You have seen these figures here and there on the blog over the past couple of years so I figured it is time we do a proper review of a set. I would argue that wave III is the easiest to find out there although they are starting to get scarce. I recently picked up a pair of boxes myself so they are out there.
The Gsight figure series was a short-lived thing but in the two years it lasted it produced a really fine selection of durable little figures excellent for wargaming purposes. The main gimmick of the series is that each set has a theme which might see the mobile suits duking it out in the jungles of Jaburo or a wartorn cityscape. Gsight III is all about the desert and the set's subtitle appears to be something to that effect (best guess out of the translating app is "Battle through the Sands"). The set was released in 2003 and cost around 200 yen (or ¥191 + VAT as it says there on the box).
Being Gashapon these figures were sold in random boxes of twelve which appear to have a fixed distribution, more on that in a second. They appear not to have kept their value that well until now. After buying figures here and there in markets or (as I later realized) horribly over-priced on eBay I purchased full boxes for about ¥2500 in 2016-2017 and the last ones I picked up last year cost only ¥1000. If you can find them, this is probably your moment for a great deal.
Let's take a moment to enjoy the hexagonal packaging design that went into all the regular figure sets, each sporting different mobile suit designs as well. The differently shaped flaps fold in a certain pattern to seal up nicely, someone gave this way more thought than it needed. Good stuff!
Here you can see 12 figures taken out of the box in the same way as they were packaged. That is, the figure bag in the top corner with a white Ground Type Gundam could be found in the leftmost slot in the back row as shown in the box photo and so on. There are six different figures to collect and they all appear in two different colour variations (more on that in a sec...). In all the boxes I opened the figures were always stacked in the exact same order, down to the colour variations, so that the exact same figure always had its given slot in a box. Here - let's crack open two more:
Notice a pattern? Yup, that's it. Interestingly the classic colours and variant colours have been mixed up a bit but it always appears to be in the same sequence.
Before we go on looking at the individual figures, here is a quick reference guide of each mobile suit present in the box and the accessory that goes with it. Three of the figures come with a little Type 74 Hover Truck and the remaining three have various buildings or fortifications. While this figure range is intended to be in the 1/350 scale this does not always go for the accessories or buildings which vary greatly in size.
RX-79[G] Ground Type Gundam
The E.F.F. forces are spread a bit thin in this set. The mobile suit option is the trusty Ground Type Gundam which comes in the default white colour scheme as well as a made-up dark gray variation. I love this design choice about Gsight but I can imagine there are those who would prefer Bandai sticking to the lore-accurate colours. As these trios of figures also clearly show; the figures are made out of soft plastic and you will experience a lot of bendy parts. This can get particularly aggravating for weapons with long barrels or figures with thin legs and is I expect a deal breaker for many of you out there.
Each figure comes more or less assembled out of the box, and interestingly this varies wildly from figure to figure. Sometimes the arms are attached but not the legs, sometimes it is the opposite etc. You will encounter figures where the soft plastic joints refuse to cooperate and trying to force it in just changes the shape of the peg for it to pop out again immediately. You may want to consider glue and perhaps base the figures since many of them fall over oh, so easily.
Now, hang on a second... what is this? A second colour variation, and one that makes a whole lot more sense at that. So where does this guy come from? Well, not out of any of the five full boxes I have already opened that much is sure. I would guess that this is some sort of first edition thing. For example, the first production batch might have white and sand-coloured Ground Types in there while subsequent sets came with the gray alternative. I have seen Japanese toymakers pull this type of stunt here and there. The second most likely option is that there was simply some sort of limited edition reissue with different colours, but I have never heard about anything like that for Gsight so I am leaning towards a first edition type of thing. If you are in the know, please feel free to add a comment or two.
RX-75 Guntank
Oh dear, you know there is going to be trouble when you do a soft plastic Guntank figure. As technology has improved over the years Bandai now often adds rigid plastic components for special troublesome parts like these barrels. I usually do not mind bent figures that much but even I have my limits. Poor effort! Notice how the alternate colour variation is masquerading as the mass-production type Guntank from the
The 08th MS Team series.
Both the Gundam and the Guntank come with a little Hover Truck sidekick. While the vehicle looks a bit like a pancake it at least sports a fully rotating gun turret and can be a useful little companion for your 1/400 Gundam Collection figures too.
I am not aware of there being any rare second colour variation of the Guntank figure. However it is worth pointing out that a proper Mass Production Type Guntank eventually appeared in Gsight VII. As can be seen here that figure is a complete resculpt and has the longer gunbarrels (a green variant of that figure also exists).
MS-09 Dom
The next figure is in direct contrast to the bendy Guntank. This large Dom is looking very much ready for business although we can spot some machines a bit unsteady on their feet. It should be pointed out also that the legs are attached with round pegs to the torso and so can be rotated which will sometimes straighten out a seasick looking pilot. The figures also feature swiveling pegs at the shoulders and elbows and often the heads too. You may have to apply a bit of force when rotating a component for the first time, just be careful not to twist the plastic.
