SD Gashapon Senshi Forte EX 07 : Shodai Shou Gundam

Senshi Forte is leading something of an uncharmed life. Premiering in January 2017 we saw four retail sets as well as two EX figures in the first year. 2018 kept up the pace with another four retail sets, three EX figures and an accessory pack. Around 2019 we began to hear more and more talk about the series not making enough profit yet the first eight months saw another four sets and the sixth EX figure. After these initial ten waves everything suddenly became very quiet and we learned that SF was being reworked from the ground up. Returning as some sort of 2.0 the series has since delivered two new retail sets in 2020 as well as the seventh EX figure which is a hold over from the old generation. Wave 13 isn't expected until February next year six months after the previous wave and beyond that I haven't seen any new announcements.

 

The subject of this review is the mysterious EX 07, a figure that released discreetly somewhere in the middle of the initial C19 scare, supposedly beginning deliveries in March 2020. Being a P-Bandai release the figure sold through their premium program for ¥2970 and it wasn't until October that I stumbled across one. By that time the price had skyrocketed to ¥7000 so it would appear that supply is rather limited.

 

The Senshi Forte EX figures rarely get very interesting packaging but this must be some sort of record low. While rather stylish you don't really have a clue what is hiding inside the box unless you come prepared. The Shodai Shou Gundam lacks a model designation which is usually your last resort when trying to identify something.

 

As clearly seen above we are talking old school Senshi Forte here. This figure is from the era with the old stands and individually sculpted hands (and also means your fingers will smart a bit when you assemble it).

 

Ah yes... assembly. Let's all take a second to enjoy the helpful instructions included with the figure. We have some poor quality black and white pictures which will do a pretty poor job of explaining which pieces go where. Luckily we have a detailed image of how to attach the tail to the Tiger which is I'm sure the biggest hurdle for people to overcome. :)

 

The Shodai Shou Gundam belongs to the family of cartoon figures that were so common in early Senshi Forte sets, but which Bandai seems to have given up on by now. There were a total of seven figures spread out among the initial seven Senshi Forte retail waves, two additional figures in EX 05 and here we have our tenth and likely final member. These figures did receive a lot of love from the designers and the Shodai Shou is looking very regal with its fantastic colours and attention to detail.

 

Like all the early Senshi Forte releases the figure comes with two sets of hands, open and closed. The open hands can hold your preferred selection of the four optional weapons; two swords, a spear and some sort of matchlock inspired gun (no idea if it is supposed to fire bullets or beams). The sword sheath is not functional and there is no option part with a sword inside, something we have seen e.g. in Gundam Converge. Two additional static weapons are seen on the back - a tiny quiver and a very traditional-looking Gatling Gun.

 

According to the deep lore of the SD Sengokuden Musha Shichinin Shuu Hen television series from the late 1980s the Shodai Shou is an army commander of the Gundam Army and apparently also the father of Musha Gundam (seen here in its Senshi Forte 06 version released in June 2018). I have no idea how these things work, check the wikipedia page for the Warring States Legend series for more nostalgia.

 

The Shodai Shou Gundam wades knee deep into battle alongside his trusty Tiger companion (which I'm sure has a name but it has so far escaped me). This Blade Liger... er, I mean this Tiger figure is completely static in its pose but we know that we can freely rotate the tail thanks to the great assembly instructions. Not a huge fan of the large peg on its back but it does serve an obvious function of course.

 

To combine the two figures into the Harimao Special Mode you have to take the Gundam figure apart at the waist and attach the torso to the large peg on the Tiger. I have no idea what happens to the legs in the cartoon but I would assume that they somehow fit inside the Tiger since it would be a tad convenient to leave your legs on the battlefield. This thing just fills me up with so many questions... For me personally I prefer to display the two figures separately, just like I don't really care for the Centaur-style four-legged Knight Gundam option parts.

While the SD character figures are definitely an acquired taste and certainly not for everyone this figure turned out really spectacular. The high price and limited availability means that this will probably only find its way into the collections of the most dedicated followers however. It remains to be seen if the Senshi Forte phenomenon can survive 2021but if it does I hope the designers will return to the Musha-style characters, can't wait to see some of the Zaku-based machines myself.

