Mobiru suitu surprisu!

From time to time I like to ponder on thougts like "What if Bandai were to bring back the SD Full Color series today, would it stand a chance?" or "Which ten never-before-seen mobile suits would I select for production if Gundam Collection 1/400 came back to life for a jubilee release?"


While the Gundam Gashapon experience has been on a rather steep decline in the past couple of years the collectibles thing itself seems to be doing rather well. On my frequent trips to Bangkok I have seen in recent years how the Gashapon phenomenon has blown up and entered the mainstream; specialized stores are popping up in shopping malls selling expensive blind box stuff from China, take Pop Mart for example. These stores often resort to queueing lines limiting the amount of customers who can browse the shelves simultaneously.


So yes, the collectibles market is surviving and Sunrise keeps releasing new Mobile Suit Gundam series (although they seem to drift farther and farther away from the origin). For some reason though, we have no SD figures in production and the Shokugan corner for prepainted figures is pretty much carried by Gundam Converge. I don't think Ensemble, Gframe or Mobility Joint compete in the same niche since they aren't really figures but lower complexity model kits. I don't really want to build blocky kits with pieces that keep falling off or stickers that peel off in a year or two, I want fully painted and pre-posed miniatures like every other franchise seems to be able to supply. Instead, Bandai continues the trend of releasing half-hearted stuff, the last of which has to be the new Choco-Capsule Surprise. I mean, really... this is what we are doing now? Unpainted Kinder-surprises?


The first (and possibly only) volume was just announced for release next summer and as you can see it is a 45th Anniversary-jubilee set featuring the usual suspects form the original television series. The buildable Mini Kit Collection series from 2016 comes to mind as the most similar product. That range at least contained many unique and never before seen mobile suites, ships and mobile armors - here it is just a rehash of things you have seen so many times before. I don't see a single figure in here that piques my interest. Release is in july and recommended prices is 350 yen plus tax.


In other news, the full set of Converge #27 is also announced for June next year. I'm really looking forward to the Gelgoog Cannon but the rest of the set seems a bit ho-hum in my opinion. Did we really need a Char's Zaku in High Mobility form or Johnny Ridden sporting a shoulder cannon? How about doing Garma Zabi or Gabby Hazard instead? And don't get me started on that Evangelion-hybrid thing...


What else? Well, if you have been pining over a crossover with the Hatsune Miku vocaloid you can look forward to a set of badges to be released in May. Mobility Joint Gundam also keeps soldiering on and will release its ninth regular set in March, this time themed around Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. The set features zero mass production suits which is a real bummer but I am ready to forgive if volume ten comes out with a Hi-zack, Marasai, Gabthley and Galbaldy-Beta... Apologies by the way for a long delay in getting reviews out for the MJ series, I have an enormous backlog of figures to assemble. I keep telling Bandai I want prepainted figures ready out of the box but they just don't seem to listen. :)

Bandai Spirits / Banpresto Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom : Lunamaria x Meyrin

The Banpresto SEED Freedom prize figure series was launched by a trio of Kira, Lacus and Athrun in early 2024 and here come the to follow-up figures of the Hawke-sisters, released in late spring/early summer. No further characters are planned as far as I know, so it sucks to be Shinn or Cagalli or any of the new lot for that matter. Everything feels rather uninspired to say the least.


The box art follows the same style as see on the previous three releases, except that the camera has zoomed in a bit on the character portraits on the sides.


If you are familiar with the previous Banpresto prize figures there are no news here. The box size is fairly compact and doesn't leave a lot of empty space like say how the Bandai Glitter x Glamours figures love to waste space. Assembly is a simple affair and those same old circular bases make their return which means you will not be able to pose the two figures together like, you know, on the box cover?


Here we have the sisters with their enormous bases, these footprints prevent any interesting poses and the two can barely fit in a photo. Forget doing any interesting poses with the entire cast unless you go out of your way to create custom bases with foot supports because these figures have no hope of standing upright by themselves.


I thought SEED Destiny was creatively bankrupt and Freedom is clearly drinking from that same well. The character design evolutions from the previous show are really uninspired and at a single glance you will be hard-pressed to determine what show this figure belongs to. I can't fault the figure sculpt or painting for this obviously but the whole thing is just a bit underwhelming when you consider that this energy could have been spent on a brand new character instead. Well, the Compass insignia on the right shoulder looks neat I guess...


Now, I still haven't watched Freedom but this strikes me as a really boring choice of outfit, couldn't she have got that cool flight suit instead? The lame pose doesn't help either and mostly reminds of early SEED Destiny Meyrin where she ran around on the Minerva like a frightened mouse. The hairstyle reminds me of the "wet-look" of the 1980s, only the denim jacket is missing. This figure is a completely underwhelming in my opinion.


