if you live on the east coast, newbury comics carries a lot of rare japanese figures including those final fantasy play arts. the best thing is that they are priced by demand, so someone like tifa'll go for maybe 25 or 30 bucks but someone like auron (who is a pimp but who nobody apparently wants) will be only 12 bucks.
they had a couple of 11 dollar revoltech figures too over winter. that's pretty sweet if you ask me.