Mobile Suit Ensemble - Gundam x Miku Anniversary Special Project

Right, so what do we have here then? A special collaboration between Mobile Suit Gundam and the virtual artist known as Hatsune Miku doing a collaboration to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam? Yeah, sure - you guys celebrate away. I'm not going to take this set too seriously and personally I am really starting to get sick of "collabs" which is just a lazy way to water down your own brand hoping for synergy effects. I'm not too sure Lacus Clyne is all that pleased either - imagine if Miku booted out Lynn Minmay and strapped herself into a Valkyrie for example.

So what else can we learn from the booklet? Well we can read that this is a premium Gashapon product - fancy that! Still, at the time of writing you can still find these for the normal retail Ensemble prices over at e.g. Mandarake, hovering between ¥600-¥800. The set originally shipped this summer with the official release period as August and they are currently fairly easily available on the secondary market, at least for a short window of time.


There have been three distinct types of packaging for the regular Mobile Suit Ensemble figures; blind-box, Gashapon capsule or in barcoded plastic bag from the Bandai online service as seen here. I know that the Miku set does exist in boxed form (and I would really like to pick one or two up just for the box itself...) and the official webpage also suggests that they were also kicking about in the traditional gacha machines.


Here is a closer look at the full booklet with front and back sides. Notice that over time, the assembly instructions have been removed and you now need to go online to find them which is a bit of a stupid move as no one cares about all your disclaimer text. If you are new to Ensemble be sure to study the instructions as even though these are some of the easiest figures to build it is important that you put the joints in correctly for the figures to work as intended.


I have to say I am really liking this artwork (by "KEI") which appears to have been around elsewhere because I saw it on a software box cover while researching for this review. With that headset and enormous tie she could easily pass for a dispatcher in one of the various Gundam-themed computer games. Anyway, onto the figures then!



201 : RX-78-2 Gundam (Hatsune Miku Color ver.)


This set recycles two of the oldest figures of the Ensemble line-up, in fact the very first two to appear under the brand name in the "Part 00" introductory set. While the basic frame of Ensemble figures has since been revised these figures make do with the simpler shoulder joints which is fine by me, you really don't get a lot of mobility out of these tiny figures anyway. You have most likely already encountered both the RX-78 and the Zaku in your Ensemble career already, and you probably like them for what they are just as much as I do. These are simple and painless builds and look quite good for what they are.


There is nothing too out of the ordinary in the components section. This figure has the same components as the other basic RX-78-2 Gundams you have seen in Ensemble before with th addition of a pair of expressive open hands, these were normally found in the Ensemble equipment pack boxes only. The shape of the runners that the various joint components sit on is of the second generation; the first instances of the RX-78 came on circular sprues but the components themselves are otherwise identical.


As for the "premium" Hatsune Miku colour scheme we have a couple of nice markings on the shoulders as well as on top of the shield. The "01" designation which I initially took as a gimmick (similar to those found on "marking plus version" Converge figures) actually refers back to Miku's own designation CV01 so that is a neat touch I guess. I should point out that I have added some black markings here and there on the figures as well, use the parts image to see the state of the components in their original finish. One thing I think this figure would have benefitted from would have been a different colour for the beam rifle - black or dark grey - to make it stand out more.






202 : MS-06F Zaku II (Hatsune Miku Color ver.)


The Zaku II figure is a real Ensemble classic - I don't know how many variants of this figure I have assembled and they always come out looking great. The new Miku colour scheme is quite good looking too, I especially like the green monoeye although a pink metallic one would have been a cool optional component to add a bit more flair to it. I have the same problem with the Zaku Machine Gun as with the beam rifle for the Gundam, it should have been in a different colour.


This is a very orthodox build of the Ensemble Zaku II figure with one novelty, just like with the Gundam figure an optional hand set has been thrown in but this time they are closed fists. This seems a strange choice for a Miku-style figure, open hands would have worked much better allowing it to wave to the crowd. You really shouldn't equip these two figures with weapons at all in my opinion (although it is hard to resist when they are included...).


