I miss the old days of cheap mass-produced Gashapon figures. Nowadays that market segment continues to split up into two branches - On one side we have semi-painted model kit style-figures like Gframe and Ensemble and on the other hand full on premium pre-painted product. Todays item decidedly sits in that second category. Delivered to its preorder customers in June 2023 this two figure limited release had another one of those hefty price tags: ¥7700. So yeah, have fun with that.
With the string of Suletta figures appearing on the blog recently you may be forgiven for thinking I am the hugest Witch of Mercury fan out there, but I haven't even watched the series beyond that first teaser that dropped in early 2022. It just so happens that these two characters are making up the majority of Gundam themed releases at the moment, milked to high heaven by pretty much each and every brand out there with a complete dearth of other releases. I really like figures in this size range and it is a shame the market cannot support extended ranges of mobile suit pilots in flight suits for example.
When Gasha Portraits started out as cheap to mid-range capsule toy brand in 2017 the figures had a rather high susceptibility for parts warping due to the questionable idea of placing long soft plastic components inside cramped balls. It got better with time and with the P-Bandai products you get harder plastic packaged in specially designed blisters so you should be all covered here. The figures even have little plastic bags to be wrapped around the flowing hair to keep the parts from mixing up and rubbing off paint on each other, something you normally see on much larger figures only. Gasha Portraits figures are unarticulated but sometimes come with option pieces such as a different right arm pose, but these are 100% static.
Premium product or not, Gasha Portraits figures are usually really well painted and the quality is upped even further with the limited releases. Look at all those beautiful details and insignias. Unlike Gundam Converge (even its premium range), I have never seen a Gashapon figure allowed to ship with obvious smudges or stains, whatever Bandai is doing with the Gasha Portraits brand has a higher threshold of quality approval. Perhaps this comes down to different printing and painting techniques, or the plastics used, but I can't think of a single reasons why Converge is allowed to fail regularly when other brands are not.
Technical detail aside, the character likeness is as you can see on point. There has been a string of figure releases of this duo in all sorts of sizes, shapes and brands but almost all of them are decidedly premium product, which is a stark reminder that the market for prepainted figures is - in spite of the continuous evolution - in a rather rough spot.
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