Bandai Namco Gashapon Senshi Zero 01

Gashapon Senshi Zero is a spiritual successor to both the ancient SD Gundam figures from the late 1990s as well as hinting back to the names of more recent series like Gashapon Warrior NEXT, DASH and Senshi Forte. The first Zero set is simply titled 01 and was released in late March 2026. It has the unenviable task of trying to build hype and support for an absolutely classic Gashapon series that peaked in the early 2000s and that has been out of the collective consciousness for almost twenty years at this point. A lot has happened in these 20 years and the current turmoil on the world markets is not doing Bandai Namco any favours either.


I was passing through Hong Kong earlier this week and came across the Zero machine in a couple of stores and decided to take a stab at it to examine the series a bit further. This will however not be a full review of the set as I had no intention of trying to complete a full 15-figure set from a Gashapon machine randomly dispensing figures. The machines you see on display here sit in the departures hall at Chek Lap Kok Int'l airport just passed the check-in area. Being a tiny shop the selection was of course limited but I also spotted both Mobile Suit Ensemble Parts 30 and the reissued of Part 12 which was first released in 2020.


This particular shop is fully automated and features a machine where you can exchange money into these metallic tokens. Being in Hong Kong the machine happily accepted the ubiquitous Octopus card as payment engine, something not all Gashapon machines in the city do. I was mightily angry for example to come across a set of vending machines in one of the Don Don Donki stores in Tsim Sha Tsui that only accept electronic payments like Alipay and other such esoteric methods that I had never heard of so no sleeping Pokemon figures for me.

The exchange machine in the airport was also a bit devious - you press the button once and it indicates that you will get 1 token worth 10 Hong Kong Dollars. You need three of them to purchase one Senshi Zero figure so I pressed the button again and the counter went up to 2, pressed it a third time and it went up to 5 and one more time to see it jump to 10. You can of course do multiple payments of for example 2 + 1 to get the three tokens you need but this just seems geared to convince you to spend more money than you planned to. The tokens are pretty neat though but be careful when inserting them, they feature indentations on both sides and must be slid into the machine in the direction indicated by the arrow. As I was pretty much sleepwalking at this early hour I just tried to chuck the token in without looking and it immediately jammed in the slot and I was initially unable to either move it or force it in but after grappling with it for a bit I managed to free it again. I assume the purpose of these tokens is to discourage people from finding cheap coins or using 3d-printed tokens in lieu of doing the proper payment.


I decided to blow out the remaining balance on my Octopus card and so paid 150 HKD to get five pulls on the machine, a pretty expensive deal all things considered but hey, I did it for blog... It would be much smarter to wait and see if these figures will appears on the secondary market as I doubt they will cost that much. All five figures I pulled came in these similarly shaped and coloured plastic capsules and I didn't see anything different while peeking inside the machine. The capsules are a fair bit smaller than their Mobile Suit Ensemble counterparts but are larger than the old Gashapon Warrior NEXT capsules.


Each figure comes in an open plastic bag that has been taped together and squeezed in with a crumpled up little booklet. You can see how some of the figures have their weapons and shields attached directly to the figure while others come with the weapons and shields already inserted or attached to the corresponding pegs or slots.


The booklet shows that there are a full fifteen different figures to collect but in reality the set is comprised of only six mobile suits. All six suits come both as fully blue and fully red versions - not even with painted eyes - and three of the six that are the stars of the show are also available in a fully-painted third version. I am not aware of any hidden or secret figures in this set and this hasn't really been a thing with modern SD Gundam capsule figures. As you can see I was quite lucky with my pull, I got five different suits and the distribution was quite balanced as well with one of the fully painted figures as the star of this haul.


Since I am doing this sneak peek/mini-review while travelling the format will be a bit simplified than usual. Here you can see two of the five different figures; the RX-105 Xi Gundam in blue and the ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok from SEED Freedom in red. I am happy to report that the figures are very well sculpted and for the most part quite well defined although the effect of soft PVC creeps in here and there with bendy parts like that Xi Gundam V-fin for example. The Xi Gundam came with its beam rifle and shield pre-attached but they can be removed at will and used together with some of the other figures that have corresponding pegs or holding hands. The figures feature absolutely no articulation and you have to lean the beam rifle to the right for the figure to stand properly with both feet on the ground. This is a marked step-down from features and functionality that was present already almost thirty years ago. Notice the rectangle-shaped peg-hole on the back of the Z-Gok. I assume this is intended for it to use the flight pack belonging to the Infinite Justice Type II figure that is also part of Senshi Zero 01 (and happens to be the only figure that I didn't pull from the machine).


