Tuesday 18 December 2018

The latest Gundam Converge news...

Converge volume 13 released this week and Bandai saw it fit to give us a heads-up of volume fifteen which is still half a year away. There are so many pre-release notifications out by now that it is starting to become hard to keep track of what you are supposed to look for right now.

1. RX-9 Narrative Gundam (Type C Equipment)
2. GX-9900 Gundam X
3. GX-9900-DV Gundam X Divider
4. RMSN-008 Bertigo
5. RXF-91 Silhouette Gundam
6. MSM-07S Z'Gok (Char's Custom)

Set fifteen is a real barrel-scraper with lots of reissues and variations on existing obscure mobile suits. The UC0079 reissues continue with Char's Z'Gok but Bandai... where is the mass production version? You know, the blue figure released as a 7-Eleven exclusive only? The one that fetches 5000-6000 yen on the secondary market these days? Poor effort...

Also just up on my radar is a new version of everyone's favourite the Unicorn Gundam. This time it is a Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative Version Destroy Mode Unicorn in Pearl Metallic. I think it is supposed to be in Awake Mode colours so that would mean green instead of red. The black and white box-art doesn't make it exactly clear. I just discovered it today on Mandarake (sorry for stealing your picture guys...) so I am not sure where it comes from or when exactly it was released. My guess is it is a Cinema ticket promotional item for the Narrative Gundam movie.

By the way, the teaser for Narrative is up on the GundamInfo Youtube-channel. Check it out if you haven't because it promises to be pretty good.

In other news, if you wonder why there is mostly tumbleweed on the site right now my old SLR finally gave up the ghost a while ago and I am looking at replacing it soon. Very frustrating because a lot of stuff sits in its packaging waiting to be documented before I can start playing with it...

6 comments:

  1. I guess Converge is moving onto Gundam X series now after they are done with Wing series, hopefully we will see Leopard and Airmaster on the next edition.

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    1. Coincidentally Gundam X is also heavily featured in the new set of the Tryage CCG game. Wouldn't be surprised if they will be storming into MS Ensemble or Senshi Forte next year.

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  2. Hey I'm kind of new to collecting converge and was wondering if there are any good places to get the new sets.

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    1. Depends on your location. Unless you are lucky enough to live in the core market region (Japan and some other countries in Southeast Asia) your best bet is either to buy complete sets on eBay (prices tend to be high) or ordering/preordering directly from Japan (prices are lower but if you preorder you will typically get a 10-box with a lot of duplicates). If you are in the U.S. there are probably some stores importing them (Barns & Noble used to, not sure if they still are?).

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    2. If you have a local hobby shop with some Japanese imported products (Bandai, Tamiya, etc) you can maybe ask if they are willing to help you import them as well

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    3. If you are outside Japan, buy online. If you want new ones, get from amiami.com. Be fast, they will get sold out even few months before release. If you want old ones, mandarake.co.jp is your bet. Make research about the original pricing first though, secondary market pricing is crazy, especially for this kind of items that are considered even more rare than gunplas. You can bet the price will immediately go up after initial release, since usually there will be no reissue, only new molds of the same model.

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