Bandai SEGA Playstation PS2 Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo First edition Pre-Order Bonus

Now that I have featured the Gashapon HG range of mobile suits and mobile armors a little here on the blog it makes more sense to showcase another promo figure from that range. This time we have a cross-promotion pre-order item for one of the Playstation 2 Mobile Suit Gundam themed games - Journey to Jaburo - released in Japan on December 21, 2000.


As with so many other weird items I had no idea this even existed until I stumbled on it in the Mandarake webshop. Not an expensive item by any means (¥400), it can still be difficult to locate the lower price Gashapon figures online and your best bet is usually the specialized secondhand sector. I don't think there exists any particular packagng for the figure although Bandai were keen enough to print a simple booklet for promoting their own figure range it most likely just came bundled in the same box as your preordered PS2 game.


Looking into the simple single-colour book- or rater leaflet we don't learn a whole lot. Besides the booklet reusing the game's cover image we get the usual disclaimers and safety instructions as well as a little ad for a set of contemporary mass-produced Gashapon HG capsule figures. This is volume 17 the "Game Edition", thematically in line with the Battle of Jaburo with its line-up of Gundam and Guncannon on the Federation side and Zaku II Ground Type, Gouf, Z'Gok, Acguy and Dom dropping in to visit from Zeon.


The figure itself is a rather unremarkable transparent colour variant of one of the many RX-78s present in the line. As always with clear figurers of this type you may find that individual items may exhibit more or less yellowing of the plastic. The particular figure used in the review appears to have been kept away from the elements and is still in a reasonably pristine condition.


The clear figure is based on this figure from HGMS volume 17 which you can see advertized in the booklet, with a release date of December 2000. Not a whole lot more to say about this novelty item, but fun to catalogue it for completeness' sake.