The second team here consists of the Strike Freedom Gundam Type II, the GQuuuuuuX with Omega Psycommu activated and its partner the Red Gundam in blue (too bad I didn't pull at least the red single colour version). Both the Strike and the Red Gundam had their accessories molded onto extensions protruding from the figures shoulders just like in the very old days of SD Gundam figurines. I used a nail clipper to remove them and so you can still see some clean-up is needed on the shoulders of the Strike and the pylons on top of the Red Gundam's shoulders there. The GQuuuuuuX is obviously miles ahead of the other figures I found in here and it looks crazy good with a very clean paint-job, I'd happily pay whatever Bandai would charge to get fully painted figures of the entire set, ditching the blue and red crap completely.


Since this is not a complete set review, here is a quick breakdown of all the figures in this set for easy reference:

RX-105 Xi Gundam (Ver. A) (red)
RX-105 Xi Gundam (Ver. B) (blue)
RX-105 Xi Gundam (Coloured Ver.)
gMS-α Red Gundam (Ver. A) (red)
gMS-α Red Gundam (Ver. B) (blue)
gMS-α Red Gundam (Coloured Ver.)
gMS-Ω GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu Activated) (Ver. A) (red)
gMS-Ω GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu Activated) (Ver. B) (blue)
gMS-Ω GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu Activated) (Coloured Ver.)
ZGMF/A-262B Strike Freedom Gundam Type II (Ver. A) (red)
ZGMF/A-262B Strike Freedom Gundam Type II (Ver. B) (blue)
ZGMF-X191M2 Infinite Justice Gundam Type II (Ver. A) (red)
ZGMF-X191M2 Infinite Justice Gundam Type II (Ver. B) (blue)
ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok (SEED Freedom ver.) (Ver. A) (red)
ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok (SEED Freedom ver.) (Ver. B) (blue)

So far I can see some promise in this figure series, it has already done a good job simply by bringing back the classic simplistic SD Gundam format. Now Bandai just needs to ditch these pointless blue and red filler bloat and feature fully painted figures in their place. I'd gladly place a much higher price for these figurines if their finish would be similar to the one I have seen on the GQuuuuuuX here. I am very sceptical that this series will continue beyond the obligatory three sets however but let's pray that Bandai have some aces up their sleeves because I would really love to see a return of the classic SD Gundam format. I think it is safe to assume that we will at least see Senshi Zero volume 0; the Penelope, White Gundam and Gundam Aerial seem like very likely candidates for inclusion.

Mobile Suit Ensemble Part 30

Ensemble hasn't really been big on celebrating milestones. I do recall Converge for example highlighting their 100th, 200th and 300th numbered figure for example. Meanwhile, Ensemble number 200 recently passed us by very discreetly as a P-Bandai exclusive but here we have the 30th retail wave from January 2026. With the first Ensemble-figures seeing the light of day in 2016 this seems like a perfect opportunity to mark the occasion. Let's go to the product development department at the Komagata headquarters and listen in on the team:

-Hey Kenji, the 30th set is coming up and the bossman wants us to do something special.
-Really? Well, I happen to have a great idea!
-Really now?
-Yeah, you know with the 30th Anniversary of Gundam Wing last yea....
-Hold on, let me stop you right there. This is not about Epyon and those coloured Leos again is it?
-...
-I thought so. No, you must try to think big!
-...
-...
-How about we reissue some old crap and slightly alter the colours or the sculpts?
-Fabulous idea! Everyone loves the evergreens!
-...Shouldn't we introduce something new at all?
-Well, I still have the files for the White Gundam in AutoCAD...
-Perfect!


Jokes aside, Ensemble hasn't run out of gas just yet. Lately, there were several sets where I felt "this might be the last" but the producers still manage to keep the series going. I imagine that the super-expensive premium kits may have something to do with extending its lease on life.

