Gundam Military De-generation?

When Bandai announced its Mobile Suit Gundam-themed action figure range I was gushing all over it. Were we finally to see an extended figure range of small and affordable MSG characters and no-name soldiers - and in action figure form with an extensive range of accessories at that? It was the most refreshing figure reveal in a long time. Well, since then my impression has cooled somewhat. The first couple of waves were fantastic - the two sets of infantry soldiers and two sets of mobile suit pilots lay the foundation for something truly special. My only major complaint at the time was the fact that Bandai missed out on offering different head sculpts so that I could buy multiple figures and quickly build a larger force. Instead they opted for different head sculpts of the same characters, often with very specific expressions.

After the initial success things started to deteriorate a bit. Cue the third wave which began throwing in characters represented only by statues, with the occasional optional arm accessory at best. Next the line switched to including large and expensive vehicles, of course with unique character figures and accessories available only through these, and prices began to rise. At the current pace there will soon be more releases of motorcycles and cars than actual figures. And now... well, the latest accessory is a goat. I mean, come on...


In Q4 the line will take another step into fresh territory. Cue Gundam Military Generation PROFESSIONAL. Yeah, you heard that right. MegaHouse apparently heard our wishes for more character variety and so are produd to introduce unpainted figures to solve that issue. But wait, not only unpainted; these are re-issues of the already available figures in unpainted form. No new head sculpts, no new hair styles, no new expressive hands but some ruined brick wall accessories instead... If these catch on I have a sneaky suspicion that the line may switch over to only unpainted for any future releases. We shall see.

GMG Professional is slated for release in December 2023 and the individual figures will sell for ¥3025. When they first appeared in prepainted form they cost around ¥4300 (but if they were to be reissued today those prices would likely be much higher). I don't really think that Bandai were that keen to produce these unpainted figures and that it is simply a sign of the times in general, as more and more pre-painted figure series are getting squeezed by ever-rising production costs.

MegaHouse Gundam Military Generation - Earth Federation Soldier (Wave 2)

MegaHouse is still soldiering on with the GMG collection and we are up to the fourth wave of figures. Up until this point the pattern has been straight forward - each wave consists of three different figures and the designs have been alternating between the Principality of Zeon and the Earth Federation.


Wave four has been out since March 2022 but it always takes a bit of time to source these figures on the secondary market and the prices can fluctuate rapidly. This particular group I managed to find in a box set containing all three but it is also "common" to see the figures sold separately. Currently, single figures usually go for something like ¥3000 to ¥5000 (although recently I came across some for only ¥1500 so it can pay to shop around).


As usual the box set is only a thin white wrap around for three individually packaged figures. The format remains the same as previously with the really large boxes for some extra shelf presence I guess.


The theme for the previous set was Zeon mobile suit pilots so it seems fitting that the Earth Federation gets a suit team of its own. My biggest surprise was that Sayla Mass was chosen to bring some extra flair to the gang rather than Amuro Ray and I am all for it.


The first figure (number 04) is your average male mobile suit pilot. The parts come in two separate blister packages to create as much plastic waste as possible. Some of the smaller components come in typical compartmentalized plastic bags. As you can see he is pretty light on accessories, instead MegaHouse went for a bit of a diorama set-up instead.


The basic pilot follows the traditional anatomy of the GMG figures including double jointed elbows and knees. As always when handling these figures be really gently at first, until you figure out exactly what range of movement you can get from them or you risk breaking the joints. The most fragile part in my experience is the ball joint connecting the foot to the leg, be especially careful there.


Each figure comes with three face options. You can have the same guy wearing a helmet with or without the visor down, or without the helmet. The helmet itself can be opened up and reassembled and so works as an accessory if the pilot does not wear it. I always thought it would be cool if Bandai would ship the figure with different people's heads to encourage army-building but so far that has not happened.


You don't get a while lot of accessories to play with in this set. Each pilot has the same basic pistol (as well as a belt with a tiny holster and two pouches, presumably for ammo clips). Still, if you have been collecting the GMG figures you should already have quite a lot of spare weapons and gear to choose from.


The next soldier (number 05) is the big guy on the team. Bandai sure loves these big boned gentlemen in these GMG sets. Personally I would much have preferred a female pilot but I guess they thought it would be too similar to the Sayla Mass figure. Apart from different diorama components this guy has nearly the same gear as the first, except for a flight pack that attaches to his combat harness.


While there are some subtle differences at first glance the two generic pilot figures look similar. Because of the different proportions however this figure requires a differently sized harness accessory.


There is something funky going on with this pilot's face and he looks more at home on Wall Street than in the cockpit. That's an impressive hairstyle for a soldier by the way. :)


Attaching the harness to a GMG figure is always a bit of a pain because you have to pull off all limbs from the torso first. The harness itself is from very rubbery plastic and is then pulled over the shoulders from underneath. You then carefully reattach all the limbs again and hope that they stick elegantly in place again. Be gentle here as the pegs are delicate and sit in rotating sockets so if you apply to much pressure they can slide away to the side and you risk damaging them.


