Yanoman Mobile Suit Z Gundam Tactical Card Game

The other day I was digging through a closet looking for an obscure figure for a comparison photo and happened upon this thing that I had completely forgotten about. I had filed it away for later and hadn't even bothered to remove the re-seal from the shop that sold it to me back in... 2017. So, rather than let it sit unattended for another ten years I decided it was high time to profile it here on the blog (sorry Converge #29, you are getting pushed back again...).


So, what do we have here? Well, it is obviously a card game riding on the Zeta Gundam fame of 1985 and so I suspect this game to have been released thereabouts. I didn't see any obvious year in the printed material and Gundam products are often weirdly antagonistic towards putting it on the box, must be some superstitious thing about threatening your product's evergreen status or something - that or I was just not looking hard enough to find the information. To my surprise, the game is actually listed on BGG with the release year of 1985 but I have no means of verifying it.


The game was published by Yanoman Corporation, mostly known for jigsaw puzzles and I certainly haven't come across any other Gundam-themed products from this brand. There may well be some awesome puzzles out there with motives that have the 1980's retro-feel to them. Perhaps not a 1000 pcs Messala but something more mainstream like Amuro and the RX-78 but you never know...


Inside my banged up box we find a rules-sheet, a punch-out board of really thin tokens, a set of cards and seven tiny, tiny dice. The cards apparently came in three separate bundles held together with those three paper bands still left inside the box but the cards are supposed to be stored in the plastic tray once you break them out. I suppose the space below the plastic tray would be the natural place for the tokens when you put the game away.


The tokens are one-sided and incredibly generic, with values from one through seven printed on them. I suppose these act as damage counters or maybe also keeping track of scored points. I will confess that I have not attempted to read up on the rules because I suspect it would fall very short of the current boardgame standards of 2026. Alas, I will bring you the next best thing, the chance to peruse the rules system yourself.


Do you remember back when boardgames came with the entire rules printed inside the lid of the box? Well, this system is also covered in a simple 8-page manual with exceedingly dry presentation and a couple of drawings giving you an insight into how the ruleset works.


The main meat of the game is the deck of cards. Just like the other components they are printed on very thin stock and different cards actually have a different finish to them, some cards are brighter than others where the contrast is muddier. I expect this game to be complete and it contains a nice even number of 120 cards divided into four different categories. I will proceed to show you the entire set of cards below.


We'll start of with the 35 unit cards which depict various mobile suits and the like from the Gryps Conflict that took place between U.C.0087 and 0088. All will be familiar to you if you watched the Zeta Gundam show and there is a really good display of mobile suits represented here although there are a couple of notable exclusions. Most suits only get a single card although there are a couple that have multiple entries, the Hambrabi trio under Yazan Gable being the most obvious. The most egregious gap in the line-up is the Titans Hizack and Hizack Custom, especially when two of the crew cards refer to specific Titans Hizack pilots. The flightline is also very top-heavy, with only a few mass-production suits represented in a see of hurt.

Each card presents the MS or MA with oftentimes amusing Engrish translations and a consistent mistake of placing the character H instead of X in the model designations. We also see some confusion in designations like 004 instead of 044 for the Asshimar, 005 as opposed to 055 for the Baund-Doc and for some reason 179 on the Hambrabi - I guess the graphic designer mistook it for a GM II. :)

Each unit also has a numeric rating of some kind, I don't know if it represents power level, deployment cost or health - perhaps it is used in conjunction with die-rolls somehow. Some of the high-end machines have a yellow background; I am tempted to say these would be restricted to newtype pilots only except there is no such colour coding on the pilot cards. The most confusing attribute however is the faction alignment. Each suit has the logo of either the E.F.S.F., Titans, A.E.U.G. or Neo Zeon (with Neo Zeon coming up awfully short there with only two units...). While the ranks of the A.E.U.G. and the Neo Zeon seem pretty much on point the Feddies seem to have been distributed willy-nilly between the Titans and the E.F.S.F., I suspect the game doesn't really care about faction alignment that much if at all.