What I have noticed however is a decrease in availability on the secondary market. Ensemble figures tend to be few and far between these days. I still haven't seen any of the boxed versions of set 30 for example, the figures reviewed have been sourced piecemeal from Mandarake and it is taking its sweet time. Ideally, I would have liked to collect multiple sets of the RX-78 family figures to be able to build all the variants side-by-side but this will delay the review at least 6 months to a year by my estimate so we will go without them for now.


This line-up won't be turning many heads I imagine even though it holds a couple of really important centrepieces for a Universal Century collection particularly. The set-composition also stays true to the original format; three mobile suits, one vehicle and one equipment pack.



210 : RX-78-2 Gundam (Anime Color ver.)


There have been quite a lot of RX-78 colour variations released across the years in Ensemble but we actually haven't seen the classic RX-78-2 since its reissue back in November 2021 so I guess this is a good opportunity for any recent collectors to grab it. This time the figure has been quite heavily altered, both the sculpt and palette are new. While the general composition is similar to the original release (except that the shoulders are now the updated kind with an extra joint) bodily proportions have been altered quite significantly and the basic white colour is now a warmer more yellow tone. We've seen this "anime colour" crap a lot over the recent years and I don't really see it as an improvement personally.


As evident from the parts photo there is nothing particularly interesting about the figure from an anatomic perspective, except that a lot of soft PVC-ish material has been used all over its body, with bendy joints as a result. The "inner frame" components are the same type of rigid ABS-kind of plastic that we are used to from before.


The new figure side by side with its two predecessors. On the left we have the original version from Ensemble Part 01 (released December 2016), in the middle the metallic version with extra markings which was a Gundam Café Akihabara limited release from August 2020 and on the right the new Part 30 figure. Apart from the colour and sculpt changes the new figure has also been hitting the gym and as a result his beefy shoulders are somewhat hampered when it comes to movement. All that fancy new articulation inside the shoulders is more or less pointless. The figure on the image is wielding the beam saber from the equipment pack, only the beam rifle is included with the figure itself.






211 : MS-06S Zaku II (Char's Custom)


The biggest ticket in this set is without a doubt the Zaku II in Char Aznable's personal livery. I guess I am a bit unfair calling this a reissue since we only have one version of Aznable's ride since before and it is a slightly different design and so technically this is also a new figure on the conceptual level at least. There have been multiple Zaku II figures released through the years and just like the Gundam this figure has also been tweaked and updated a bit although not as drastically.


Eagle-eyed readers studying the components laid out here have already noticed that this figure is almost entirely made up of soft plastic. This figure gave me all sorts of trouble as the joints often wanted to deform rather than slide into their assigned slots. The worst parts are the commander antenna which kept popping out until I glued it in place and the tubes extending from the sides into the centre torso. These connecting pegs are thin and flat and at first didn't want to go into the slots properly or kept sliding back out. I trimmed and trimmed until they became so thin that they wouldn't stay in place at all. None of the previous Ensemble Zaku II figures have suffered from this issue and so this is a major fail. Too bad since the rest of the figure is looking really good.


The original Aznable Zaku II figure was only released as part of the "Part 00" double-pack in 2016 and is almost impossible to find these days. That particular figure is referred to as the Battle of Loum version and has no commander antenna. You can also see the various changes that have taken place since the series' inception. Below is a comparison image of the fairly recently released High Mobility Zaku from Part 24 (April 2023) on the left and the classic Zaku II sculpt from Ensemble Part 01.






212 : G-Fighter


Back when Ensemble was introduced Bandai made a pretty big deal about the figures being very open to parts-swapping and heavy customization, that is why they have these ugly peg holes all over their bodies (although never underneath the figures for some reason). The G-Fighter was also featured in the first set as an official parts-swapping figure that could either appear in the basic G-Fighter form or be modified into various other modes such as the G-Sky, G-Bull and the G-Armor. Just like the previous two figures this one has also received a major facelift and size-increase. Again, soft plastic in its body leads to some deformation like you can see on the port wing there. The guns tend to droop on this figure, that entire assembly would have benefitted greatly from hard plastic.


Several of the components have multiple uses depending on which variant of the G-thingy you are currently building. All of the components in this image are used to form the G-Fighter save for one of the dark grey components up in the right corner there.


