Released in October 2005, Stage 60 is one of the very last sets of the original Full Color Gashapon series. It is characteristic in its high level of detail and style when compared to some of the early outings. When the series folded in February 2006 it was replaced by the modular styled figures from the Full Color Custom series, which sacrifices some of this flair for additional playability and parts swapping between figures.
Stage 60 consists of ten different figures, available in Gashapon vending machines for the classic price of one ¥100 coin. As far as I know, none of the figures were made artificially rare and there were never any secret figure gimmicks going on in this series either. Things were simpler and more fun back then...
Notice that each figure in this set comes with a clear color plastic accessory, typically some kind of weapon or shield. We have seen similar gimmick items in the Full Color Custom series as well. These items are not necessarily intended to be used by the particular figure with which it is included, they should rather be treated as fun extras that can be used wherever you see fit. The distribution is fixed so that each accessory will always be included with one particular mobile suit.
395 : F91 Gundam F91 (clear colour ver.)
One odd aspect of this set is how the booklet does not list the figures in their proper order. The F91 has been given the lowest number yet shows up in the end of the line-up in the image. Whatever the reason, here it is, in all its transparent splendor. Seen here armed with its beam bazooka and a deployed beam shield it is ready for action. Interestingly, this figure is the only version equipped with the bazooka. The regular opaque colour F91 figure from Stage 27 is armed with a beam rifle and shield. These are as far as I know the only two appearances of the F91 in this scale, however it does return in larger form in both Gashapon Warrior NEXT and DASH many years later.
396 : XMA-01 Rafflesia
Another really unique entry into the SD series is the enormous Rafflesia mobile armor, here in a really small form. It has never reappeared in super-deformed size; in fact I think the only other figure available is the recent Gundam Converge EX figure which -ironically- would not be completely out of size with these SD figures.
The biggest problem with this Rafflesia figure is that it has no base or even support for the traditional SD Gashapon bases. Due to its unique shape it will be impossible to stand up. Ideally you'd probably want to glue it to a small transparent base or similar. Here I have placed it temporarily in an Assault Kingdom action base component to give a better feeling of its size and look.
397 : ZGMF-X666S Legend Gundam
Switching from F91 to Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny we next have a couple of unusual suits and mobile armors from this series. The latter stages of SD Gundam Full Color exploded with SEED and SEED Destiny designs and are a bit of a goldmine for this era, never to be seen again in figure form since. The Legend is -as many of the mobile suit designs in Destiny- a lazy evolution of the X13A Providence Gundam but still a stylish design and the SD incarnation is great.
The Legend Gundam returns already in Stage 62 with a dual beam saber launching its multiple Dragoon style remote weapons. After that only a few more months pass before a third version armed with a beam saber arrived in Full Color Custom 02 (not pictured).
398 : ZGMF-1001/M Blaze ZAKU Phantom (Heine Westenfluss Custom)
One of the more interesting characters brought onboard in SEED Destiny is the man with the fetishized German name; Heine Westenfluss. Evil rumours online sometimes claim that he didn't develop into a show regular because it was too expensive to have voice actor and artist Takanori Nishikawa stick around on the team, but he lent some really needed colour to the bland Z.A.F.T. mobile suit team which mostly sounded like people phoning it in. His mobile suit themselves were also allowed to shiny in their orange custom designs. This particular figure is one of the darker variants I have seen, bordering on red.
Besides Heine's GOUF Ignited which appears twice in SD form we also have two incarnations of the Blaze Zaku Phantom. The much paler colour version was released in the Full Colour Custom series volume 04.
399 : YMAF-X6BD Zamza-Zah
Mobile Armors don't really play much of a part in the Cosmic Era timeline. I should qualify this statement that here I don't mean the ubiquitous masses of Earth Alliance fighter-style craft like the TS-MA2 Moebius, but traditional bulky and overpowered designs mainly found in the Universal Century garage, such as the Bigro or Neue Ziel. This makes the massive crab-like Zamza-Zah (which honestly seems to take a couple of design pointers from both the Adzam and the Byg Zam) seem really out of place. They don't put up much of a fight either and were pretty much thrown away like so many of the other designs in that show. Still, it is nice to have a figure for it in the figure-line (I wouldn't mind seeing it in Ensemble or Converge EX format for that matter...). Do note that the figure does not come with a stand but it is compatible with the standard bases used in the SD Gashapon figure line as seen here.