Next we have 31 different named characters divided up among the four factions (well, Neo Zeon only has Haman). Did you know that Paptimus Scirocco and Amuro Ray are playing on the same team? Half-a-dozen of the Federation pilots are also showing up in their spiffy Titans uniforms but never mind that. :) A lot of the cards also show their ranks which I think is a neat touch. The crew selection is really good, down to really minor characters like Second Lieutenant Ajis Aziba and Sergeant Major Adol Zeno - I love this stuff! If you like obscure suits and characters the old Gundam War collectible card game from the turn of the century also contains a wealth of characters like these.


Let's continue, our next category are vessels; both spaceships and Garuda-class mobile suit-carriers. I don't really know how the game expects you to mix these in a single engagement but I think the designers didn't take this task too seriously. Out of the 24 vessels Neo Zeon have a surprising showing with a total of six hulls for that single Gaza-C to protect, you've got your work cut out for you buddy. Most of the ships also have their correct names like the Mont Blanc and the Bosnia if you remember. I assume that the ships act as objectives for the players to try and sink.


Our last category of cards is a mixed batch of 30 action cards of various types, you can get a basic idea of some of the game's concepts from reading their titles. The cease fire cards are interesting, I wonder if they are played to bring a game scenario to an end.

Well, that pretty much sums up everything I had to say and cover about this 40 year old boardgame. I'll try to get back on track with some more contemporary releases again. :)

Banpresto All Gundam Key Holder - The History of Gundam Development

Today we are going to document another Gundam-themed keyring figure set from Banpresto and it is a fairly ancient one dating back to 1999. While keyring figures are quite difficult to find I would classify this particular set as one of the easier ones to collect. Still, it took me eight years to find all the figures on the secondary market. While the prices of second-hand figures appear to have risen quite sharply in later years these should still be found at reasonable prices. I paid between ¥300 and ¥600 for individual figures with most of them sitting at ¥400 regardless of the purchasing year.


The product information card is made of very sturdy paper with some type of lamination going on. It folds out to double its size to reveal some additional product information most notably the release year and item number. The shorthand five-digit Banpresto code for this set is 75655 and it would be a handy identifier if you could actually read it without removing the figure from the paper which somehow I suspect most shop keepers wouldn't want you to do... :)


Banpresto keyring figures normally come in this partially plastic wrapping with the paper and metal ring fully exposed. As such, you tend to see some really beat up examples in shops sometimes, that have been hanging around for decades at this point. Out of the figures I bought only a few had the plastic wrapping still on but all of them were still tied down to the paper with those annoying plastic straps. After completing a set I will permanently destroy the figures by removing them from their keyrings. Each figure will have a screw driven through its head that will leave an ugly hole that you'd want to fill in and paint over, you can see it most clearly in the review of the Titans Mk-II a bit further down in the review.



RX-78-2 Gundam


Well, you know there can't be a Gundam development history thing without the obvious starting point. We are looking at a really bog-standard RX-78 here with a couple of quirks due to its keyring status. The curiously bulky style reminds me of Banpresto Pokemon keyring-figures from the same era, everything is just generally stumpy and thick. I suspect this is not only an aesthetic decision but also related to expected durability and maybe also ease of manufacturing. Even though the sculpt is a bit mediocre the paintwork is ambitious. We have lots of little detail even on the back of the shield. We also have the classic keyring figure annoyance of the shield jutting out below the feet sending the figure into a leaning pose unable to stand upright properly. You could address this by placing the figure on a small base like a clear plastic circle for instance.




RX-78NT-1 Gundam NT-1 Alex


Next up we have my least favourite figure of this lot. The Alex is a colourful design in blue and white but here it is nearly all-white and the colour choices are a bit off too. The most awkward thing is of course the pose with the wrist-mounted Gatling gun and the upside down left arm just looks awkward. I would have preferred a traditional beam rifle + shield configuration but I guess the manufacturer was in no mood of including the shield since it has a fairly complex (read: expensive) colour scheme.