I bet you have never seen a light blue Dom before. Me neither, but I really dig it. It is perhaps a bit surprising that Bandai didn't choose to go with a more classic variant colour scheme like the pale violet we usually see or perhaps that precious light green style of the Rick Dom glimpsed in the Libot Colony Attack scene in War in the Pocket. To this day, the only related figure I have ever seen rocking that pattern is a 1/400 figure from the Zeon starter set for the Gundam Collection miniatures game.
Here we have the sporting a sandy colour variation. I find it really weird that Bandai would make the desert themed suits so rare but then again, perhaps they were never expected to sell a whole lot beyond the first edition anyway. These are certainly scarce and I only have a single item of most of these "hidden" colour variations.
The Dom figure comes with a rather large tent on a sandy and bendy rock strewn campsite. These are perfect army camp markers in so many types of games. Notice how the tent that comes with the sand coloured Dom is dark brown rather than olive green. I haven't seen any colour variations of the other buildings in this set, or the Hover Truck for that matter.
MS-06F-2 Zaku II Type F2
We have two different types of Zaku II in this set. The first is the refined F2 type which can easily proxy as your basic Zaku II if you need it to. Due to the figure being very slim and having small feet it is very unsteady and you will have to find that perfect balance by swiveling its legs into a workable pose. Forget about posing this guy on nothing but a flat surface. For wargaming purposes you'll want to do some sort of custom base for it for sure.
The figure is available in classic Zeon green as well as a darker brown. The figure comes with a static defense turret which rotates freely 360 degrees. If you look closely you can see that the designers took real care to sculpt windows and even an entry door on the building, the figures might be soft but they are really detailed.
The third colour variant for the Zaku F2 is a stylish light blue that looks great with the grey and navy blue detail on its torso. It seems figures typically vary between green, brown and light blue although there are other crazy examples in the Gsight family.
MS-06J Zaku II Ground Type
The other Zaku figure is a ground type variant armed with leg missile pods. I am not entirely happy about it (or the Ground Type Gundam for that matter) being available in a kneeling pose only. I would have preferred if the same suit type had been available in two different poses instead. Still, Gsight has you covered there with different MS-06J and RX-79[G] figures available in the other waves with different weapons and poses. Man, imagine if this series would have been allowed to continue its run for another year or two, the possibilites were endless.
The Ground Type Zaku II takes cover behind a large hangar building (which is just a little bit bigger than the tent...) which is another immensely useful wargaming piece. Gsight III easily has the best building options out of the entire series.
Once again our rare colour variant is sand-coloured, although this one is very pale compared to the others. Somehow I have managed to pick up a couple of these, but none of them came with differently coloured hangar buildings as was the case with the tent bundled with the Dom.
HT-01B Magella Attack Tank
Lastly we have the odd but iconic flying tank of Zeon. Equally useless on land or in air perhaps but very stylish. I am particularly fond of the sand coloured variation, too bad the discontinued MicroWars line didn't see an official sand colour variant before that series folded.
Three out of six figures in this set come with Hover Trucks and so you will end up with half a dozen of them in a single box. Neat! These are also perfect for wargaming, acting as generic infantry or APC unit markers on a map for example.
Blink and you miss it. There green Magella tank has two different colour variations, the unusual variant has bright blue, almost green, cockpit glass and a different tone of green around the cockpit and the fin. Again, I call these the unusual or hidden variants simply because I have plenty of the other two styles that came out of all the boxes I have so far opened. There is of course a chance that the boxes I have come across are mostly overstock and so might seem more common than they actually were in Japan at the time.
A single box of Gsight III really gives you everything you need for a miniatures wargame except a ruleset. As far as I know there are no official half-baked or otherwise rules to accompany these miniatures but you could adapt rules from your favourite wargame. The Gundam Collection 1/400 game is the first that comes to mind (you can find the rules through its dedicated Facebook fan group) but it shouldn't be too hard to stir things up tweaking your favourite game to accompany Gundam themed battles. Personally I would look into using the Dust 1947 system and field mobile suits in squads.
The E.F.F. will have to make use of every single Hover truck to withstand the pressure of the Zeonic aggressors. But the suits on hand are Ground Type Gundams after all and should be able to bring the hurt to a couple of Zakus. The Doms on the other hand...
Gsight in general is a damned fine figure series and I think that this set represents its peak, simply due to the versatile amount of units you can find in here. When you continue to flesh it out with forests, hills and ruined cities as well as additional Zeon and E.F.F. forces it becomes really enjoyable. It is a shame that many of the figures are hard to come by these days. Have you ever dreamed that you were in Japan and walked into a store and found loads of rare Gundam toys? I know I have...
