Gashapon HG EX Mobile Armor Selection

Welcome to Mobile Armor Week, Day Two. Today we are looking at an offshot from the Gashapon HG Mobile Suit Selection figure line. These were a long-running predecessor to the various 1:220 Shokugan figure lines out there. While the basic figures weren't exactly to scale they usually gravitated to around 1:280. The series produced 40 standard sets and a couple of DX and EX specials. One of the side treats was the Gashapon HG EX Mobile Armor Selection series which produced two sets in 1999 and 2000 respectively.

The Mobile Armor Selection figures were available as random boxed figures with a going rate of 300 yen per figure. The set contains five different mobile armor designs from the One Year War-era and are all of Zeonic origin.

There was also a special gimmick version of this set where all the figures were molded in clear plastic. While I never bothered to pick that set up myself it appears to have been distributed in the exact same boxes. The Elmeth, the Bigro and the Big-Zam were made in clear green, the Zakrello in clear yellow and the Grublo in clear red plastic. If memory serves me right the transparent figures in the original set were also recoloured to match their respective mobile armor.
   

MAN-08 Elmeth

Captured in flight on the front cover of the box is the space type Elmeth mobile armor, an early newtype prototype machine with a rudimentary psycommu system. It is armed with two traditional mega particle guns as well as a dozen of remote controlled bit-type weapon pods that are intended to be linked and controlled directly via the pilot's mind.

All the figures in this set are made up for the most part by very durable and soft plastic. While this is great for durability it also means that the fit for the connecting pegs can be a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes they fit well and sometimes not, resulting in pegs slowly squeezing their way out of the peg holes or maybe twisting or leaning to the side. This can generally be adjusted by widening the gap; either by taking a knife to the plastic or by pushing the pegs into the holes in a spiral pattern almost as if they were screws. However care should be taken as this can often stress the soft plastic and damage it.

The Elmeth figure is primarily made up of two parts of fuselage as well as a tiny fin that sits at the top of the figure's rear. This piece is easy to lose and you may want to consider gluing it in place. As evident from my photos the fin does not fit that well on my figure and if I force it into the hole it will gradually pop up back a couple of millimeters again which is a bit annoying.

Included with the mobile armor are also two figures of Char's Gelgoog and one of the Elmeth's bit weapons, supposedly in approximate scale with the Elmeth itself. I get what they were trying to do here but I think these transparent figures are pretty much a waste of plastic.

The Elmeth is quite rare in figure form. Apart from some appearances that it has made in one-off type figure sets it did also make it to the original SD Gundam Full Color series, or its DX range to be specific. That figure comes with three bit weapons launching and a tiny miniature figure of the Elmeth's primary pilot; Lalah Sune.
   

MA-08 Big-Zam

The most impressive figure un this set is arguably the towering Big-Zam, another space type mobile armor with enormous legs for some bizarre reason. it is a pretty iconic mobile armor and probably the most recognizable in this set.

Even though these 20 year old plastic sculpts are quite lean and basic they also look really clean and true to the show. There is just about enough colour detail to make its appearance interesting as well.

Notice that the feet can rotate in their sockets and that the connector pegs for the legs are of different size. This is something that Bandai are usually very good at, many of their most basic figures usually have different sized pegs (or even variants where one leg will have a peg and the other a peg hole) making assembly a painless affair.

The Big-Zam comes with a tiny little Core Booster fighter to drive home just how big it is. However, since the transparent figures are also varying in scale in between themselves this is perhaps not the clearest indicator.

Above you can see the Big-Zam as it appeared in the regular SD Gundam Full Color line also in 1999 (a slightly larger variant appeared with a Dozle Zabi minifigure in the Full Color DX line), a more recent super deformed figure from Gashapon Warrior NEXT (released in 2014) and the interestingly decorated machine designated for Dozle Zabi's personal use(!) which appeared in the Gashapon HG EX Mecha Selection series in 2002.
   

