SD Gundam Full Color Stage 16

Full Color Stage 16 appeared in the Gashapon machines in April 2000 and is a six figure set dedicated completely to mobile suits and armors from the 0093: Char's Counterattack cinematic story. It is a direct continuation of Stage 15 which also exclusively featured mobile suits from the same movie. They were released back in the good ol' days of super deformed figurines when a Gashapon figure would cost ¥100.

While there are a handful of Char's Counterattack figures sprinkled among the other sets you really get everything you need in Stage 15 and 16 save for the RGM-86R GM III which was featured in Stage 13. Apart from that there are only a couple of versions of the Sazabi and the Nu Gundam to be found in Stage 37 and Stage 50. The Full Color Custom era figures skipped U.C. 0093 completely.
   

086 : RX-93 Nu Gundam (Ver.2.0)

The Nu Gundam is featured as the poster child for both of the 0093 sets. The first version of the figure comes armed with a beam rifle and a shield and a bazooka stored on the back. The version two figure instead features a beam saber and shield, and instead has a funnel set on the back.

The figures have decent detail on the front and at least some black for the backpack. I so far do not own the first version of the figure so I am not sure if the two figures have interchangeable components or not.

The Nu Gundam is at the front of the Londo Bell strike team. Notice the GM III to the far left which is found in the aforementioned Stage 13 ZZ Gundam figure set.
   

087 : RGZ-91 Re-GZ (B.W.S.)

Next up is another member of the Londo Bell team. It is the Re-GZ mobile suit with its back weapon system attached. You can see the legs and feet sticking out at the back but otherwise the mobile suit itself is hidden away inside the BWS support system.

Unlike many of the later SD Full Color figures, the B.W.S. figure does not come with any support or action base and also lacks any support for such a base.

While the B.W.S. figure is kind of cute it feels a bit small. The Re-GZ mobile suit figure itself is as you can clearly see much larger. I wouldn't expect exact scale or anything but I think they could have made it a tad bigger.
   

088 : AMS-119 Geara Doga (Rezin Schnyder Custom)

Switching sides to the Neo Zeon we begin with a custom blue Geara Doga belonging to ace pilot Rezyn Schnyder (who wasn't ace enough to avoid getting shot down by flak but oh well...) It is basically your average Geara Doga with a commander antenna and armed with a different type of beam rifle.

I have to say the paint job is a bit drab. For example, only the tubes at the chin have been painted yellow, you'd think a few strokes at the waist would have been suitable as well. If you want to detail up the figure you have a lot of opportunity to increase its appearance; the Sturmfausts on the backside on the shield, the various thruster ports and the Neo Zeon logo on the front side of the shield.

It is interesting that the mass production Geara Dogas received the darker painted spiked shoulders but this was skipped for Rezyn's machine. Other than that the level of detail in the respective paintjobs seems to be equal.
   

089 : MSN-03 Jagd Doga (Quess Paraya Custom)

Next up we have the leg up from the Geara Doga, the Jagd Doga with its remote controlled funnel weapons and more advanced weaponry. Strictly to be operated by newtype pilots only they wasted a perfectly good machine on the annoying brat Quess Paraya. I love how people claim Char's Counterattack to be a masterpiece and then at the same time hate that characters guts to no end. I shouldn't be one to talk however because I say the same about Mobile Suit Gundam SEED which is torpedoed by Flay Allster...

The paintjob on the Jagd Doga isn't exactly majestic either but it is at least better than on the Geara Doga. To be fair the detail on this figure is decent, getting all the beautiful colour applications in red and gold that are missing on the shield are just too advanced for a figure of this type. FusionWorks didn't even get it right on the Converge figures although their 1:220 Ultimate operation figures are dead on. With a bit of luck maybe the Jagd Dogas will became a target for the Converge reboot as well...

The two Jagd Doga figures feature about the same level of detail in their respective paint jobs which is fine I guess even though they feel a little bit soulless.
   

090 : MSN-04 Sazabi (Ver.1.0)

The Sazabi finally makes its first appearance. You'd think it would have been a member of the first wave of U.C. 0093 figures but Bandai held it in reserve for the second set. It comes armed with its unique looking beam saber and carries its shield in front in a defensive posture.

I'd like to repeat what I said about Rezyn's Geara Doga again; the paint application here is uninspired and minimalistic. Wow, they managed to put a yellow dot as its belly button... gee. I don't get why care can be taken to paint Amuro's personal insignia on the Nu Gundam but no effort can be spent to put even a rudimentary yellow Neo Zeon logo on the shield of any of their machines. I find it a bit sloppy and as a result the Sazabi figure looks less appealing to me than it should.

The Neo Zeon line-up is nice but it could have been a lot better in my opinion. At least the team is fairly complete.
   

091 : NZ-333 Alpha Azieru

The last figure in the set is the gargantuan Alpha Azieru mobile armor. At roughly five times the size of your average mobile suit it of course comes across as really tiny here.

The detail above the mobile armor's waist section is pretty decent but everything below is shortened very aggressively. I would have liked for this figure to be at least 1.5 times the height of your average SD figure but I can appreciate that there might have been practical problems when it comes to fitting it within the capsules. The older Byg-Zam figure feels suitably chunky for example, but the best option for the Alpha Azieru would have been to keep it in the short-lived and upsized SD Full Color DX figure series.

I have to commend the SD Full Color series on the number of various Zeonic mobile armors that have been constructed. I even forgot to add a couple of them in the photo above (specifically the Adzam, the Braw Bro and the Neue Ziel; I really have to redo this photo shoot).

Not counting different versions of the Nu and the Sazabi here is the full line-up of mobile suits from the U.C. 0093 era. You can't really ask for a whole lot more without getting very specific.
   

Conclusion

I know I moan more than I should about the painted detailed on tiny ¥100 figures. I guess I am just jealous that the Gundam figures always get the best paintjobs. Overall this is a fine set of SD Gundam Full Color figures and of course essential if you are collection anything related to the state of the war in Universal Century 0093. As far as rarity goes I'd say that these are probably somewhere on the middle of the difficulty scale. Not as obscure as the last sets in the line but also not as common as many of the early sets (some of which were also reissued).