The latest Gashapon news...

There have been quite a few semi-official announcements on Bandai's social media but here they have made an effort to present it a bit more coherently in a very meaty post on the Gashapon Blog. Starting with the most uninteresting things first, we have two gigantic Advance of Zeta prototypes. One is the TR-6 Inle which we have seen before in white colour form, released as EX09 back in what feels like eons ago; February 2019, now in the spiffy navy blue livery which Bandai always likes to cram out of their figures if they can. I say uninteresting because this thing is absolutely enormous and comes with a price tag of ¥16500, up fiftenhundred since last time around. The Hazel with a gigantic arm unit might warrant a purchase though, costing "only" ¥6600. You can visit their pages over at P-Bandai here and here.

In addition, Bandai are adhering to requests to reissue two of the early Ensemble figures. The EX02 Kshatriya, which released in July 2017 is now routinely selling over at Mandarake for about ¥15000 so here is a good opportunity to pick one up from P-Bandai for a mere ¥3850. It's page is here. The second oldtimer to be revived is the EX03 Hazel Custom which was released in September 2017 and had a price tag of ¥4480. The new figure (seen here) will have a slightly higher price tag of ¥4563. The Hazel isn't nearly as rare as the Kshatriya and is typically in stock at Mandarake with prices around the ¥8000-10000.

The product development team also teases us with the above images of further Ensemble figures in development. There is in fact a lot of discussion in the blog post about the state of Ensemble and although the Google Translate transcript is very difficult to understand the gist of it seems to be that the regular Ensemble Gashapons are threaten to be axed very soon if they don't perform better. The P-Bandai program is what keeps the brand going but I really do wonder how much money people have available to spend on these things, I am starting to feel a bit fatigued from trying to keep up myself.

I completely missed out on the announcement of Ensemble volume 15 since it never made it onto the Gashapon blog (and it still hasn't, I googled it...). I knew that the Exia and the Kyrios were coming but it was a really pleasant surprise to find out that the ReZEL will be incorporated into this set and I will do my very best to build a squad of these suckers. Honestly I am starting to get really fed up by the constant requests for us to buy many figures to save the line when they are a) a real headache to even get access to and b) come in useless lots where army builders are mixed together with stuff you really only want one figure of. Ensemble 15 is supposedly ready for delivery in October.

Lastly for Ensemble we got a really nice look into volume 16. To no one's surprise the Kyrios will follow the Exia and the Dynames but I was shocked to see not one but two Union mass production type suits, this will be another killer set to try and collect.

If I am reading the transcripts correctly the Hi-Nu Gundam will also be part of volume 16, at least the HWS-components will be part of the volume's weapon set as seen in the equipment shot on the right, together with gear for the GN Flag and the Kyrios. Hopefully we can get some more information regarding the set as it is developed further.

Lastly we also see a new face in the Gashapon Warrior Senshi Forte line-up; the Wing Zero Custom from Endless Waltz. I placed it here next to previous images released of the Deathscythe and the Serpent; perhaps all three of these will be seen in an upcoming SF-volume. Again, the translation is cryptic but the author seems to muse about releasing Gashapon 13 as a cheap 300 yen set, attempting to raise the profit by increasing the volume sold. It is a bold strategy for sure. I just hope that whatever army-builders find their way into volume 13 won't be so damned hard to collect. We saw it again with SF11 and SF12 where the Z'Gok and the Zaku II are not only produced in the same quantity as the "hero type" mobile suits, but they are also fighting for space with Char's Custom Zaku II and Z'Gok, effectively making them rarer than everything else. I for one am getting really fed up with this practice.

Anyway, it is nice to see that Bandai sure hasn't thrown in the towel yet, and the autumn season of 2020 is promising to be very expensive if you intend to follow Converge, Senshi Forte and Ensemble in parallel.