My studio isn't big enough for the full ensemble display but here are the five boxes together instead... Overall I was not terribly impressed with any of the Banpresto SEED Freedom figures but they are nicely sculpted and painted at least. In the future I would prefer to see smaller figures with less obstructing bases and with a wider range of characters. Surely no one really needs another Lacus or Lunamaria figure for a while?

Bandai Carddass BattleSpirits Collaboration Starters

I am always on the lookout for more Gundam-themed official artwork and so this quest also covers various Gundam-themed card games. The turn today has come to the multi-IP card-dueller BattleSpirits premiered by Bandai and Sunrise in 2008. More specifically, I had the opportunity to purchase the three "Operation" starters you see on display below, numbered 52, 53 and 54 respectively. This should give us a fair idea of the scope of this game, where Mobile Suit Gundam can simply be considered a bit of a guest appearance. The three starters were released in March 2020 and I have only ever encountered them this one time.


As you can see we have three distinct eras to pick from, the Cosmic Era of SEED, the Anno Domini-timeline of MSG 00 or the Universal Century in the Unicorn phase. I am really liking the artwork on display here and I was curious about what to find inside. Let's crack them open!




SD52 : Operation SEED


Starting in numerical sequence then with the Operation SEED package we find the following inside: A pre-assembled deck of 43 cards, a handful of blue tokens plus a larger five-sided one (these are cores and a soul core I am informed), a play area slash rules-sheet and a quick reference sheet showing which card classes the various cards belong to.


The play area is printed in dull greyscale and sports a turn of play-sequence on it as well as a deeper full-colour introduction of the rules on the flipside. I would wager you can find these online because it would be a bit annoying having to table-flip each time you want to reference the rules.


Here is a closer look at the different cards found in the box. It is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be. We have Athrun and Kira with a couple of the G-project mobile suits joining in. The top five card-types are full-foil while the rest have a plain finish to them. The iconography is really a mess and the card colours not entirely obvious at first glance but there you go. Judging from the card numbers the cards found in the box appear to be unique to this particular starter with the exception of the Lacus-card which seems to be pulled from a traditional random booster series of cards. A companion set of 86 different cards was released in 6-pack booster packs (released in May 2020) but I have yet to ever come across such a pack unfortunately.




SD53 : Operation 00


The contents of the 00-package mirrors the set-up seen in the previous box, although the exact configuration in regard to card types and distribution is a little bit different. Here the focus of course is on the four classic Celestial Being machines - the Exia, Dynames, Kyrios and Virtue - and their pilots. We even have a pop-up appearance of the Gundam Nadleeh.






SD54 : Operation UC


Lastly, we have the Unicorn-set which features the Unicorn pair and a surprisingly large number of mass-production type suits, making this set the most interesting out of the three in my opinion. Other aspects of the box contents mimic the previous two boxes, I assume these are fairly well balanced against each other from a gameplay point of view.






The three card lists with the different card rarities can at the time of writing be explored in greater detail on the BattleSpirits site here. Can't say I understand the whole thing about placing different rarities on cards in a fixed starter however.


A quick comparison of the BattleSpirits card-size compared to some of the similar Gundam-themed card games and collectibles out there. From left to right we have Gundam CrossWar, Cardbuilder UC, Gundam TryAge, BattleSpirits, the classic Gundam War, Gundam War NEX-A and Duel Company.


If you are interested in exploring this series further, here are some useful links to other sets released with a Gundam-theme:

[CB13] Collaboration Booster Gundam Fighters of the Universe (2020-05-30)
[CB16] Gundam Collaboration Booster Iron Flower's Battlefield (2021-02-27)
[CB25] Collaboration Booster Pack Gundam The Witch from Mercury (2022-11-26)
[CB27] Collaboration Booster Pack Gundam The Witch’s Awakening (2023-03-25)
[CB29] Collaboration Booster Pack Gundam -The Witch’s fate- (2023-12-16)
[CBX01] Collaboration Booster EX Gundam -DESTINY And FREEDOM- (2024-02-03)



All in all, I don't think it is worth the hassle for Gundam card-collectors to bother seeking out the BattleSpirits decks. Pretty much everything we see here has also been released in other games. The card designs are great though if a bit artistically hodge-podge as the basic card-aesthetic doesn't necessarily lend itself that well into the mech battle theme in my opinion. Perhaps save your money for that elusive Gundam War Dramatic Starter pack instead.

Gashapon HG Mobile Suit Selection 35

Today we will power through another of the legacy Gashapon HG figure sets, this one from December 2004, nearly 20 years ago on the dot. The set was coming out on the very late tail end of the Gashapon HG saga and is noteworthy in that it only contains mobile suits picked from the SEED Destiny show which was running at the time. The current episode would likely be somewhere around 10 which is also when the Saviour made its first appearance in the television series.


Being late era Gashapon figures the attention to detail here is pretty meticulous and you can get an idea of the figure complexity from the above parts breakdown. As usual, the figures can be picked apart even further, this is how they appeared when they came out of their original plastic bags for the first time.



