Gundam Converge SP 10 : Impulse Gundam Silhouette Set

It has been out now for a couple of months, released back in January with a price tag of ¥4900 (¥5390 incl. VAT) the price has been steadily climbing on the secondary market. The last item I saw sold on Mandarake was already up at ¥7000. This isn't just organic market value increases as their overall prices have gone up significantly for many categories of collectable toys in the last couple of years.


The Impulse Gundam set is a bit of an odd release. If you are a Converge veteran you remember the SP-series of releases from the era before the #Sharp reboot in 2016. Apart from the occasional promotional release the SP-series was the first and only premium alternative to the retail single-figure releases and would contain a pair of rival mobile suits such as the Sinanju vs the Unicorn, Zeta vs The-O or even Exia vs. the Union Flag. The last release -SP 08- came out at the tail-end of the first generation of Converge-figures and was then replaced by bigger and/or fancier box-sets from the EX- and CORE-series.

After an eight-year hiatus the SP-brand was brought back just in time for SEED Freedom with a triple-pack that reissues the two older SP 08-figures bundled with the #Sharp version of the Freedom Gundam. SP 10 however, is the first entry in the series that is not based on the old Converge-anatomy and instead features completely new sculpts and uses base-plates instead of the old transparent supports that clip to the ankles on the older figures. This entire paragraph is a very longwinded way of saying that this should really have been marketed as a CORE product. :)


Anyway, branding be damned, what we have inside the (rather flimsy) box is a set of compartmentalized plastic bags with an extra layer of bubble-wrap for protection. The use of white cardboard sheets to help protect delicate parts from warping doesn't work very well when each compartment is twice as high as the piece of cardboard, and as a result this doesn't offer much protection at all. It is just Bandai doing Bandai things I suppose.



ZGMF-X56S Impulse Gundam


This set is focused all around the incredibly bland Impulse Gundam design, which recycles the concept of the very popular Strike Gundam once again in the SEED Destiny show. Destiny was full of lazy rehashes on the original series but this one feels particularly uninspired to me. The Converge figure on the other hand feels very inspired and is looking really sharp with nice paint applications all around. There is something new about the eyes, they really glow with a bright green light when you look at it. The main gimmick of the Impulse is that it can transform into various forms suspiciously similar to the three forms of the Strike Gundam. Thanks to the colour of its armour shifting along with each forms Bandai couldn't just toss in a couple of option parts and instead went the extra mile to provide us with three distinctly coloured figures which is of course the main appeal of the set. Each form looks quite different and sports its own unique colour scheme. let's go through them below.





ZGMF-X56S/α Force Impulse Gundam


We'll start with the Force Impulse form which utilizes a flight pack veeeerry similar to the Aile Striker pack used by the Strike Gundam. You just remove the tiny blue backpack on the Impulse Gundam and put the Force Silhouette Pack in its place. There are no special gimmicks of the flight pack as such, the horizontal stabilizers do not move but the vertical thrusters can be adjusted up and down. The two beam saber hilts are not intended to be removed (and there are also no beam saber accessories for the figure).


As you can see, the Impulse Gundam figures are very traditional Converge figures with only a few pieces requiring assembly. The flight pack comes folded up and needs a bit of repositioning to get the thrusters in the correct position, assembly instructions are provided online in the form of a pdf-document that you can find by following the link printed on the box cover. The figure comes armed with its standard MA-BAR72 beam rifle, in fact each figure gets its own copy of the rifle so you don't need to decide who is going to use it.


Since the 2016 Converge reboot which also increased the standardized box-size the figures have also grown larger. The new Impulse Gundam however doesn't really align to the #Sharp aesthetic all that well, the figure is taller and slimmer, the head is proportionally smaller and the wings are longer. Here it stands next to the #Sharp Aile Strike Gundam from Converge from 2020 and the difference is very notable. I am not a fan of Bandai constantly messing with the relative sizes of Converge figures; the first generation figures upheld a standard and now the figures are just all over the place.