RX-78-3 G-3 Gundam


While this set consists of seven figures there are actually only five different sculpts. The G-3 here is a repurposing of the Gundam figure with a grey makeover. There are a couple of wildly different illustrations out there and so pre-painted G-3 figures often show up in very different colours. This keyring figure has the palette that I personally prefer but I'm not too sure about the head-mounted camera colours, should they really be blue? Illustrations seem to differ here as well and I cannot really fault the manufacturer for keeping the colour count down in this instance. Can I also just say, I am really impressed that they took the effort to actually paint in all the black vents on the sides of the head, that is something most modern figures will skip entirely.




RX-79[G]Ez-8 Gundam Ez8


The 08th MS Team is a highly regarded television series and it features several iconic designs. While the Gouf Custom and the Ground Type Gundam are fairly regularly seen I think that the Ez8 is not nearly as popular as it should be (and don't get me started on the awesome Ground Type GM with its missile launcher). I am always happy to see its red eyes stare back at me and this figure even has unit designations on the chest and shield. The pose is a bit awkward however and my figure came with the right arm partially torn off. Upon inspection I found that the underarm is a separate component that goes into a peg-hole at the elbow, but the shape of the peg and hole did not match so I had to take it apart, cut off the peg and glue it back into place. That's a first for me when it comes to keyring figures.




RX-78GP01-Fb Gundam GP01 "Zephyrantes" Full Burnern


The GP01-figure is easily the best painted figure out of this gang. Look t all those red and black thrusters and vents with detail on them. Having said that the figure sculpt is rather funky, there is something very weird about its hourglass shape with very narrow hips, presumably so that the fins on its sides also fit. The shield has also been lovingly painted with two separate blue areas, if they had done something similar for the Alex figure I would have been very pleased with it.




RX-178 Gundam Mk-II (Titans)


"The Black Gundam" from Zeta is more like a deep blue here with eye-catching patches of yellow and red, I always tend to like figures painted with a different base colour than white. Our figure here also has a nicely painted beam rifle with a bright blue underside and dark topside with a lovely green rangefinder on top, I love it! This figure however, does not have the vents on its head painted, nor does it feature the signature Vulcan gun pods but looking at the sculpt they would have been difficult to fit in regardless. This is a great looking figure and one of my favourites from the set.




RX-178 Gundam Mk-II (A.E.U.G.)


The last figure is of course the rebel fleet-conversion of the Mk-II in its less interesting white and black colour scheme. Notice how the vents were deemed fit to paint on this version of the figure but dropped from the Titans version to save a bit on cost. It is a little bit disappointing that the two RX-78s and Mark IIs are completely similar, it would have been neat to see the alternate paint versions also picking up a bazooka or a beam saber but I understand why they don't. These are all seven figures in this keyring set and to my knowledge there is no spiritual successor to it. Gundam development history is nothing uncommon for keyring figures but there is no exact follow-up to this particular set that I am aware of.





Before we go, let's also take a quick look at the size of these figures. As you can see they slot in somewhere in between the classic SD Gundam Full Color figures and their larger successors in the Gashapon Warrior NEXT/DASH/Senshi Forte families. This makes them poorly suited as collection gap fill-ins and they should be treated as a novelty thing on the side of a larger SD-figure collection. While I would hesitate to put this in the keyring hall of fame it is a competent release and a curio thing from an era when figures were much simpler things.

Gundam Converge CORE 050 : Crossbone Gundam Steel 7 Team B Set

We are steadily working our way through the Converge Crossbone Gundam Steel 7 releases, the Team B set here is one of the two that shipped first in February 2026 with the Jupiter Empire adversaries following in March. I don't know if these had been presaged through Bandai's various social media activities but when news of these figures reach me it was very near a jaw-dropping event. We haven't exactly been spoiled with huge releases like these for the past couple of years. Instead, Bandai are heavily busying themselves by tinkering with old releases and touching them up a bit before taking them through another round in the P-Bandai mill. I love it when the designers brave the unseen horizon and take a leap of faith into uncharted waters rather than releasing a Nu Gundam-variation for the umpteenth time.


You know the drill at this point. We have messy black and white artwork although not quite as unintelligible as on the Team A box. We have some nice write-ups about each suit on the flip-side. I skimmed through one of them using a translator app and it contained some basic facts kind of like in a cliff-notes version of the Gundam Fandom wiki. Still, I think it is a nice touch, especially when it comes to these lesser known machines that come from a rather obscure setting somewhere between F91 and Victory.


