The figures pictured are paint masters. They don't have the articulation engineered into them and they are made of resin, not plastic. Jazwares holds the license for the figures and are in charge of the prototyping and the manufacturing.
To pre-order, you can hit up online action figure retailers. I know shopafx.com (please see their website for more photos) is running a pre-order. Cornerstorecomics.com, Killertoys.com, Bigbadtoystore.com, Tower Records and Hot Topic will all be carrying the line.

[Note!: as of February 24th Bigbadtoystore was SOLD OUT of these figures. I ordered mine from shopafx.com on 2/24. You may want to move on this soon if you want to make sure of not missing out. --It would be great if this line was a huge success! =)]

(Question: If these are a success, any chance of other characters from the series?) --Given the current state of the specialty action figure retailers, it's very tough to produce secondary characters from a series. Musicland / Sam Goody is closing and many other retailers are feeling the pinch. If the sales of your line depends on producing the most visible characters to guarantee sales, then that's what we have to do. That being said, if I had my way I'd like to see the Sunflower Samurai, The Dutchman, and the two punks from the graffiti episode.
For series 2 (if series one is a hit) We are going to do super poseable Jin and Mugen figures with removeable samurai armor. Could be very cool stuff.

(Question: What inspired them to use the winter hats from the Japanese DVD covers?) --The second Geneon sent over the DVD cover with the hats, we knew they HAD to be made. We had a meeting with Geneon the next day and they were all about it. I hope fans dig the attention to detail we've put into this line. Things like Fuu's diary and Mugen's hidden dagger show our customers we are just as big fans as they are.

Thanks, Jesse."