The Force Impulse also made it into Mobile Suit Ensemble Part 24 released in April 2023 (has it really been two years already?). The Ensemble Impulse shares some of the features (or in my opinion problems) of the Converge Impulse; smaller head, taller body and proportions that don't align with the average Ensemble figure.






ZGMF-X56S/β Sword Impulse Gundam


Next up is the close-combat form of the Impulse; when donning its beta Sword Silhouette-pack the Phase Shift Armor turns red instead of blue (except the feet that turn black for some reason. Don't sweat the details here -rule of cool applies). I always liked this mode the most because of its colours (we really don't need more white and blue Gundams in any franchise at this point). When presented with its two anti-ship rifles secured to the Sword Silhouette backpack the figure looks weirdly narrow for some reason, especially when compared to the older #Sharp-era figures that tend to have broader looking shoulders and a wider stance of the legs. I think the red beam boomerang-assembly on the back could also have benefitted from being a bit wider. The two swords are attached to the backpack with eight-shaped connector pieces that allow all sorts of rotation to take place and also consequently make it harder to align the them symmetrically so have fun with that.


Besides the standardized beam rifle and a smaller version of the shield the Sword Impulse gets a number of different variants of its two Excalibur-swords. Besides two powered down pieces intended for backpack use only we also have a pair with hands molded directly onto them as well as the signature ambidextrous form where the two combine but attaches to the right hand only.


Excalibur-blades equipped for single-handed use. The narrow shape of the figure leaves little room for interesting swinging poses, perhaps if the sculpt of the arms had been extended outward a little we could have seen more freedom of movement.


This awkward dual-handed pose with the two swords combined is actually suggested in the assembly instruction booklet. Of course in their photo the angle chosen from slightly above made it look more convincing. It would of course be impossible for a Converge figure to wield a dual handed accessory without including customized-arms specifically for such use but Converge figures have never been about striking fancy poses and so this is the functionality on offer based on the overall Converge anatomy.


Personally I prefer this relaxed pose with the blade casually held to the back. I wouldn't want to go into combat with such an unwieldy weapon and as the saying goes; never bring a dual-handed blade to a beam rifle fight. Notice how the handle that the figure holds on to is painted metallic grey, I guess this is a manufacturing compromise rather than what it is actually supposed to look like and it comes off a bit odd with the other handle painted white. Still, this looks really cool. :)






ZGMF-X56S/γ Blast Impulse Gundam


Third and last form included in this set is the long-range fire-support form that dons the Blast Silhouette Pack that changes the suit's colour scheme to green. The two Kerberos-type beam cannons are the stars of the shows here and have been attractively and competently painted in white, black, green and an orangey-type red (someone looked at the Buster Gundam and felt very inspired). The overall weapon design is a bit quirky like something out of F91 but I really dig this livery and I don't understand why there aren't more green Gundams around as they tend to look great.


Parts-wise we recognize the beam rifle and the small shield from earlier; the large Blast Silhouette Pack takes up the most space but hold on, what is that thing; a spear with a beam effect part on top of it? This really goes counter to the long-range concept of the design. If you have to fend of enemies from your artillery deployment zone with a stick you are doing something wrong.


The two M2000F Kerberos long range beam cannons sit on similar eight-shaped connecting pieces as the swords on the Sword Impulse Gundam and this allows you to swing them forward in a way underneath the arms. Again the limitations of the standardized Converge anatomy present obvious issues with striking a cool pose but hey, at least the novelty works.


Each Kerberos cannon sports a quadruple FMF39 missile launcher at the rear end and these can swing forward to spray the enemy with a lethal dose of AGM141 Firefly guided missiles. It seems a little inconvenient not to have all weapons face the same direction so you have to plan ahead before letting loose. Everything is so much easier when you can animate things in 2D isn't it?


I didn't even remember seeing the Blast Impulse swinging a beam javelin around in Destiny but you have the option of replacing its vanilla beam rifle with a cool looking accessory featuring a transparent effect part so of course I hurried to make use of it. All things considered the Blast Impulse style is all over the place but the figure turned out great I think.






