Ever since the end of Gashapon Senshi Forte in 2022 there has been a real vacuum in the Gundam small PVC figure market. Sure, there is still Converge and Ensemble plodding along with a set or two each year among a plethora of expensive re-releases and premium products, but the Gashapon ¥300-500 range is really underserved. The market for Gashapon toys is certainly not dead, the thousands upon thousands of machines I spotted in Osaka alone proved that, but at the same time I'd estimate that less than 1% of the machines catered to the Gundam niche.
We have seen some half-hearted attempts at doing something new in the last couple of years but nothing really seems to stick. Today's item of scrutiny is also a one-off, but should be seen as a bit of light-hearted guest appearance into another established product line.
The Narabundesu product range is a gimmick Gashapon series releasing figures from various different IPs and the pitch is in the name; it literally translates to something like standing in a line. Basically the idea is, you feed the machine enough to get the full set and then display them together in some sort of interesting scene. I have no prior Narabundesu figures and don't expect to see any additional ones, I just mostly picked these up because I was bored of the lull in the small figure market.
Even so, picking these up on the secondary market is not easy. The set released in January and I managed to collect them all over a period of three months. You can see from the above image that most are resold capsule machine toys with the figure in the bottom left corner being a Premium Bandai preorder item from their Gashapon Online service.
MS-06S Zaku II (Char's Custom)
To no one's surprise, the team is lead by Char himself. The figure stands in a fairly relaxed pose with the Zaku Bazooka casually held under arm (in a pose you will never manage to get out of neither Converge or Ensemble...) and his attention is diverted somewhere to the right. The figure is made out of soft PVC and has no articulation. The paintjob is crisp and clean and the sculpting is just what you would expect. You will notice nub marks at the top of the heads of all of these figures, this was perhaps not the best design but overall it is a really minor complaint. This figure has everything I would like out of a Gashapon PVC Gundam figure but for some reason we have to make do with hard plastic mini-kits these days.
MS-06S Zaku II Commander Type
Next in line we have a regular commander taking the hand off the trigger to point something in the distance out. You'd think they have cameras and HUDs for these things but hey, the pose is great and perfect for setting up a little scene for the other figures to congregate around. The nub mark on this figure is probably the worst of the bunch, I may have to do something about it. I also considered painting the mouth filter black which is something I often do on the Ensemble counterparts but for some reason I don't really like tampering with pre-painted PVC figures like that.
MS-06F Zaku II (A)
There are three mass-production units in the fire team, figure "A" here has his Zaku Machine gun in the ready position in anticipation of any trouble. This figure is the most conventional looking of the bunch I suppose. I didn't point it out on the Char figure but the hand colour is separated nicely from the weapon handle. The trigger guard area is now hollow, something you often see on smaller Zaku figures although Converge sometimes surprises you but then the material is usually not PVC either.
MS-06F Zaku II (B)
Team Member "B" is deploying his Zaku Bazooka in a nice dual handed fashion that once again, would make any Converge or Ensemble figure blush with envy. It simply isn't possible for small articulated Gundam figures to hold their weapons in any interesting way which is why I prefer these pre-sculpted static type figures that are only limited by the artist's imagination. Rather than shipping a figure with multiple accessories I much prefer a group of different figures each equipping a different item as seen in this set. I refuse to believe that this would not be a successful set-up for a Gundam figure range. Imagine a group of GM Snipers in different poses with visors up and down for example.
MS-06F Zaku II (C)
Our last team member is kneeling down with his machine gun and you can also sport the leg-mounted missile pods that we usually see on Ground Type Zaku J-variant. The weapon seems a bit cumbersome to use, let's hope he has not fire-linked those two pods because a firing solution right now would cause him to get sooo much sand into the launcher. All of the figures in this set have a hollow section underneath their feet but for this figure the right foot really should have been filled up and had some detail applied into it. Still, this figure shows what is possible when you are working with statue type sculpts rather than fancy but ultimately clumsy articulation like Gashapon Senshi Forte or Mobile Suit Ensemble. I think it is a shame that this format is not popular enough for Bandai to cater to it.
Size Comparison
The Narabundesu Zaku figures are pretty much exactly 5 centimetres tall when standing upright and you can see how they compare to some of the near-scale figures series already released. The recent Capsule Index figures (represented by the SEED Z'Gok on the left there) is the closes match for style and size, even though they come on clear bases so ideally you would want to put your Zakus on something similar if you were to pose them together. The Gashapon NEXT, DASH and Senshi Forte era figures are represented by the Dom here and as you can see not ideally posed together. On the right we have the larger cousins from Gundam Converge and the good old MicroWars line.
Conclusion
All things considered, this little Narabundesu set is a fun distraction that offers some limited play-value but it suffers from not having any playmates. I don't know if Bandai plan for Gundam to revisit the Narabundesu line, perhaps we could see a White Base group at most. There are actually two other sets that I am aware of but they don't look anything like these. One set has a very stylized Future Pavillion Gundam and a couple of Haro variants and the second set is also just a collection of differently coloured Haro balls.
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