 

SD Gundam Full Color Custom SP (Silver Ver.)

In this review we will briefly go over one of the more gimmick SD figure sets, courtesy of the Full Color Custom series. As is sometimes the case, Bandai tries to give a figure series on its last legs a little push into desperation territory. We have seen the switch for example in both Gundam Converge and Mobile Suit Ensemble, and similar patterns could be seen in e.g. Gundam Collection and Assault Kingdom. basically, you take something previously released and make some superficial change and churn it out in new brand spanking packaging, appealing to the completionists out there to please buy some more.

 

The SD Full Color Custom series however had only barely just started when this set appeared. Four volumes and six months in, with a total of 40 figures released thus far, it was time for a silver color rehash. Ten of the previouly released figures were selected for a silver colour makeover and thrown out in this fashion. I don't know however if the set was released in conjunction with some particular event when it launched in October 2006. I doubt it because I picked up a full set for ¥800 recently and event limited stuff tends to be quite pricey.

 

On closer inspection you will notice that each figure in this set comes with one piece of seemingly random accessory. In fact there are five types of components distributed evenly among the ten figures in the set. You are invited to make use of these to build your own creations (somehow) and the exact same gimmicky components also show up in other Full Color Custom SP sets. I will not be looking into these in more detail but you can see each component above and below the respective mobile suit in the parts shot above. We have a sword, a funnel-type bit (that looks like it belongs to the Sazabi), what looks like some sort of shield, some type of link and the little craft which looks suspiciously like the Orb Union's mobile worker MAW-01 Mistral.

 

 

01 : ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam

 

As you will quickly find out I will not dwell very much on the individual figures and pretty much let the pictures speak for themselves. If I can get around to reviewing the original sets we will look at them in more detail there. The first figure here, the Strike Freedom, was also the very first figure of the Full Color Custom line itself when it premiered in April 2006.

 

 

02 : METEOR System

 

The METEOR system showed up in Full Color Custom 02 together with the Infinite Justice which was not deemed important enough to be reissued in this set which I find odd considering some of the other figures that were indeed chosen.

 

 

03 : ZGMF-1000/A1 Gunner ZAKU Warrior

 

The Gunner ZAKU Warrior figure is a bit novel in that Bandai had already released both a mass production green variant in volume 02 as well as Lunamaria Hawke's red custom color variant in set 03 so I guess you can decide for yourself which one this is (you can of course read the booklet which is more than my translate app is capable of considering the funky font style).

04 : ZGMF-1001/K Slash ZAKU Phantom (Yzak Joule Custom)

Yzak Joule's odd version of the Slash ZAKU Phantom is originally light blue but here's your chance to repaint it and give it to someone else, or why not paint it mass production green, that would have been a novel twist.

 

 

05 : LCAM-01XA Archangel

The legged ship sits in the next slot and I really like this early sculpt, especially from the rear. The Full Color Custom series also features the Eternal and the Minerva.

 

 

06 : GAT-01A1+AQM/E-X04 Gunbarrel Dagger

The Gunbarrel Dagger is an odd choice for this set but I really dig it. The figure can be posed either with the thruster pack on the mobile suit or attached to the business end of the AQM/E-X04 Gunbarrel Striker itself. You only get one engine pack though so you have to choose which configuration to run with.

 

 

07 : ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam

The Destiny comes fully equipped yet still manages to look pretty unappealing and simplistic - especially when compared to the spread wings on the Strike Freedom.

 

 

08 : ZGMF-X56S/a Force Impulse Gundam

Why on Earth they selected the Force Impulse for this set I don't know, it is such a vanilla and uninteresting design. There were so many more interesting figures already among the initial forty, even the Sword Impulse would have been a better choice.

 

 

09 : MBF-02+P202QX Strike Rouge I.W.S.P.

The slot with the Strike Rouge is also pretty weak. At least it has the I.W.S.P. gear but still comes off as a bit flat. They should have gone for a mobile suit with a completely different look in my opinion, say the Legend Gundam or a GINN for example.