MVF-X08 Eclipse Gundam


Just a quick note also to mention that the Silhouette Packs were designed to be compatible with the number Eclipse Gundam (figure number 300 from Converge #26). Personally I don't think this makes sense at all, the mobile suits are completely different designs and look nothing like each other, this is akin to putting the Sazabi's funnel packs on a GM. Personally I think the entire Eclipse Gundam design does not look like it would belong in the Cosmic Era timeline in the first place but that is just a personal preference. I certainly won't be picking up a second pack and a couple of extra Eclipse figures just to have each of these modes represented in the collection.




Conclusion

Wrapping things up I would begin to say that Converge seems to have lost a bit of steam in recent months but the releases that do make it to the shelves are generally very pleasant and this is certainly no exception. If you can stomach the price there is a lot to like in this package and it is not like we are drowning in new Converge releases to purchase either. I am starting to feel a bit concerned about the slowdown that has hit both Converge and Ensemble, do you think we will make it to volume #30? In either series?

Gundam Converge SB 07 : SCVA-76 Nahel Argama (Unicorn ver.)

I haven't built any new figures in ages and the pile of shame is really building up an intimidating backlog at this point. What better action then, than to ignore that perilous stack and open up the latest entry into the Converge SB-series instead? Hot on the heels of the review of the fifth vessel the turn has now come to SB07 which revisits the Nahel Argama once again, however now with the twist of it being altered into its Mobile Suit Gundam UC appearance. As with the previous SB-released this is a P-Bandai product only, and shipped in April 2025. The original price-tag was ¥4900 (or 5390 including VAT). A cursory inspection over at Mandarake show two units in stock at the moment this review is being published, at the same fairly decent price of ¥5000 that I got my own copy for. I would expect this price to rise after the initial wave subsides.


I like the stylish and slightly intimidating angle chosen for the front cover photo. Of course it would have been even nicer if it was full-colour, but perhaps they are keeping that for the inevitable "final episode" version of the ship with a broken off flight deck. I'm 100% sure they developed a prototype already, whether it will make it into an actual product or not - I guess we'll see.


The new Nahel Argama box is pretty much the same size as the previous version that was released in October 2023. This is the fourth version of an Argama-class vessel released in this series and I am really starting to feel a certain fatigue creep in. With so many interesting ships to choose from why do we always have to get the same old boring white family of ships that pretty much all look the same?


The ship is well protected by three additional layers of packaging. Besides the compartmentalized plastic bags everything is also wrapped in a bubble bag and the box is lined by additional supporting thick cardboard.


The Nahel Argama is a really clean build with shaped and differently sized pegs helping you along the way. Unlike the White Base there are no sprues with components to deal with and there is only a single option part so you'll have her assembled in a hot minute.


Man, what a clean and crisp look! The figure looks absolutely fantastic and the muted colours gives the model a realistic feel to it. This being a hard plastic model you will encounter some obvious seam lines in places that may bother a pedantic eye. Paint applications are sometimes a cause for concern with Converge mobile suit figures but I haven't encountered any nasty issues in the SB series so far and this figure is looking nice and clean.


There is only a single gimmick to the Nahel Argama figure, two option parts for the large Hyper Mega Particle Cannon are provided and you can swap them out to change between the extended and stowed modes of the weapon. It would have been really awesome if this was a movable part but you don't really see it for most of the time anyway. The real elephant in the room is of course the lack of a damaged port-side flight-deck. This ship has been released with the missing flight deck several times already and my guess is that the team at Bandai are holding it back for a possible second release further down the SB-line (provided the series keeps going of course, I am yet to see or hear any announcement for SB08...).


The original Converge SB Nahel Argama figure came with tiny figurines representing the FXA-08R Mega Rider and the ZZ Gundam's FXA-07GB Core Fighter and this time we instead get a single D-50C Loto transformed into tank mode. I have to say it would have been nice to get something more than a single Loto, it feels a bit stingy.


