SD Gashapon Warrior NEXT Sengokuden "Illusion of the Great General"

In today's review, we are looking at something that could be described as a bit of a dark horse. Released as a Premium Bandai item in the Gashapon Warrior NEXT series, I don't even have a clue what is written on the box. The title I am going with here is puzzled together from a semi-complete Mandarake shop translation as well as the description on the P-Bandai Asia website (Bandai's Hong Kong based branch). It probably helped if I had any insight into the reference in the title and even the Gundam Wiki is rather short of content about the Sengoku-den material.

So, this particular black box - which may or may not have something to do with a General (or rather Shogun as we shall see) - was really anonymous to me when I first encountered it. The only clues for a non-speaker to go on are the NEXT brand and release year 2014. The box doesn't exactly give any hints about what type of figure (or even how many) that lie hidden within either. Well, it was "only" ¥2000 on Mandarake so I figured it was worth a shot. The original P-Bandai price was ¥2200 at a time of release in June 2014, back when the regular NEXT figures sold for ¥200 each so you know it is going to be something special.

Had I not cracked this mystery before I ordered this item I would probably have been a bit miffed at there being only two figures in the box, its size could easily have managed twice that amount. Instead we get some really oversized and compartmentalized plastic bags in the Gundam Converge-style, where regular NEXT figures come in a single plastic bag. Still, there are some delicate pieces here but the box size would probably have been made much smaller in today's economy.

When first laying eyes on the pieces in the box I had little idea what was to be expected from this set. So I just merrily went along and put the figures together. Being NEXT series figures they have the traditional figure build with the exception that one figure has a couple of extra connector pieces to be used for its backpack, all elegantly detailed on the large paper leaflet's flip-side. Assembly should present no issues whatsoever here (which is more than you can sometimes say about Senshi Forte's tight joints).

Before examining each figure in detail, I tried to do some reading up on what exactly these characters are supposed to be. The best source I have come across is the flavour text descriptions on the BB Senshi model kit boxes, from where I have collected (and slightly edited down) the following gems of murky character bios:

The righteous Musha Army fights against the evil Dark Army during the Warring States Era. Sho Gundam, leader of the army, bestows the title "Musha" on elite soldiers he gathers from throughout the land. Musha Gundam, a master of every martial art, is the first to receive the title, followed by Musha Gundam Mk-II, who possessed individual combat abilities that even surpassed Musha Gundam. Mk-III seizes two hidden treasures of the Gundam Army to demonstrate his power. He is struck by lightning and is shunted off to a world called Suda Doaka, where he is split into Knight Gundam and Demon Lord Satan Gundam, and is destined to engage in battle between his two halves.

It is said that Gundam Daishogun saved the land of Ark from the Dark Army. Previously, four Gundam Daishogun gathered together from their respective eras and defeated the powerful embodiment of darkness. The Gundam Crystal, which shines on the forehead of Daishogun is normally a sole existence in each era, but with the gathering of four such Gundam Crystals in the same era, it was posed to become a new, single presence. Soon the Gundam Crystals were reborn as the Crystal Phoenix, a new presence with a strong will of its own. In the battle with the New Dark Army, the Crystal Phoenix recognizes Gundam Mk-III as possessing the proof of justice and promotes Gundam Mk-III to Mk-III Daishogun.

Uuuhh... ok. So... it appears these two figures might actually be the same guy... or maybe the same guy but from parallel universes... or recombined or something? Black Musha Mk-III steals or seizes a sacred relic of the Musha Army, is punished by being sent into some kind of personal hell where he has to battle himself. Then some kind of crystal which sits on the Daishogun's forehead is reborn into a crystal bird. The bird recognizes that one of the artifacts the Mk-III carries around as the proof of justice (you know, one of the relics he "seized") and decides to promote him to Shogun for some reason. Or promotes only half of him... or maybe this happened before he split, or I dunno. What I do know is that Demon Lord Satan Gundam is the most badass name a Sengoku-den character could ever want, why didn't they include a figure of that one as well? I actually think that this is the same character as the Satan Gundam we recently received in the Senshi Forte line. So, with all question marks straightened out and everything being crystal clear, let's head on to the figures themselves...


Musha Gundam Mk-III

Right, so this here is the Musha Mk-III, eager to show his prowess by pilfering valuables as part of his strategy. I am going to assume that this is what the Mk-III looked like before he was banished to Suda Doaka and forced to enter a schizophrenic battle between his two sides.

As you can see from the parts shot, it is a really simple Gashapon Warrior NEXT figure of the sort you could expect to find in a regular capsule. It does have a couple of extra accessories and some metallic gold and silver paint applied to it but that is pretty much all. Notice also the assymetric shape of the V-fin. At first I thought I had received a warped figure but it is really supposed to look like that which is rather cool.

The figure has two standard holding hands so you can put the sword and the trident in either hand and mix and match as you prefer. The sword has a nice storage slot for it on the backside of the shield as well. Here we have the figure with the blade drawn:

As the pictures reveal this is a pretty straightforward NEXT figure. I am not entirely sold on the extra pair of horse hind legs and tail, giving the figure some kind of Centaur-like pose, but you can easily remove that piece if you prefer.


Gundam Mk-III Daishogun

Looking at the parts for the Daishogun figure it is clear where the majority of the budget for this box set was spent. It is almost as if the Musha Mk-III figure was added in to make the Daishogun seem a bit cheaper. Any which way, there is a lot of snazzy golden detail on this figure, especially on its head and shoulders.

If you wanted to compare this figure to something out of the more common Gundam franchises I would say the Freedom Gundam and the Destiny Gundam come really close as far as anatomy is concerned. Basically this figure is a souped up winged Gundam which gets a couple of extra connector pieces on its backpack for the wings, enabling them to flap backwards and rotate a bit kind of like a butterfly.

The figure is rather back heavy though so you won't get many wild poses out of it. The two hand held weapons come in nicely to help balance it a bit. I noticed that the backpack sections are a bit loose so with them holding up the heavy wings and extra gear, the projection is that some glue application might be necessary here before too long.

Pretty lavish decorations on this figure, notice that little emblem on its chest as well. I guess the jade-coloured crystal on his forehead is the one that combined from four others and became a crystal bird, so exactly what it is still doing on his helmet after he got promoted by said bird I did not really understand. Perhaps Bandai's planned 2019 SD television series will clear some of this confusion up?

Musha Mk-III is struck by lightning and ... split into Knight Gundam and Demon Lord Satan Gundam.

Overall, this is a pretty obscure Gashapon figure release that I suspect will go ignored by many of the core Gundam fans. I wasn't much impressed with Sengoku-den to begin with either and the Converge SD-style figures especially did not hit home with me. Still, as I have been picking up complete sets of NEXT and Senshi Forte figures I began to take a liking to these guys. Since they are designed as SD figures this is also the format they should stay in. When they become taller and more drawn out like the Converge figures they aren't nearly as cute. I would prefer it if Bandai sticks with Sengoku-den figures in the SD format, I don't care much of the idea to see them pop up in Ensemble or Converge again. Bottom line though, if you like Gashapon Sengoku-den style Gundam figures, these two will definitely not disappoint.