 

 

10 : GFAS-X1 Destroy Gundam

The last figure in the set is the very large Destroy Gundam in its mobile armor mode. There are other variants of this mobile suit in SD format that can actually transform between MA and MS mode but this figure is static.

So there you have it. Not the most Earth shattering of releases out there but it has feature novelty value. This is the only silver colour set released in the Full Color and Full Color series. Bandai would later continue with the transparent colour sets, some of which we will see here on the blog in the future as well.

 

The latest Gundam Converge news...

Bandai revaled some more information regarding the Gundam Converge 10 Year Anniversary items they have been working on. Not to rain on somebody's parade but there isn't a whole lot to see here if you are a Converge veteran. First up we have two new figure sets, each with six figures grouped by Universal Century and "Another Century" respectively. Each set features rehashes of Converge #Sharp figures with gold trim paint apps. The figures will also come on special white bases wit their names printed on them to make sure they stand out like a sore thumb if you display them together with the other figures of your collection. Each set is scheduled for March and will set you back ¥5400 per set. Who is excited for this?

 

Next up we have the much touted "3D-vote" for your favourite mobile suits to be turned into retal figures. Bandai have supposedly put together a list of about 400 candidate suits for you to choose from and you get to vote for ONE suit per day while the survey runs. I have rather enjoyed Bandai's suit selection as of late with their focus on one series at a time in little clusters and hope they will continue with that. Still, customers are encouraged to give their daily vote starting today until the end of January, so yeah, have fun with that...

 

We also have the return of the ol' Converge Revive project. Customers are here encouraged to vote online for mobile suits from the last 20 volumes that they would like to see reissued again. There are very few figures that are not readily available on the secondary market today so I wonder if there will be any big interest in this section. Sure, there are a few with inflated prices such as the EW Heavyarms but I'd much rather Bandai continue the focus on developing something new.

The original Operation Revive project from 2014 featured six mobile suits and was available in two versions. Once set contained the original six figures and cost ¥3000, then there was a Premium Edition for ¥3500 which included one new accessory for each suit. I wouldn't mind a new Revive set if it came with mobile suits whose gear options were interesting enough to entice me to buy them, say a Gaplant with a Beam Saber or a Den'an Gei with deployed Beam Shield for example.

If you have followed Converge for a while you will also remember the Revival Selection era of the original Converge series. This saw a couple of the early releases being reissued and released as part of the regular retail waves (marked with "R" on the boxes), so you'd end up with sets where you already owned one or two figures. Hard to think of this as anything other than cost reduction by keeping development spending down if you can reissue old junk in new packaging again. I'll try not to be too cynical about it but expectations are low. :)

 

Perhaps the most novel thing to come out of this whole thing is a new display box designed to be compatible with Converge. These stackable 20cm cubes will allow for the displaying of nine regular size Converge figures and could be useful to those who wish to put on a little display without investing in shelving. I could see these boxes work really well in shops too (but perhaps not in many used Gashapon marketplaces because those are always stuffed to the brim with toys, kind of like my own collection I guess).

SD Gashapon Warrior NEXT Osaka Art of Gundam Exhibition Limited

The Art of Gundam exhibition suite in the summer of 2014 commemorated the 35th Anniversary of the Mobile Suit Gundam phenomenon. The exhibits included a lot of original artwork and even crept into some public areas like nearby subway stations. Exhibits were held in Tokyo and later Osaka (or was it the other way around, I can't remember...) and of course Bandai took the opportunity to market a lot of "limited" crap during these events. This usually translates to special color variations of existing releases and is thankfully centered on larger scale model kits rather than Gashapon or Shokugan figures although the odd special will show up even there (we have reviewed two Converge sets for Art of Gundam 2014 and 2015 respectively already).