The special Miku markings are less pronounced on the Zaku II, the "01" designator sits on the side of the spiked shoulder where it can barely be seen when viewed from the front, and the same goes for the custom Gundam x Miku logo which hides away on the opposite shoulder shield.


Not a bad looking duo at all. I don't mind building gimmicky variants of the Ensemble Gundam and Zaku II as it is a bit of tradition for the series but the latter half of this set is not as interesting unfortunately.






203 : RX-78-2 Gundam (Clear Color ver.) + Equipment


So - we have done two figures in a Miku colour scheme, now what? Do we do the Z Gundam next? A GM perhaps? No, let's just do the same two figures again but entirely in translucent green plastic - the kids will love pulling those from the Gashapon machines! I mean, what can you say... they didn't even paint eyes on them. Even the old SD Gundam Full Color Custom figures molded in clear plastic had shiny eyes painted on them to give them some kind of character. Here... nothing. I considered trying to paint at least a pair of eyes on this thing but then remembered that I don't really care, this figure will probably go straight into storage and just sit there.


I guess the one interesting thing you can say about the clear plastic figures is that there is an interesting effect where the translucent body pieces contrast with the opaque joints making it almost look like a proper skeleton. Still, with a head that lacks any kind of soul the figure still suffers on a whole. This figure does come with some optional weapons clearly intended for the full colour figure above, a two-colour hyper bazooka and a beam saber. If you paint up that beam saber hilt in a different colour you can still get a useful weapon accessory to repurpose here, unfortunately there aren't a whole lot of mobile suits with greenish saber colours out there.






204 : MS-06F Zaku II (Clear Color ver.) + Equipment


The clear colour Zaku II is of course the same type of abomination as the transparent Gundam. On this one I felt confident to paint on a monoeye but it still looks terrible. Perhaps if the entire ring it sits on is also painted black it would look better. Otherwise this figure has the same problems and features and the RX-78, a neat effect where the two types of plastic meet but ultimately a completely soulless thing.


Well I can't fault this figure from coming empty-handed, it is armed to the teeth. While neither of the transparent figures come with the expressive hands (why not?) they do feature additional weaponry and the Zaku II carries beyond its Machine Gun also a Heat Hawk, a Zaku Bazooka and two Sturm Faust missile launchers. There aren't really any good places to mount these on to the Zaku II (the Geara Doga figure with its excellent backpack comes to mind) but I think it looks ok to put one on the back, two becomes too crowded. The official artwork has the figure carry one horizontally on its skirt armour.



This scene is too small for two divas! Or... did Bandai Namco miss out on the chance to do something like Miku x Lacus? That is definitely my personal opinion, this could have been an interesting opportunity to do something with the Live ZAKU Warrior variant. I also remember when Ensemble Part 14 included a little statue of Flit Asuno as an accessory to the AGE-1 Gundam. Why not do a little chibi-style Miku figure to pose next to the mobile suits? Overall I found this release to be a bit low effort.





Conclusion

I guess the Gundam x Miku set is a nice little diversion for when you sit there waiting for the next retail Ensemble set to drop. Actually, Part 29 just hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago but I haven't been making any inroads into successfully acquiring it. I still struggle to find the full set of Requiem for Vengeance figures that came out in July and I have never even seen the Fukuoka special set (with the quirky RX-93ff Nu Gundam and MSN-04FF Sazabi) or the vehicle-themed Mecha set from last summer available for sale on the secondary market. On the flip side, Bandai Namco has been reselling some of the older figures over the past couple of years and I think collectors that came in late would do well to focus their energy there for the time being.