I didn't really think about just how much that has changed between the Nahel Argama in Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam and Unicorn respectively, this side-by-side view shows just how many modifications the designers had to do. In this light I must say the Bandai crew did an awesome job, and the very different colour palettes clearly represent the very different feel that each show had; quirky and colourful in Double Zeta and more toned down and realistic in Unicorn. Personally I think the new version blows the older figure out of the water and it would be the version to choose if I had to limit myself to just a single figure.

Gundam Converge SB 05 : SCV-70 White Base (Theater Poster Colour Image Ver.)

The Converge Space Battleship-subseries is nearing its 4th anniversary later this summer and has since its inception in 2021 seen a total of seven released so far. However, when you take a closer look you will see that several hulls have already been revisited and slightly changed. Today's item is one such release, and easily the least inspired to date. On the plus-side, it makes the White Base available again since its original release in August 2021, but as well shall see, there is not much to be explored here for series veterans.


You probably remember last year's Movie Visual Selection figure set. It reintroduced several of the classic U.C. 0079 mobile suits in slight colour variations referred to as movie poster colour editions. Basically, when an official poster didn't use the exact same colour palette as the animation itself, that was enough justification to produce a figure! SB 05 came out on the side of that set and used the same excuse to reissue the White Base too. This was a Premium Bandai release that shipped in September and had an official price tag of ¥4500 (or ¥4950 with VAT).


The biggest impact of the new release is probably this larger full-colour box that looks really great. There is no practical reason for upping the box-size; the old box is perfectly functional also for storing the figure when not on display. There are no standardized box-sizes for the different ships, there are many different sizes in use already.


The figure is protected by an extra layer of bubble packaging, complete with a safety warning that you shouldn't climb into the bag and suffocate but dispose of it safely. Inside you find the typical Converge-style compartmentalized bags and of course also the mandatory chewing gum (at least if you are buying from the Japanese store).


The SB-series makes use of hard plastic for the most part and as you can see there is a bit of assembly to deal with as well. Several of the additional components are option parts and allow you to display the vessel in different configurations but there are no new gimmicks in place here; if you saw the original White Base figure everything will be instantly familiar to you.


Here we have the legged ship in its clean mode with all weapons ports and hangar bays neatly closed up. Are you feeling the spectacular vibe of the "poster image" palette? No? Me neither. The ship looks nice though, just as nice as it did back in its first version back in 2021. The base is still as uninspiring as all the ones that came before it in the SB-series. The ship sits on top of it with no pegs or clamps to secure it in place and it will easily be knocked off the base if you happen to nudge it. The fact that the different ships in this series also have quite different bases that also differ in height give it a bit of a hodgepodge vibe if you display ships next to each other.


Talking about the gimmicks for a second we have option parts for the forward batteries to deploy including the smaller fixed turrets and a larger dual cannon that can spin along the horizontal axis only.


Continuing to the sides we have the retractable Mega Particle batteries that pop out from the yellow circular ports. This is done by removing the yellow doors and re-attaching them into separate peg holes and then inserting the arm that holds a twin-cannon into its side. These guns again rotate along the horizontal axis only. The main action takes part in the forward hangar bay sections however. You can open up the doors for each bay and also remove the outer wall to have a look inside the main catapult and mobile suit docking arrangement. The kit even comes with movable little shackles that can move along the length of the launch catapult track but the fact that no mobile suits are provided is in my opinion an incredible oversight. Some of the later releases in the SB-series do come with simple one-colour miniatures of different mobile suits or vehicles and there really should have been a little red Guncannon figure with bent knees in here too. The fact that this wasn't rectified with this edition is a bit of a fail.


Are you feeling the hype of the movie-poster colour scheme? Can you even tell which figure is the original and which is the new variant? Get this new version of the White Base only if you missed out on the original since the difference is beyond negligible. There is also a huge price difference to consider - the original figure is currently rather hard to find and its list price over at Mandarake is twice that of this newer edition (maybe it might come down a little since there are now two of them).