I generally decided beforehand which of my figures should wear the harness and then don't mess with them again. The effect of the extra layer can be really nice and this flight pack looks great.


If you opt to go for the helmeted heads of the suit pilots you can use the spare heads to customize some of your other GMG figures. This adds a bit of army building possibilities especially if you hide the pilots behind their visors. You can do the same with Sayla's head but her hairstyle is very one-of-a-kind and hard pressed to represent your average grunt.


Speaking about Sayla, here she is (figure number 06). Notice that she gets the same basic accessories and hands except the hands and belt are painted brown instead of white. Her unique accessory is a hinged gold bullion bag that can be opened or closed. This type of accessory is what I like best from the GMG series because they open up for so many creative ideas. I really loved the various combat rations and books that came with the previous figures, much more so than the larger diorama sets.


Sayla's yellow flight suit is really good looking and there are very few figures ever made for it (it is usually the light red crew uniform). We've had female figures with each of the GMG sets before but they never felt quite so flimsy and unstable as this figure does.


The multiple head options are great but honestly I don't know why anyone would opt for the helmeted options here. it was the same thing with the Char Aznable figure from the previous set except in his case I doubt many people would want to display him without his helmet...


Here are all the cockpit components grouped as they come with each figure. Figure 04 has the instrument panel and flight controls, figure five features parts of the seat and the heads up targeting system while figure 06 comes with the floor panel. Notice also that each figure has their own seat belt with sizes intended to fit their different body shapes.


I might not be completely sold on the idea of a cockpit chair instead of action accessories but it certainly looks the part. The attention to detail is great and there are some practical gimmicks. The chair for example has three different positions relative to the controls and the optical sight system can be folded back to the side when not in use. The latter actually involves replacing the extended arm with a short arm, which attaches to the camera component. I decided not to mess with it for fear of damaging something or wear out the joint.


Arm yourself with a lot of patience to get your pilot seated in place. First you have to figure out exactly how to bend the joints to make a believable pose. Then you have to actually get it into the chair without having the cockpit come to pieces. Next you have to fiddle to get the arms and hands into some interesting positions and lastly, when you think you are done, you have to try to get that four-point seatbelt in place. The seatbelt itself is made from really soft rubbery plastic that does not like to go into the peg holes so easily so have some fun with that. I have to give credit though, the end result is pretty cool, especially if you build something up around it. If you decide to get two sets you could probably build an interesting airplane-style cockpit.


I love all the GMG figure sets although I felt that this one was not quite as interesting as the others. I guess this mainly stems from wishing for more smaller action oriented accessories but if the series continues to live on we should be inundated with them anyway. The next release will be something really special. Rather than the standard three-figure wave we will get some special sets focusing on Ramba Ral's soldiers. One pack will contain Ral himself together with Crowely Hamon (who will sadly not be articulated but a statue type figure... wtf?) and another will feature a Zeon solider on a motorcycle. There will also be an option to buy just the motorcycle. These sets are actually supposed to come out now in August if I am informed correctly.

MegaHouse Gundam Military Generation - Zeon Soldier (Wave 2)

The arrival of the G.M.G. figure range was easily the biggest Gundam-themed happening for me in 2021. While the series availability is somewhat limited on the secondary market they have certainly been worth the wait. After two basic infantry-themed sets, one for the Zeon and one for the EFF we are now going into space for a Zeonic mobile suit pilot team. We also see the first appearance of a named character and who could it possibly be, besides Char Aznable?


While the figures also appear to be sold as singles I came across this box set containing the entire wave, presumably a collector set of some kind but there were no additional components or bonuses otherwise. I seem to recall that the figures were planned to be released in September but I didn't see these available online until November and I think that the code "20211021" on the box might be the actual final release date.


The white box is just a basic container for the three basic figure boxes contained inside. Boxes that are incredibly oversized for what they are, with elaborate compartmentalized inserts that mostly exist to waste space and resources. Marketing 101 in action.


The individual figure numbering is maintained per faction and the upcoming E.F.S.F. pilot team (led by Sayla Mass no less) will also be numbered 04-06 which is perhaps a bit unnecessarily confusing.


The Zeon suit team is a rather eccentric bunch. I can well imagine this veteran pilot has fought on a number of fronts and somewhere during the campaign it cost him an eye. Considering the challenging 720 degree awareness required for a space battle this will be a serious disadvantage. A Gelgoog-type suit should even the odds a bit but overall it is looking really grim.


I won't go into too much detail about the overall figure constitution in this review, since the technology is the same as with the previous waves. Basically there are a lot of ball joints (often rather loose or too tight) providing movement although these are also aided by both single and double-swiveling joints. The figure composition can be extremely delicate and you should handle the figures carefully until you get a feel for how the joints work because they are really fragile in places.


