Gashapon Senshi Zero: Another new brand enters the fray

A reader comment introduced me to Bandai Namco's latest effort in the string of Gashapon super-deformed format. The couple of centimetres tall charming compact figures with large heads have been around for more than 25 years at this point but the past decade have seen them gradually perish into obscurity. The producer of the Senshi Forte line did his best to keep that line going for as long as it could but it lived its life in the shadow of the axe due to its high production costs - especially for painting. I would also hazard a guess that the increased complexity of the figures - as more and more joints and articulations were introduced - may have had something to do with it. Personally, I would like to see the return of the old simplistic SD Gundam Full Color format with tiny but decently painted figures without any articulation if need be, there are so many Gundam series that have been released since those days to add to the line-up after all.

I guess you could say that the newly unveiled Gashapon Senshi Zero brand is scratching that itch to an extent. The figures are clearly a step down in complexity from their Senshi Fortre ancestors but look at that first line-up. Are you telling me there will be fifteen figures out of which only three will be fully-painted? What am I supposed to do with the other red and blue junk (some of which are also copies of the painted figures by the way)? I think it would have been more sensible to release a smaller but fully-painted set with higher individual prices - maybe with A- and B-version equipment to force customers to spend more of their hard-earned cash but hey, what do I know? Senshi Zero seems doomed to fail from the start. The series debuts in the Japanese Gashapon arcades in late March.


On another note Capsule Index is apparently finally getting its third volume this July. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty convinced the brand had been terminated already; there were two sets in July and November last year and all quiet since then. I wouldn't be surprised if the third set will be its last hurrah, Bandai often kills off a series after the initial three volumes. The line-up consists of the Xi Gundam (again?), the Gustav Karl Type 00, a Destiny Spec II (which is also everywhere right now) and the White Gundam from GQuuuuuuX. Not a terrible line-up but not particularly novel either.