This is the third review of the small-box entries into the Converge Steel 7-special - after this we'll only have that big bastard left. In the previous two entries we looked at the "A-team" of Steel 7 mobile suits and that dastardly evil clone team from the Jupiter Empire in their floating hand-things. When you compare this B-set of figures to the ones in the "A-team" the designs are much more conventional. I don't know anything about chronology in Steel 7 but I would expect that Bandai deliberately split the suits in a more fantastical and traditional style respectively when they came up with the A- and B-sets.


As with the other small boxes in the Steel 7-family this one is also chock-full and the sides of the box are all bulging outwards. For amusement, I briefly tried to squeeze everything back in again and I quickly lost patience and interest, I don't know how they do it.


One reason I kept stalling on opening this set was the multitude of small parts. I am one of those who prefer my figures to be sturdy and simple and I have PTSD from previous Converge Crossbone-themed figures that tend to be overloaded with option parts. I still remember that green Phantom Gundam and the absolutely insane orange Anchor-figure with its half-dozen different configurations.



XM-X1 Crossbone Gundam X-1 Full Cloth


We'll just rip off the band-aid immediately and start with the Crossbone Gundam which is responsible for much of the overflow of components in this box. We've had plenty of Crossbone Gundams in Converge so far including the X1 in versions with this Full Cloth, a torn up mantle and completely without. This figure is actually a revisit of an older EX-figure which has now had a bit of a facelift but still largely looks very similar. I apologize in advance for not taking this figure through its paces but I am bored of stripping these figures into all their different configurations. As a primer I would refer the interested reader to the original detailed review of the EX 25 Full Cloth figure available here.


Besides redesigning the figure for the updated Converge #Sharp-era we also have a couple of new gimmicks included with this Full Cloth figure. On the parts-photo I have placed all the new components to the right of the skull-themed action base. I was really happy to see that the figure now comes with a standard base, the OG figure only had that flying base. I tend to prefer my Converge figures standing at the same level. Among that new equipment you can also see the "Brand Marker", which is a stumpy type of beam-weapon. That new translucent red part is its X-shaped blade and immediately above it you see the white handlebar and part of the lower right arm which must be replaced to equip it.

On its right you have two new black components which are optional hands with pegs to which you attach the "Skull Head Units" (sigh...). That refers to those two skull-shaped things with claws that normally sit on the shoulders and generate a blocking I-field. Why you would want to use your defensive weapon as a melee boxing glove I don't know but there it is. Lastly we have optional shoulder and chest pieces for the suit if you wish to display it without its anti-beam cloak. We already have a basic retail figure that accomplishes this so it seems a bit excessive in my opinion. The bottom line is, all these weapons and gadgets are neat but the more you rebuild your figure the looser all those pegs will become and I would generally advice against it.


Here the new figure stands beneath its old counterpart from 2019. The new X1 has a much better face-sculpt and a nice crest on its righthand cloak but beyond that they look rather similar.






F90I-I Gundam F90 Intercept Type (Jupiter Battle Specification)


The Crossbone mangas at times go a bit overboard with the unit designations. The figure you see here is the old Gundam F90, specifically unit 1, carrying the Type I mission pack, gear that originally belongs to the Gundam F90 Unit 2. The mission pack has been upgraded in the weapons department, where the original beam lancer (which you will see shortly) has been upgraded to a more classic-looking shot lancer weapon. Those little yellow-tipped rockets hanging from the weapon are five nuclear weapons because screw Jupiter I guess?

The basic mobile suit has also been fitted with extra boosters around its lower legs reminiscent of the High Mobility Zaku II. The F90 is a very colourful suit and while it would be impossible for a Gundam Converge figure to replicate all that detail it still does a really good job. the grey colour looks a bit bland but it corresponds well to the official drawings of the thing. The F90II-I uses a slightly darker grey that I prefer.


Now, this is how I tend to prefer my Gundam Converge figures. There are only a few components that require assembly and the option part count is down to a single piece. Figures with multiple weapons choices tend to annoy me a little bit because I don't really know what to do with the spare weapons. While it would be cool to dump all extra weapons into a general bits-box to pull gear from that's just not how I roll. Instead I end up with lots of little resealable bags and then I fret about whether I should store the bags together with the figures or throw them in their original boxes - from where they will likely never be fished out again. Meh.


