The summer is winding down and cooler air rolls in under heavy clouds. The relative drought of new releases will start to subside as the autumn schedule begins picking up the pace. Having said that I don't think that there are a whole lot of exciting releases on the near horizon. Today we are looking at one of the releases from the summer season that popped up as an arcade prize item back in June.
Yes, it is another entry in the low-cost Glitter x Glamours series released by Bandai Namco through its Banpresto brand. This being a prize item we can also spot the usual Japan Amusement Industry Association logo in the corner of the box. I may have gone a bit overboard with the colour saturation in these images but the box art is really lively and the flowery backgrounds on the top and bottom covers are something that really stands out on the GxG brand releases.
The box is the usual waste of space that we have come to expect from the GxG releases, if you like the box you can store a lot of smaller figurines inside it, or why not cram in a couple of extra GxG figures in there, pretty sure you should be able to fit another two in there without issue.
You know how it is, summer season is fan service-season and every Gacha game worth its salt will be churning out swimsuit alternative art of its most popular characters. Bandai does the same here but is content to recycle an older figure and slap a new colour theme on it. The figure stands fairly stable even though it has a small footprint and only a small support piece clipped to one of its ankles. Just like with the previous incarnation of this figure I think the main issue is that the support piece is of the same colour as the leg, a transparent piece would have looked better but I assumed this is a cost-saving decision.
I think you know what to expect from this low-cost but fairly high-definition brand at this point. Sure, you don't get a lot of fancy translucent effect parts or optional arms and heads but the designers really nail the character likeness to a tee with these Clyne releases. The printed eyes and sculpting of the hair is really on point although I think they have been a bit frivolous and over the top in the anatomy department, anything to sell merch to thirsty fans I guess. When it comes to a character like Lacus I would expect a certain level of class which is stretched really thin here.
The original white colour version of this figure was released less than a year earlier, in July 2024. It was the first in a string of Lacus-releases in GxG as Bandai tried to capitalize on SEED Freedom as much as it could.
While the two boxes have a lot in common the new black colour version has introduced some minor changes, ditching the horizontal side of the box (which made for a really good review banner...) and moved the barcode to the bottom of the box instead.
Side-by-side reveals that there are no spectacular changes here, but it looks like both the hair and Haro's colour have changed slightly between the two releases, the new figure having slightly darker hair and a more purple tone on Haro. I think it would have been nice to replace Pink Haro with one of the other annoying little suckers, orange for example. On a completely different note, this reminds me of the great scene in Seen and Unseen when Siegel Clyne learns of Patrick Zala's betrayal.
I think Bandai might be done with their GxG Lacus Clyne releases now, unfortunately SEED Freedom didn't lead to a string of new figure releases. We had a couple of the usual suspects, Kira and Athrun and the Hawke sisters. A big yawn there.
Recycling this image as a reminder; here are the three previous Lacus figures from the GxG family. The original suit version (titled simply "Lacus Clyne") from July 2024, the Pilot Suit version from February 2025 and the Racing version figure from March 2025. They really captured lightning in a bottle with the pilot suit version figure, it is the only one you really need.
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