 

I don't know the exact specifics for this particular Gashapon set. Based on the fact that figures are packaged in pairs with a booklet to share between them I get the feeling these were only sold as a complete set, probably as a cheaper exclusive for those who would like an exhibition keepsake without splurging a lot of money on Pearl Color or Transparent colour HG and MG model kits. I purchased this set from Mandarake (of course) and it cost me ¥5000 which is quite a lot of money for a Gashapon set. Let's see if it can live up to the hype.

 

 

RX-78-2 Gundam (clear color ver.)

 

All the figures in this set hail from the Mobile Suit Gundam U.C. 0079 television series and contains five different mobile suits, some in different variations, all of which have appeared as regular retail Gashapons through the Gashapon Warrior NEXT era. There is a heavy slant towards Zeon and the Earth Federation only gets two mobile suits to go up against them. First one out is the RX-78 of course.

 

While I am not a huge fan of these transparent clear figures I have to admit the Gundam looks pretty good. The yellow detail is all but drowned by the stronger reds and blues. The shield can be attached to the left arm or stored on the backpack.

 

The Gundam gets a couple of interchangeable accessories. Notice how the handles on both weapons are transparent. Not exactly sure why this decision was made for the beam rifle, but we do see it crop up on Gashapon and Shokugan figures time and again.

 

Comparison shot with one of the similar RX-78's from NEXT although this particular machine is decked out a little differently. I still have massive gaps in the NEXT inventory which is proving difficult to collect from abroad, I assume it would be easier if one were able to browse the Gashapon shops locally. Ah yes, that old fancy. :)

 

MSM-07S Z'Gok (Char's Custom) (clear color ver.)

 

Since there is no GM in this set for the red comet and his Z'Gok to mess up, Char has been paired with the Gundam instead. The GM was actually absent in SD form for quite some time. After multiple appearances in the SD Full Color and Full Color Custom lines it disappeared from the format for thirteen years until finding its way back in with the recent Senshi Forte volume 11, so no NEXT GM's for us.

 

The colour red is well suited for the transparent makeover and this figure has a great colour mix with the bright claws and dark arms and legs.

 

With no special accessories to its name, the Z'Gok does come with two differently bent arms so you can choose a couple of different poses for it. Most of the figures seen in this set were originally released in the NEXT 16 wave in 2013 but I don't have the original colour version available for comparison.

 

 

MS-06S Zaku II (Char's Custom) (clear color ver.)

 

Char again? Yep, we are storming on into the next twin pack which is a pure Zaku II team. Led by the Red Comet then of course.

 

The Zaku II has a nice mix of different red tones which is the result of both parts colouring and the effect of stacking multiple components on top of each other. The monoeye can do a little bit of a swivel although I didn't bother with it in this review format, you can see its limited range of vision from the parts view below.

 

Char's machine is equipped with a Heat Hawk axe-style weapon only which is perhaps a bit on the light side but it mimics the original release from NEXT volume 01. You can steal a machine gun from a mass production type but there are no bazookas about which is a little sad.

 

 

MS-06F Zaku II (clear color ver.)

 

And here of course, we have the mass production type Zaku II. The only figure in this set with the attractive green colour palette. Transparent SD figures usually seem to be red, blue or black which gets really samey - the smaller single-colour figures from the Full Color sets are a pain to tell apart.

 

Nice multi-layer colour style here as well, perhaps the most attractive figure in this set in my own opinion. Notice the head sculpt without a commander antenna.

 

As previously mentioned we find a Zaku Machine Gun with this figure, again with a handlebar that has not been painted up black.

 

Here we have the original Zaku II figure next to the caramel version. I should also point out that there is a 35th Anniversary Real Color Type set which features the exact same eight figures included in this set, although with solid colours. I'd love to tell more about them but I only own a meager Zaku II from that lot. That figure is also green but it is a darker green akin to what a military might reasonably select to use.

 

 

RX-77-2 Guncannon (clear color ver.)

 

The second E.F.S.F. machine is next, the iconic fire support-machine with the ridiculous name of Guncannon. Sadly there was no Guntank made in the NEXT line. Its fate is even worse than the GM's; the machine was last seen in SD Full Color Custom 08 in 2007 with an appearance in that oddball Build Model Gundam series in 2015 and since then it has been AWOL.

