Bandai Namco Gashapon Senshi Zero 01

Gashapon Senshi Zero is a spiritual successor to both the ancient SD Gundam figures from the late 1990s as well as hinting back to the names of more recent series like Gashapon Warrior NEXT, DASH and Senshi Forte. The first Zero set is simply titled 01 and was released in late March 2026. It has the unenviable task of trying to build hype and support for an absolutely classic Gashapon series that peaked in the early 2000s and that has been out of the collective consciousness for almost twenty years at this point. A lot has happened in these 20 years and the current turmoil on the world markets is not doing Bandai Namco any favours either.


I was passing through Hong Kong earlier this week and came across the Zero machine in a couple of stores and decided to take a stab at it to examine the series a bit further. This will however not be a full review of the set as I had no intention of trying to complete a full 15-figure set from a Gashapon machine randomly dispensing figures. The machines you see on display here sit in the departures hall at Chek Lap Kok Int'l airport just past the check-in area. Being a tiny shop the selection was of course limited but I also spotted both Mobile Suit Ensemble Parts 30 and the reissue of Part 12 (which was originally for sale back in 2020).


This particular shop is fully automated and features a machine where you can exchange money into these metallic tokens. Being in Hong Kong the machine happily accepted the ubiquitous Octopus card as payment engine, something not all Gashapon machines in the city do. I was mightily angry for example to come across a set of vending machines in one of the Don Don Donki stores in Tsim Sha Tsui that only accept electronic payments like Alipay and other such esoteric methods that I had never heard of so no sleeping Pokemon figures for me.

The exchange machine in the airport was also a bit devious - you press the button once and it indicates that you will get 1 token worth 10 Hong Kong Dollars. You need three of them to purchase one Senshi Zero figure so I pressed the button again and the counter went up to 2, pressed it a third time and it went up to 5 and one more time to see it jump to 10. You can of course do multiple payments of for example 2 + 1 to get the three tokens you need but this just seems geared to convince you to spend more money than you planned to. The tokens are pretty neat though but be careful when inserting them, they feature indentations on both sides and must be slid into the machine in the direction indicated by the arrow. As I was pretty much sleepwalking at this early hour I just tried to chuck the token in without looking and it immediately jammed in the slot and I was initially unable to either move it or force it in but after grappling with it for a bit I managed to free it again. I assume the purpose of these tokens is to discourage people from finding cheap coins or using 3d-printed tokens in lieu of doing the proper payment.


I decided to blow out the remaining balance on my Octopus card and so paid 150 HKD to get five pulls on the machine, a pretty expensive deal all things considered but hey, I did it for the blog... It would be much smarter to wait and see if these figures will appear on the secondary market, as I doubt they will cost that much there. All five figures I pulled came in these similarly shaped and coloured plastic capsules and I didn't see anything different while peeking inside the machine. The capsules are a fair bit smaller than their Mobile Suit Ensemble counterparts but are larger than the old Gashapon Warrior NEXT capsules.


Each figure comes in an open plastic bag that has been taped together and squeezed in with a crumpled up little booklet. You can see how some of the figures have their weapons and shields attached directly to the figure while others come with the weapons and shields already inserted or attached to the corresponding pegs or slots.


The booklet shows that there are a full fifteen different figures to collect but in reality the set is comprised of only six mobile suits. All six suits come both as fully blue and fully red versions - not even with painted eyes - and three of the six that are the stars of the show are also available in a fully-painted third version. I am not aware of any hidden or secret figures in this set and this hasn't really been a thing with modern SD Gundam capsule figures. As you can see I was quite lucky with my pull. I got five different mobile suits and the distribution was quite balanced as well, with one of the fully painted figures as the star of this haul.


Since I am doing this sneak peek/mini-review while travelling the format will be a bit simplified than usual. Here you can see two of the five different figures; the RX-105 Xi Gundam in blue and the ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok from SEED Freedom in red. I am happy to report that the figures are very well sculpted and for the most part quite well defined although the effect of soft PVC creeps in here and there with bendy parts like that Xi Gundam V-fin for example. The Xi Gundam came with its beam rifle and shield pre-attached but they can be removed at will and used together with some of the other figures that have corresponding pegs or holding hands. The figures feature absolutely no articulation and you have to lean the beam rifle to the right for the figure to stand properly with both feet on the ground. This is a marked step-down from features and functionality that was present already almost thirty years ago. Notice the rectangle-shaped peg-hole on the back of the Z-Gok. I assume this is intended for it to use the flight pack belonging to the Infinite Justice Type II figure that is also part of Senshi Zero 01 (and happens to be the only figure that I didn't pull from the machine).


The second team here consists of the Strike Freedom Gundam Type II, the GQuuuuuuX with Omega Psycommu activated and its partner the Red Gundam in blue (too bad I didn't pull at least the red single colour version). Both the Strike and the Red Gundam had their accessories molded onto extensions protruding from the figures shoulders just like in the very old days of SD Gundam figurines. I used a nail clipper to remove them and so you can still see some clean-up is needed on the shoulders of the Strike and the pylons on top of the Red Gundam's shoulders there. The GQuuuuuuX is obviously miles ahead of the other figures I found in here and it looks crazy good with a very clean paint-job, I'd happily pay whatever Bandai would charge to get fully painted figures of the entire set, ditching the blue and red crap completely.


Since this is not a complete set review, here is a quick breakdown of all the figures in this set for easy reference:

RX-105 Xi Gundam (Ver. A) (red)
RX-105 Xi Gundam (Ver. B) (blue)
RX-105 Xi Gundam (Coloured Ver.)
gMS-α Red Gundam (Ver. A) (red)
gMS-α Red Gundam (Ver. B) (blue)
gMS-α Red Gundam (Coloured Ver.)
gMS-Ω GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu Activated) (Ver. A) (red)
gMS-Ω GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu Activated) (Ver. B) (blue)
gMS-Ω GQuuuuuuX (Omega Psycommu Activated) (Coloured Ver.)
ZGMF/A-262B Strike Freedom Gundam Type II (Ver. A) (red)
ZGMF/A-262B Strike Freedom Gundam Type II (Ver. B) (blue)
ZGMF-X191M2 Infinite Justice Gundam Type II (Ver. A) (red)
ZGMF-X191M2 Infinite Justice Gundam Type II (Ver. B) (blue)
ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok (SEED Freedom ver.) (Ver. A) (red)
ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok (SEED Freedom ver.) (Ver. B) (blue)

So far I can see some promise in this figure series, it has already done a good job simply by bringing back the classic simplistic SD Gundam format. Now Bandai just needs to ditch these pointless blue and red filler bloat and feature fully painted figures in their place. I'd gladly pay a much higher price for these figurines if their finish would be similar to the one I have seen on the GQuuuuuuX here. I am very sceptical that this series will continue beyond the obligatory three sets however. Let's pray that Bandai have some aces up their sleeves because I would really love to see a return of the classic SD Gundam format. I think it is safe to assume that we will at least see Senshi Zero volume 02; the Penelope, White Gundam and Gundam Aerial seem like very likely candidates for inclusion.

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.