Besides the multitude of additional thrusters on the mobile suit's legs the F90I also has access to this large flight shield that can be used either as a flight unit (much like Base Jabbers or the Guul) or as a heat-shield during re-entry; kind of like how the Gundam Mk-II does it with its flying armour. You can pull the shield apart into three pieces and replace the centre component to have its wings extended. This also increases the overall length of the shield slightly. I have to say this is a really good-looking figure, possibly my favourite from this set.


While there are no previous versions of the F90I Type I available in figure form we actually do have the F90II Type I, the mobile suit from which the flight shield has been borrowed. The F90II comes from the good old days of Mobile Suit Ensemble when prices for premium figures were just very high and not astronomical, and when the figure line had a lot of exclusives that made collecting them extra interesting. The quickest way to tell the F90II apart from the F90I is I think the colour of its feet although there are many other subtle differences. I mentioned that the F90I got a weapons upgrade in the form of its shot lancer with attached nukes, here you can see the F90I wielding the original beam lancer which has a nice translucent part up front. The Ensemble figure's flight shield has extendable wings but the overall size of the shield does not change when they are spread.






F91 Gundam F91 (Jupiter Battle Specification)


I mentioned that the F90I is probably my favourite from this set but the F91 is also a very strong contender, just look at that striking colour scheme. I love it when Gundam figures break away from the blue-white-red stereotype, some of the Gundams I fancy the most have completely different colour schemes like the strikingly orange-red Sword Calamity or the all black Raider Gundam to name just two. The original F91 has a very traditional paint scheme about it but the custom unit two piloted by Harrison Madin went for an all-blue colour scheme with orange and white accents. The Jupiter Battle Specification machine is actually a second F91 piloted by Madin which was then converted into what you see here and being piloted by Mitchell Derek Nar, whose "M"-insignia you can see on the chest if you squint really hard. The finish on this figure is remarkable, just look at those yellow stripes and all the detail on its beam rifle. Fantastic work!


As for complexity, the F91 falls somewhere in the middle between the other two suits in this box. You get option parts to allow the figure to wield the two VSBR rifles or keep them on the back, differently shaped heat radiation fins and the "open face" part that we tend to see on mobile suits from this era. The two pieces attached to the sprue in the top right corner are the storage pegs for the two VSBR-rifles and attach to the back underneath the armpits.


Here you can see the F91 using one of its two VSBR-rifles. You have to replace the shoulder-pieces to allow the lower arms to stick out away from the body so that the rifle fits between the body and the arm. You are also supposed to replace one set of fins with the other. The illustrations in the assembly instructions do a poor job of explaining which set is which and I can barely see the difference anyway. The fins also attach very loosely to the shoulders, there isn't really a full peg hole available and so I consider picking one set and just gluing the fins in place permanently.


Just like with the Crossbone Full Cloth you can disassemble the F91's face into multiple components which will enable you to replace its lower face. This is not something I am going to bother with as I prefer my figure's face to remain tightly fit and avoid any potential scratching of the paint.


Oh my, things have really developed in Gundam Converge. The original F91 in Harrison Madin colours hails from Converge Volume 12 and it was released in October 2013. I still like the old figure a great deal but there is no denying how the brand has taken leaps and bounds forward to become what it is today. I should point out again that these two figures depict two different mobile suits. The old figure is Madin's first mass-production type F91 while the new figure is his second unit which was later handed over to Steel 7.






Conclusion

All-in-all, this is a killer set of beautifully painted Converge figures, with plenty of option parts for those who are so inclined. Of course, the subject matter is pretty obscure and the price a bit off-putting, so depending on where your loyalties lie in the Gundam meta-verse this could be everything from a given addition or a hard pass. With three packages opened so far, I have to say the Steel 7 releases have been an absolute treat and I love how the designers dare to step out of the mould and give us something unusual. A stark contrast by the way to the upcoming Converge #30 release which is full of stale, old seen-it-before-stuff.