Banpresto Keyring Figure Zeon's Victory

Let's burn through another keyring figure set. This particular set was manufactured by and sold under the Banpresto name in 2002. I am a bit surprised at the many types of keyring figures there are out there. Sometimes I get the feeling that every set was dreamed up at the spot with no regard to previous releases but that is of course not true.

 

I picked up a full set of these from Mandarake last year which cost an impressive ¥2000 which is quite a lot for an old keyring set - I guess the Char Aznable name continues to sell. Interestingly I picked up a few singles of these earlier costing only ¥200 so I was definitely paying for the service of a complete set there. These days I rarely buy single figures preferring instead to wait for full sets to become available, since it gets a bit frustrating hunting for and keeping track of the missing pieces.

 

Oh, my. Yeah, that title there looks like it might be a tad bit too spicy for the Google bots so I am just going to refrain from typing it out here. Another interesting quirk is how the line-up photo does not sync up with the names in the list so I will just go through these figures in the order I damn well please.

And here we have the full available details. Notice the Banpresto shorthand code 71935 which is part of the full barcode and the easiest way to identify figures from this set, as long as you have the packaging left that is.

 

As you can see the main gimmick of this set is that the two figures share the same keyring. I can think of one similar set where this was implemented, themed around Mobile Suit Z Gundam female pilots. There are also the smaller Unifive double type keyholder figure packs which contain figures much smaller than these.

 

Ramba Ral and MS-07B Gouf

 

Lt. Ral comes equipped with a Zeon helmet and a submachine gun which looks suspiciously like a Thompson M1A1. The plastic is as you can see bendy but still rather rigid. The Blue Giant's Gouf has a nice red glowing Heat Sword that he drags after him in this super deformed rendition and it also forces the right foot up from the ground. A nice transparent base plate should do the trick here.

 

 

M'Quve and YMS-15 Gyan

 

I really like this figure of M'Quve. As far as I know he has never made it into a real figure, not even a garage kit. Both he and Kycilia Zabi are seriously overdue for some more love from MegaHouse at this point. His Gyan figure has a head that is a bit big for my taste and an action pose which makes it impossible to display without the aid of some custom contraption. Nevertheless I quite like it. Some green stuff and a base of some kind should do it justice.

 

 

Char Aznable and RX-78-2 Gundam

 

Man, that Char figure looks dismayed. But hold on one second. What the hell is going on here? Banpresto, you just had to squeeze a Gundam into this set, didn't you? Rather weak if you ask me, considering how popular Char's Custom Zaku II is after all. As evident from this figure, it has exactly zero chance of standing up without some sort of support or custom base but I do think it looks kinda cool in this pose. The paintwork is exemplary as well.

Anavel Gato and MS-14A Gelgoog

Ace pilot Anavel Gato is up next, with his custom painted MS-14A Gelgoog. Gato himself has some really nice paintwork and the Gelgoog isn't bad either. I do question the beam saber though, because surely it would have been even more awesome with a dual-bladed Beam Naginata in that hand. This figure will also need some type of custom base work if you hope to display it.

 

 

Gihren Zabi with a Principality of Zeon Crest

Okay so no mobile suit for Gihren of course, but the crest works fine. Especially so if you were to have it in your actual keyring I suppose. I know I keep harping on about it but do you know anyone who actually puts these figures in their keyring? I can imagine them dangling from the side of a school bag though. The crest could also work really nice as an objective marker in a tabletop wargame, especially if you had a number of them.

 

 

Size comparisons

The mobile suit figures in this set are generally quite large and not really suitable for display with the traditional SD Full Color figures even the larger ones are dwarfed in comparison as seen here.

 

The Gashapon Warrior NEXT series is closer in size but on the other hand has a different aestetic, forgoing the gigantic heads from the earlier figure sets and so aren't an ideal match either.

 

Banpresto has a couple of these mixed mobile suit and pilot keyring sets but none of them are really to scale. Here Gato poses with Milliardo Peacecraft and Loran/Rolan Cehack from two other keyring sets. All the character figures in this set can stand up unaided but will benefit from a base of some sorts since they are very top heavy.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Overall I enjoy this set for the Zeon character figurines, which could easily find use as custom board or war games. The mobile suits in this set can easily be sourced elsewhere and so are of lesser importance although it is always nice with some dynamic poses to liven up things a bit.