Gundam Card Game - Clan Unity Start Deck (ST06) [Japan]

Clan Unity is the sixth Gundam Card Game starter deck and just like intimated in the recent Iron Bloom review, it has not been readily available in my local market for a while now. The product was released on October 24th and (as also mentioned in the Iron Bloom review) is supposedly reprinted by Bandai Namco and to be made available again in early December. Today's review however will inspect the Japanese language edition since I picked up the ST05 and ST06 decks on a recent trip to Bangkok where the decks are also in short supply. I paid 700 THB for each which is a bit over twenty U.S. Dollars. Going forward Bandai Namco has promised to up the production runs and it remains to be seen if the availability of the game will stabilize somewhat in 2026 but I'm not betting on it.


Clan Unity is all about the most recent alternate universe era of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, GQuuuuuuX and its flirting with Neon Genesis Evangelion (and Pokemon for the character designs). I still haven't taken a deep dive into the series and remain somewhat sceptical to the rehashing of old content in general, but at least have gathered as much knowledge as to learn the origin of the "clan" concept. It refers to organized battles between mobile suits kind of like street fighters. One of the most confusing things about this set is how the characters and units have been split into red and green decks where I would have assumed they would go together.


ST06 is the first starter deck to recycle a colour combination - we've seen a red/green-starter before in the Zeon/Neon Starter ST03 (aptly titled "Zeon's Rush"). While I guess this creates a bit of a temporary disadvantage for especially the blue deck I'm sure this will be rectified with the ST07 and ST08 starters that are scheduled for later this winter. This is a bit unusual as the older Gundam-themed cardgames usually favour the blue E.F.S.F./A.E.U.G. decks since they typically have the most mobile suits and characters to choose from.


Contents is similar to the most recent ST05 deck; 50 cards for the main deck and 12 resource cards. The first generation starters ST01 through ST04 also contained another six token cards each but these have been dropped in this second generation.


The rules sheet gives an insight into the main concepts of the game and on the flipside you have the sectioned up playmat. This makes rules reference mid-game impossible but maybe the seller tricked you into buying multiple starter decks anyway; got to collect all those shiny promo-cards, right?


We have eight different unit cards split evenly between the two decks. Red gets a foil GQuuuuuuX backed up by an alternate version and the GQ-universe versions of the Dom and Gelgoog (which honestly looks more like a GM Command of sorts). The green deck is fronted by the Red Gundam (how does that make sense?) in two variants, reinforced by two different GQ-version Doms and Gelgoogs. I don't think I have ever seen such an evenly themed deck out of any cardgame.


The pilot cards contain no major surprises, you know that you will see Amate Yuzuriha and Shuji Ito leading each team and then you have alternate command/pilot cards for two of the three Black Tristar pilots; Gaia supports red and Ortega goes for green. I suppose we can find Mash in the GD02 Dual Impact set (if he is even in GQuuuuuuX of course...). The two base cards are a bit disappointing since they do not show off bases of any kind; I want to see structures, spaceships or even planets here. I find the cards in this set a bit bland.


The resource cards reveal nothing we haven't seen before, 10 basic resources and one each of the EX Resource and EX Base, all with the same old dull placeholder artwork. As with ST05, the full-art token cards that accompanied each starter have been removed completely.


The single-card promo-pack contains one of the sixteen basic cards in an alternate foil-version. Even the two foil-cards have slightly different foil-effects compared to the "regular" cards but honestly they aren't much to look at. Ideally, you want your favourite unit or maybe pilot as this foil-card and naturally I pulled a command card which hardly looks different at all. The darkened text box is gone and there is a slight shiny effect if you wiggle the card. I'm really not feeling this set but hey, if there is a Police Zaku in the GD02 set somewhere GQuuuuuuX might still redeem itself. Clan Unity is easily my least favourite out of all the starters so far.

Gundam Card Game - Iron Bloom Start Deck (ST05) [Japan]

Bandai's most recent Gundam-themed card game has taken the world by storm and it is no lie to state that at the moment a) the temperature is glowing hot as fans scramble for product and b) there isn't any to find. If you take a minute to scour the web you'll see all sorts of complaints about shop orders getting scrubbed, those shops that actually managed to get stock shamelessly selling it at multiple times the MSRP vs. pushback from those who claim that it is easily available in their particular neck of the woods. Iron Bloom, the fifth starter deck for the game released on September 25 but the story at my local game store was one seen across the world; at first the product was listed and delayed and then it just suddenly vanished into "sold out" status. The frustration was real.


