me this past year. All those redos were just too much IMHO. Skipping Punk Hazard to do useless Colloseum characters (by miles the weakest part of Dresrossa arc) looks too desperate right now, and not of my interest.
Looking back, 2013 was a really bad year for One Piece merch. Checking last year's 2012 review thread, I had such high hopes for this year... POPs were releasing SN and some obscure characters like Shilliew and FAZ had just shown dozens of new and promizing characters. However half way through all went the wrong way by filling the market with the redoes and new versions of all characters.
I think that's half the reason why FAZ and POPs are going the slow route now (GLX has always been slow). It's been quite a few months without any new FAZ preorder and now POPs are doing the same. Only line I did like last year was IK and GLC. The only thing I look forward for 2014 is Tsume's Usopp (any chance Kolektakon will bring some, Louis?). He is expensive, but it looks like I'll be saving a lot next year.
Rebecca has already a POP prototype btw.