MAM-07 Grublo

Out of all the mobile armors out there the Grublo ranks pretty high on my personal favourites list. This menacing underwater stalker has a truly sinister and deadly look about it and the large claw arms also doubling as propellers is just way too cool (even though it is incredibly stupid to combine these functions but that is another story)..

Notice how one of the claws on the right hand sight is of the "I don't want to sit nicely in the peg hole" variety, which is a bit frustrating. Still, once I have a fleet of these it will be easier to disregard...

The main gimmick for the Grublo is of course that its two telescopic arms (which resemble the MSN-03 Gogg mobile suit from this same era) can be swung forward and used offensively.

As you can see above the two arms have a clever locking mechanism when stowed which keeps them neatly in place when the figure is in travelling mode. I'm not really a big fan of the way this figure looks with the arms swung forward to be honest but its compact form when the arms are swung to the rear is gorgeous.

We get a transparent figure of the RX-78-2 Gundam equipped with a beam saber ready to be mauled by the Grublo if you so choose. It is a bit unfortunate that the Grublo neither features an action base of any sort (the one in the picture is cobbled together from Assault Kingdom parts) and it doesn't even feature an action base peg hole on the belly, something that more recent figures will sometimes do. This is the main drawback of some of the figures in this set; they don't look very good when they sit flat on the ground.
   

MA-05 Bigro

Next up we have another quirky monoeye design with a strange focus on grappling and melee-action, as well as overall weird aesthetics; the Bigro is a fine example of the good old Zeonic design philosophy.

Just like the Grublo the Bigro figure suffers from not having an y action base or support for one. Ideally you would want to drill a suitable hole in its belly to accommodate something flexible like say the Assault Kingdom modular bases.

Pay special attention to the claws of the Bigro when you encounter it on the secondhand market. The third claw on each arm is a separate component and my guess is that there are plenty of Bigros out there missing their opposing thumbs...

The Bigro also comes with a transparent little Gundam figure that is almost to scale with the one that ships with the Grublo. This one is armed with a rifle and shield however.

I think this Bigro figure works really well together with the super deformed figures. Its style is so quirky that it can match the SD figures without anyone batting an eyelid. It also helps that the material and paint style is similar as well.

The Bigro also displays quite well together with the Gundam Collection 1:400 range minifigures, one of which you can see here next to the clear for-scale piece inclued with the Bigro.
   

MA-04X Zakrello

The last figure is everyone's favourite oddball design, the Zakrello. I don't know what went wrong here but I just get the overall feel that the Zakrello design doesn't look like it belongs in the Zeonic hangar, or even in the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise period. Still, if you can get over that it is a pretty cool design in its own twisted way.

The front side of the figure is quite nicely painted and it even has that horrible sailor tattoo style decal on its left shoulder. The sides and rear are getting a pretty meager paintjob though with lots of room for improvement.

Notice the twisted blade on the figure's left arm. Most Gashapon HG figures are made from this type of bendy plastic so expect to see a lot of warped arms, legs and guns if you start collecting them. They are really durable though (for the most part at least...).

The Zakrello is a pretty large mobile armor as illustrated by the transparent Gundam/B-Parts figure. However, if you don't care about scale that much I think it works well together with the mobile suits from the main Gashapon HG MS line. It of course would also benefit from an action base...

Bandai sure loves its Zakrello. Here we have solid line-up of available choices where no two figures look the same. From left to right we have a detailed 1:400 scale figure from Gundam Collection DX 1 released in 2004, the Gashapon HG EX figure from 1999, a larger 1:300 scale weathered looking machine from Strategy of Gundam EX IV released in 2007, the Converge figure from 2014 and lastly a super deformed machine from the Gashapon Warrior NEXT Premium line released in 2014 as well.


Conclusion

If you also love the Zeon mobile armor designs this set is pretty much unparalleled in delivering on that premise. Sure, the figures are a bit basic by today's standards but then again so were their counterparts in the 1979 television series. I feel that this set captures the spirit of the show perfectly and if it wasn't so difficult to find it would be a good source for army building or even custom design development.