We've since seen announcements that Bandai could not meet the demand and so decided to focus on stores that were holding official GCG events in house and just a few days ago a new communique that states that reprints of the last two starter decks (ST05 x ST06) as well as the second full set (GD02) will hit the market in early December but if that will cover the demand is anyone's guess. I personally missed out on all three products but during a recent trip to Bangkok I decided to check in on the state of the game there. Demand and availability is pretty much the same there although I did come across some GD02 booster boxes on sale priced around 80 USD for the Japanese edition. I also stumbled on the two new starters sold at around 200% MSRP and decided to check them out regardless - who knows if and when I will get my hands on the English editions after all.


ST05 features units exclusively from the Iron-Blooded Orphans television series and also introduces the fifth new faction into the game - violet. Like the previous starters the box is dually themed with white being the secondary colour but it feels very lopsided towards violet as we shall see. I apologize that the photos are of poor quality for this review, my et-up relies on daylight which is hard to come by up here in November. This box has a big sticker slapped onto it regarding distribution in Thailand and I must say I am surprised that the Japanese edition has found its way here, I was pretty sure it was exclusive to Japan only. On the other hand, multiple Japanese-language cardgames have already made their way to the country but it just seems off.


At first glance the contents mimic the set-up found in the four previous starters. You get a fixed deck of 50 cards, a dual-sided rules sheet and play area as well as a little promo card pack to lure you into buying multiple boxes.


Here is a quick overview of the rules sheet and the gameplay area. As mentioned before, it is pretty inconvenient to have the rules printed underneath your playing area in case you need to go back and review something but fortunately the game appears to be reasonably straightforward, at least so far.


The meat of the contents is always going to be the unit deck and ST05 does deliver here although the contents appear to be heavily skewed in favour of Tekkadan. The two foil cards are the fourth form of the Barbatos for violet and McGillis Fareed's Schwalbe Graze of which there are two each. Violet then gets common cards for the second form Barbatos, a couple of CGS Mobile Workers, a Graze Custom and the Gusion Rebake backed up by Teiwaz's mass-production Hyakuren type. McGillis and Gjallarhorn have to rely on a couple of Graze Commander Types and regular grunt-type Graze suits (these being the highlight of the set for me personally).


Things are no better for McGillis on the pilot side of the things, because he has to go up alone against two of the angry shirtless Tekkadan pilots, Augus in the Barbatos and Altland in the Rebake. There are also two command cards and the Isaribi carrier as base for Violet while white has to make do with a single command card. I get that violet is the new suite that has to break into an established setting where the other four colours already have an established presence but I would have preferred this starter to be better balanced or even made all violet. I assume the GD02 booster packs will correct some of the slight against Gjallarhorn (even though I'm not holding my breath...).


The remainder of the cards are the waste of paper resource cards and a custom token set to match the abilities of the units in this set. One of the particularly confusing (if pretty) cards are the Token cards (the T-series), I still don't understand what their purpose in the game was and lo and behold, these are no longer present in the new generation starter decks. Fun fact: On my recent stay in Bangkok I as browsing the card section of a popular gaming store and the only cards they had available for GCG was a whole stack of the token cards from the GD01 booster box. Not exactly a fan favourite, eh?

We'll close this review off with a look at the random promo-card. As with the previous sets, the Iron Bloom promo-card pack will contain a foiled-up version of one of the cards from this starter deck. Either you get one of the common cards as a foil or one of the two foil cards in an even prettier version (that is arguable from the ones I have seen...). Personally, I see no reason to try to collect these, the foil-effects are really muted and the artwork is the same or slightly zoomed in. In this pack I pulled an extra Graze-type which I was really happy about but I can imagine most players would be very indifferent towards it.