There is no beating around the bush; the new G-Fighter figure is a major improvement over the original sculpt from Part 01. Having said that, one thing that the original figure manages to do better is keeping the cockpit properly aligned with the fuselage, this section is only attached by a single peg on the new figure and so it tends to list to the side or up from the main body.


Above you can see the three official alternate modes offered by Bandai by combining the G-Fighter figure with various components from both the RX-78-2 Gundam and the Equipment Pack. It will take me quite some time to source additional figures to match this set-up so for now you will have to do with these images from the official build instructions. The scourge of the equipment packs continue and just wait 'til you see what Bandai have cooked up for the Red Gundam set...






213 : RX-78-02 White Gundam


The one truly unique figure found in this set is the White Gundam which would be quite exciting if it hadn't been plastered all over Bandai's various brands in the past year. The Red Gundam will of course not be far behind and is slated for release in July. On the other hand, the figure does looks really great and I would be quite excited if Bandai would continue pumping out GQuuuuuuX figures and not just stop at the main three suits (which if course is exactly what will happen). The figure has a good number of colour applications often with multiple colours per component; look at the feet, thighs and backpack for example.


The figure comes with six hardpoint connector pieces that attach to the shoulders, elbows and knees that don't really serve any purpose just yet so you may as well consider taking them off.


We only just saw the White Gundam released in Gundam Converge #28 back in November last year and the two look really similar. The Ensemble figure does a really good job of keeping up with the Converge figure and even has it beat with colour applications on its shield, a shield which of course is not included with the basic figure on the other hand... The Ensemble figure also cannot match the evil and slightly unhinged facial expression of the Converge figure which looks absolutely fantastic.






214 : Equipment Set for Wave 30


The equipment pack for this wave is exclusively made up of various weapons or shields and is a highly vital purchase to properly kit any of the figures in this set so I expect it to be rather hard to come by.


The RX-78 gets three important accessories; the typical Ensemble transparent beam saber (which goes just as well with any other Ensemble-figure in your collection in need of one), a hyper-bazooka (just one though, so you won't be displaying the final battle specification version unless you hunt down two packs) and the shield of which there are actually two. You cannot stack the shields on top another unless you glue them into place but they are both needed to create the G-Armor figure variation.

The two little pegs on the white mini-sprue are connector pegs used to attach the shields to the elbow, backpack or similar. These pegs are however too small to attach the Hyper Bazooka to the skirt armour. The mock-up I did above does not use a peg but is a trick I applied for Converge which also works here by sticking the bazooka in underneath the backpack thrusters and pushing the arms back so that they lock the bazooka in place between the arms and the backpack. Notice by the way how ugly the new head is when viewed from behind.


Char's Zaku II gets most of the accessories in this pack and you can use it to kit your Ensemble Zeon forces with a multitude of weapon options. While the Zaku Machine Gun comes with the figure itself you will find the Heat Hawk close combat weapon, a pair of single-use Sturmfaust rockets (canon or not; it would have been really cool if these could be stowed on the sides of the backpack or on the shield like on the Geara Doga), a Zaku bazooka and a pair of leg-mounted triple missile launchers - the latter typically seen on ground type Zakus. The only issue with these is that you have to remove the cool tubes from the legs as they will occupy the same knee slot. This is a great weapon selection and should come in handy all over your Ensemble figure collection.


The White Gundam has to make do with a single accessory, its beautifully painted shield. This particular shield comes with a peg already sculpted in place and so is ready to use without needing one of the two mini-pegs used by the shields for the RX-78. There surely is something for everyone in this pack, I can see for example how Thunderbolt Sector enthusiasts may want to grab a couple of these to kit out their existing GM or RX-78 figures with additional shields.




Conclusion

While there are a couple of sour spots for me with the Ensemble 30 set - in particular the questionable soft plastic used on the Zaku II as well as the reliance on finding and buying multiple figures to build the different G-P.A.R.T.S. variations - there is no doubt that this set should be highly popular with collectors that still have gaping holes in their collections (holes that look suspiciously like an RX-78 or a Zaku II). I would advice prospective buyers to be vigilant and trigger-happy because what little I have seen of these figures on the secondary market tends to go out of stock rather quickly.