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. :)
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