400 : ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam
What are people really thinking about the Strike Freedom? The X10A Freedom is one of the real evergreen Gundam designs. We keep seeing new iterations for it in the figure and model kit world on a level reserved for other bigwigs like the RX-78, Wing Gundam and a few others. The Strike Freedom though never really grabbed me, it was just more of the same like so many of the machines featured in SEED Destiny. And that is pretty much how I feel about this figure too. Bandai introduced it in Stage 58, reprised it in 59 and here it is again in Stage 60. And don't worry - it appears in both Stage 61 and Stage 62 as well. Bloody hell...
The main ruckus caused by this figure is of course that it is the four-hundredth release in the SD Gundam Full Color series, a feat which is pretty impressive based on numbers alone. To commemorate this feat Bandai plonked in a white base (no, not the White Base...) which also highlights this fact. The figure itself would look just as good if not better on a regular transparent base I think. You can even stand it on the ground as seen above, balancing on its toes and wingtips. A rather unremarkable anniversary figure perhaps but at least better than the 300th Thunder Gundam.
I don't have all of the Strike Freedom iterations yet but here you can see it pose together with a dual wielding Strike from Stage 59 (black rifles) and a variant with gray rifles from Full Color Custom 01 (center).
401 : MSZ-006 Z Gundam
The last four slots are grabbed by suits from the Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam era and perhaps the least interesting part of this wave, as most of them have been done to death already. Up first is the Zeta itself, in a traditional looking style, wielding its long beam rifle and shield. As far as Zeta figures go, this one has a medium blue colour (there are many variations out there) and a face which seems a little bit non-distinct with those pale green eyes.
The main gimmick of this figure is that the long beam rifle has two handles so that you can also elect to display the figure with the rifle held in a sentry-like position which is still pretty cool.
Here you can see some of the various Z Gundams released in the Full Color and Full Color Custom figure series. Notice the wildly changing blue colour between individual figures.
402 : RMS-099 Rick Dias
I have a soft spot for the Rick Dias design and so I am always pleased to see it return. This particular figure is also a nice update for the original SD Rick Dias which was a bit of an eyesore. The new figure recycles the mold of the beautifully proportioned black colour figure first introduced in Stage 47.
The first version of the Rick Dias appeared all the way back in Stage 6 in December 1998 and you can tell just how far the SD figure series had developed come 2005. On the right we have the black Early Production colour version from Stage 47.
403 : MSN-00100 Hyaku-Shiki
The Hyaku-Shiki makes its fourth appearance here in Stage 60 and is by all means a really average looking design. While I do like the pose the whole figure seems a bit simplistic in the colouring department with just a few painted details. It sure would have been nice to see a Hyaku-Shiki Kai or another neglected mobile suit take up this slot instead.
Just like the steroided Rick Dias the first Hyaku-Shiki figure from 1999 (left) is also way larger than later SD Gashapon figures. The Stage 60 figure in turn dwarves the tiny version that appeared together with the Mega Bazooka Launcher in Stage 33 (right).
404 : AMX-004 Qubeley
The last player in this set is a really bland looking Qubeley. I don't think the design is that interesting to begin with but I sure would have been happy if they had instead place Ple Two's red AMX-004-3 variant in this slot instead, since it never made it to the classic SD Gashapon range (although one can be found in the larger Gashapon Warrior NEXT series and another in Senshi Forte).
Yeah, Qubeleys, what am I going to do with you? At least the one with the beam saber from Stage 44 is pretty cool. What is up with the green eyes on the figure in the middle by the way?
Gear
As mentioned earlier the figures in this set all come with a unique accessory of the transparent colour variety. This makes them pretty useless for the most part but I imagine they could be fun to play with for kids and the bright colours might help them from being instantly lost.
Here are some random examples of gear applied to random mobile suits. Not a whole lot to say about it really, except that I would have preferred if the budget would have been spent on bringing in a new mobile suit type to the series instead.
Conclusion
All in all, Full Color Stage 60 is a competent SD Gashapon figure set although the selection is a little half-baked in my opinion. The only real criticism I would mention is that I wish that some of the figures came with transparent action bases, especially the Rafflesia needs some kind of help. the clear stands you see in the below photo are thus not actually part of this particular set.
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