 

The Guncannon is really broad-shouldered since emphasis has been placed on making the cannons aimable. I don't mind this at all, it fits the figure quite well although as a result the boosters on the back almost disappear completely. Nice bright colours but once again the yellow air intakes on the chest are difficult to do because of the stronger red background colour.

 

The Guncannon comes with its traditional Beam Rifle (which for some reason I placed upside down in this shot, maybe to highlight the unpainted handlebar one more time..? :)

 

Here we have a regular color Guncannon figure, or at least I think it is. The red colour looks almost faded but since I have no less than four of these in the same colours I expect this is actually how it is supposed to look. This could potentially be real type color version figures - until I manage to score a full figure set of either volume I don't really know.

 

 

MS-09 Dom (Heat Saber) (clear color ver.)

 

From now on it is Zeon all the way. We start with one of two Dom figures, which are just one short of creating a Black Tri-Stars arrangement which is a little bit of a missed opportunity since it will be very difficult to find a third figure without buying a full second lot and even I am not crazy enough to do that.

 

There is something odd going on with the head of this Dom figure. The monoeye seems to be located a tad bit too high on its rotating cylinder and as a result it is hard to get good poses without having the machine staring wistfully at the nightsky. The Heat Saber is dead on though, and looks great both in hand and on the figure's back. Great use of an expressive left hand adds to its posh style.

 

This version of the Dom comes with said Heat Saber and a special little connector piece which attaches to the figure's back, enabling the figure to store the saber when not in use. If you are shopping for second hand figures and come across this figure, check to see that this piece is still there.

 

The colours on the regular figure are pretty much dead on perfect, if only that eye was in a better spot this would have been a really amazing miniature. After having taken this photo I noticed that the Dom to the left has a traditional weapon holding hand. This is probably because I bought mine second hand in a Gashapon store. I actually have some more Doms one of which does come with the expressive hand so the hands should indeed be similar between these two.

 

 

MS-09 Dom (Bazooka) (clear color ver.)

 

Second man in the Dom team is up next, pretty much the same story as the previous figure. While it may seem a bit lazy to give up one spot that could have contained another clear figure this is exactly how Bandai did it with the other NEXT waves that featured the Dom. they always appear in pairs. Also, you don't have to fret about losing another potential U.C. 0079 figure; NEXT wasn't very deep into this series and so other possible candidates would have been limited to a Realtype Color Gundam, the RB-79 Ball or a Magella Attack Tank (I suppose you could add the Gouf Custom into this group as well with a bit of good will).

 

Yup, it is the same Dom but armed with a Mega Bazooka. Notice also the differently sculpted hand on this figure.

 

Apart from the different weapon and hand notice also that this figure does not include the connector piece needed to store a Heat Saber on the back. If you don't mind stripping the weapons from its buddy you could of course field a Dom with both weapon choices which is neat touch.

 

Here we have a regular coloured retail Dom figure, again with the weapon holding left-hand, which is where it is supposed to be. This figure also manages to strike a pose where the eye seems properly centered.

 

 

MSM-07 Z'Gok (clear color ver.)

 

The last figure in this set brings the colour blue to the mix. it is a mass production type Z'Gok which is a simple colour variation of the red figure we saw before.

 

An interesting difference between Char's Z'Gok and this mass production type is that the tanks on the back are painted red on the former and black on the latter, which I think is a more interesting look. You could of course steal the tanks from this figure and put black tanks on Char's machine if you like.

 

Not a whole lot going on here, we have the same straight and curved arm options that you can use to create a couple of different variations in the pose.

 

The original colour figure has some really attractive paint details but there is something strange in the whole shape of the torso. I can't quite put my finger on it but it is as if there are no shoulders on this thing and it looks a little awkward. The new Senshi Forte figure is leaps and bounds better.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

All in all, this set is nothing more than a novelty item. I know that some people really like to collect these transparent colour figures but to me they have always been a bit meh. And when you consider the asking prices for this particular set you can certainly put that money to better use elsewhere, expanding on the core of your collection.