ZGMF-X56S/α Force Impulse Gundam


I am not a huge fan of the derivative Force Impulse design in general but this figure is absolutely killing it. The attention to detail is excellent and the pose is superb. As usual with finned type mobile suits you can expect to have to deal with a bit of plastic warping here and there, some figures will be better off than others, it is all pretty random.


The figure has a couple of gimmicks to it. The first is that the Force Silhouette backpack is removable and in its place you get this small blue backpack that attaches in its place, effectively converting the figure to the basic Impulse Gundam form. We also get this all-white colour Force Silhouette Flyer which is screaming for some colour apps and a peg hole to make it compatible with the standard Gashapon HG action base. I guess they tried.


The Force Impulse had a really random re-appearance in the single set of figures known as "Ultimate Solid", released in November 2008. The new figure has a fairly advanced, weathered paintjob and also sports a new exclusive accessory, an enormous Excalibur sword (full review here).






ZGMF-X88S Gaia Gundam


Next up we have the trio of Z.A.F.T. experimental suits that just so happens to look very similar to the second generation Earth Alliance machines from SEED, all down to being piloted by a similar troika of deranged pilots. The first challenger is the black Gaia which is highly reminiscent of the original Raider Gundam but this time it transforms into a black panther instead of a bird of prey. This figure of course has no transformational features about it and there also isn't any mobile armor mode variant available in this Gashapon series. The closest match you can find is an old 2006 SEED Styling-S figure of its four-legged mode. I was going to post up a comparison photo of it here but I couldn't figure out where I kept it so it may come up later. :) All-in-all this figure looks really crisp but its features include several thing and long parts that may require straightening out.






ZGMF-X24S Chaos Gundam


The Chaos is next with its beautiful green, black and white colour profile. Its aesthetics are vaguely similar to the old Calamity Gundam but it now sports a new backpack with two remote weapon pods of the same type as seen on the Moebius Zero piloted by Mu La Flaga. I have never seen a figure that can transform into its weird looking mobile armor form - which is somewhat similar to the Aegis Gundam - you may have to grab an actual model kit to access that mode.






ZGMF-X31S Abyss Gundam


The Abyss finally is your big-shouldered submersible Destiny look-alike of the Forbidden Gundam, replacing the Forbidden's large angled shoulder pads with sleeker rounded Qubeley-like shoulder binders. The close-combat aspect of the Nidhoggr Scythe is similarly replaced by a large Beam Lance. Like its brethren the Abyss can transform into an Asshimar-like mobile armor but and again I am not aware of any figure that represents this mode.


The full Phantom Pain-piloted trio side by side. Seen here without their large plastic supports that clip to the back of the legs these figures don't always cooperate willingly but you should be able to display them without supports for the most part.






ZGMF-X23S Saviour Gundam


Finally we have the fifth of the Z.A.F.T Second Stage mobile suits, the Saviour in a somewhat leaning pose. The colour feels a bit too pink compared to the original but the colour apps are on point for the most part with just enough whites and blacks to break up the red. Crazy spread out poses like these mean these Gashapon figures can be a bit of a pain to store unless you want to disassemble them, at least partially.






ZGMF-1000 ZAKU Warrior (Lunamaria Custom)


The last two slots in this set are given to a couple of variants of the ZAKU Warrior, the Cosmic-era rip-off of the Zaku II. While this is overall a really cool design I'll never be able to come to terms with how they just lifted in the Zaku II, Dom and Gouf into Destiny. SEED Freedom continues this creative bankruptcy with variants of the Gelgoog, Gyan and Z'Gok. I mean what the hell..? Anyway, the figure has a couple of neat posing tricks available to it. The figure comes with two optional right arms, one with the elbow bent at a sharper angle. This makes more sense when we compare Luna's machine to the mass-production type below.






ZGMF-1000 ZAKU Warrior


The mass-production type figure is a simple colour swap of the red version but it also replaces the Beam Tomahawk-equipped right-hand with that of a Beam Assault Rifle-holding one. While you need to get both figures to access both weapons this opens up some interesting posing variations. Notice by the way the two peg holes on the flipside of the shoulder shield. These are intended for storing spare ammunition-drums for the machine gun, although no such accessories are included. I don't know why these are not present, maybe a late change to cut on production costs?


Here we can see a trio of ZAKU Warriors utilizing the different weapon options and also right-arm variations. One of the more interesting design choices in this Gashapon-line I think and I wish more figures had synergies like these.






Conclusion

Overall, this set is an auto-include for any Cosmic Era collectors but most Universal Century-aficionados will probably just want to focus their resources somewhere else. Gashapon HG figures are not that easy to come by these days but from a price point of view this set shouldn't set you back that much. Last time I bought a set was in 2021 and it cost only ¥800 so maybe around ¥1500 or so today (provided you can find it of course).