Our pilot has three different face options of which two are helmeted with or without visor. I have said before that I really would have enjoyed one or two alternate faces in the box, as this would encourage building a larger squad. Looking at the many accessories in the box I think it would be fair to trade the weapons for an additional helmet and a new personality. It really doesn't make much sense for a mobile suit pilot to carry heavy weapons after all. The lower image shows the different pegs used to attach the face section to the inside of the helmet of an EFSF soldier to the left and the suit pilot on the right. As you can hopefully see, these pegs are not compatible and so would require permanent modification if you wanted to mix things up by creating additional pilots.


Stickers once again make their return and are used here to add some front covers to the box contained in the neat carry case as well as some sort of futuristic Windows 3.0 variant running on the little laptop. Both of these accessories can be folded which is neat but the large hinge prevents the bag from being placed upright on the floor unless you lean it against something. The illustration also shows how you attach the straps that allow our pilot to carry one of the different types of backpacks released in the series so far, including his own life-support system. Unfortunately I had a really bad experience trying to pull this figure's arms out of their sockets that I decided not to mess with it for fear of breaking the ball joints.


While some go into battle hampered by scars of past, others choose to frivolously put themselves at a disadvantage. I would imagine that the Zeonic helmets have polarizing visors of some sort and so sporting a pair of really dark sunglasses underneath seems suitable only if you are perhaps a fashionista. Our pilot also likes to keep her long black hair flowing freely, not sure how comfy it gets inside that helmet.


They really gave our pilots a lot of heavy weapons in this set, gone however are the various belt or bandolier-style accessories which at least make some sense. We also get a large carry case useful for storing various supplies (or small figure accessories) such as a generous set of various battle rations and a very finicky looking hook-line accessory that I can't be bothered to try out. Again, considering the eccentricity of our pilots I would really have liked a couple of rank and file-looking faces to build a larger pilot team.


The female pilot follows the typically slender GMG build and so her combat belt and straps are sculpted to fit that figure. I had no problems disassembling the head and torso to attach it on this particular figure but it doesn't really sit right with me having to pull apart a delicate figure just to be able to attach an accessory.


We have the same three head options for this pilot. All figures so far have similar ball joint neck attachments so you can go for some mixing and matching as I have done here, but individual heads may not always be a good fit, our long haired Zeonic lady here for example have some issues with her long hair getting caught on the back of the ground soldier. Still, you should be able to get some additional options out of this modularity.


On the topic of accessories here is a little comparison of some similar gear from the lady soldier with the Zeonic ground team. The flight pack is clearly the same (albeit slightly differently coloured) while their submachine guns are interestingly enough two completely different weapons.


The combat rations look really good straight out of the box but you also get stickers to match their various types. I found that the stickers are in general slightly oversized and so will either wrap around surfaces or need some cutting if you are a perfectionist. The large carry bag has a rigid strap which makes carrying it really difficult for your figures and they also get really back-heavy. But it is cool for what it is and I tend to like this type of accessory more than weapons since they are great for creating dioramas.


Coming up last is of course the big new thing for G.M.G. - the addition of a named character. It will shock absolutely no-one that the honour fell upon the shoulders of ace pilot Char Aznable. It shows the tremendous potential of this figure series and I hope that it will be allowed to run long enough that we can build up a reasonable character gallery. One can always dream, right?


Char comes in his well known parade-style uniform with that funky horned-helmet of his. While I can appreciate the decision I still think MegaHouse chickened out here; the figure in this set should have been Char in his piloting uniform instead (while you could convert a basic pilot the body types don't match at all). I imagine this was considered an unnecessary financial risk and the tea banked on selling a more well known design. Again, the decisions make absolutely no sense. Since when do we see Char running around with assault rifles and ladders? It may have been more prudent to include his drawn blade. Perhaps they are saving it for a possible release together with Amuro? (Yeah I know, one can dream right?)


Up until now the basic style of each GMG figure has been pretty much the same. This sculpt takes it to a whole other level. I can't find anything to fault here, the proportions, painting and above all the likeness is great.


We get three head options for Mr. Aznable. I was never a fan of his weird face mask without helmet but that smiling face became an instant favourite.


As ridiculous as these accessories are on their own, each wave of GMG figures tends to have a theme centered around it. If you combine the accessories of the three figures in this wave we get an infiltration style gear for snooping around Side 7 and setting explosive charges but you will have to be rather patient to try to set up a complex scene like that.





Conclusion

As I have mentioned in the previous G.M.G. reviews this product line is without a single doubt my favourite to have come out of 2021. The figures certainly are not without their frustrating issues (fragile joints, no support for action bases, high prices to name a few) they always manage to put a wide smile on my face when I take them out for a photo shoot. The line becomes exponentially better with each new set as the accessories coming out of each set present many new options and I hope that the line will be allowed to persist on the market for a while.