Vinyl Chloride Spirits Full Color SD Gundam The Pop3

A couple of weeks back we looked at a pair of self-distributed publications covering the history of Bandai's various Gashapon SD figurines, or rather, some of the brands in this long running series. The first book went through the original SD Full Color series while the second volume focused on other issues and mainly the overseas editions from Bandai USA. Still, neither edition covered some of the other major series, the most glaringly obvious example being the SD Gundam Full Color Custom successor series. I don't know what caused the author to skip over this series but I do recall reading how the book series expanded wildly beyond his plans and so it probably became an impossibility on the current budget. I suppose there is the possibility that he might actually not have access to all the FCC figures but that seems highly unlikely.


Whatever the reason might be, we have a third volume in this series with a completely different title, format (landscape instead of portrait) and concept. "The POP3" is a much smaller tome clocking in at 60 pages, where the original two books were 156 and 74 pages respectively. And where the previous books went into covering each figure with detailed photographs this book is a simple collection of Gashapon mounts; those stiff cardboard sheets that go into the front slot of the Gashapon vending machine.


If you are unsure what the purpose of this book might be a quick glance on the first page will tell you everything about it immediately. Here we see images that grazed vending machines in October 1997 and February 1998 and the first two SD Full Color Stages went and became part of Gashapon history. The price of ¥100 for a figure permeates through all the sets you will see in this book - the two exceptions being the two larger SD Full Color DX sets - it wasn't until Gashapon Warrior NEXT came around that ¥200 became the new norm. Prices continued to climbed with Gashapon Warrior DASH upping to ¥300 which was then true for most of the Gashapon Senshi Forte period until the last two volumes that spiralled to ¥400 and ¥500 before the saga was concluded.


There isn't a whole lot to say about the contents of this book really, each image speaks for itself. It is barely even useful as a figure identification tool, since the images are quite tiny but acts more like a collection of memorabilia to feed the nostalgia of us older collectors. Seen above are Stages 8-10 of the Full Color Series, with volume 10 being the first of two "revival" sets that reprinted older figures (the other such set being Stage 17).


As the Full Color series soldiered on, the mounted artwork became more pronounced and eye-catching. The early sets feature photographs of figures in action but these were later replaced with fancy expressive artwork with images of the figures itself almost added as an afterthought. Here we see some wild Mobile Fighter G Gundam battles taking place on the artwork for Stages 32 and 33 and the special 200th figure release in Stage 34.


More cool artwork on display here for Stages 47 through 49 and Stage 51, which was a Zaku Special release. What happened to Stage 50 you might wonder, well flip the page and scroll down a bit...


As you can see there are two different styles for the artwork made for Stage 50, which was a special jubilee edition which also included little coin-like bases for the figures. I don't know why the two different styles exist or if they existed side-by-side or one after the other. Notice also the promotional images of other special releases, the infamous Colony-can filled with Zakus (that I have never seen) and the clear-colour version of the Falmel Musai-class spacecraft playset.


The original Full Color Series ends with Stage 63. However, there was one additional SP release promoting the Bonds of the Battlefield arcade game released several months later. The set recycles older figures and the artwork focuses on showing off the slick arcade cockpit set-up for the players.


Next, the book shows off the handful of Full Color Extra-series released that were released interspersed between the regular Full Color waves. These sets show off Gundam characters from the various SD cartoons and games.


On the right hand page you can see the images for the two DX-figure sets that feature larger figures like mobile armours and vehicles. Each figure also comes with a tiny pilot figure which makes them very collectable.


Here then finally we have the only documentation so far of the SD Gundam Full Color Custom series in these books. I don't know if there are other books out there that cover these in detail but so far this is the only book I have managed to find myself. Maybe our intrepid author will come back in the future with additional volumes in this excellent series of publications?


As the Full Color Custom series drew to a close the later releases were loaded up mostly with single colour translucent figures, mostly in red, black or blue with other colours much less frequent. The mounted artwork also places focus on playability and encourages buyers to pull the figures apart and reassemble them into fantastic creations of their own.


We have some nice coverage of the smaller sets that followed Full Color and Full Color Custom as well. Seen here are the first three volumes of SD Gundam Impact which is an odd and short-lived - pretty abysmal too if I am being honest - series of tiny figures with very basic paintwork and presented in stiff action poses.


Impact was followed by another short-lived experiment called Bind which features two types of figures. Half the set would consist of tiny fully painted mobile suits in official colours and the other half being single colour figures of mobile suits where a limb or other part would have been swapped out into something fantastic. The idea was to collected the full set of these and then combine pieces from all of them into a single large monstruous creature of sorts. The single-colour figures would typically be variations of the figures that were painted up in normal colours although they would typically not be present in the same volume. Seen here are the Gashapon mounts for Bind volume 3 and 4 on the outer left and right. The two centre panels showing off full artwork are intended to be displayed as additional artwork on the top and/or sides off the vending machine based on what the text above the image explains.


Here we have some more images of the crazy Bind-series of figures, showing off waves 5 through 7. The last panel depicts the first of the last of the classic SD Gundam figure sets; Brave Battle Warriors which can also be seen below.


After the four volumes of brave warriors - complete with horses and companion soldiers - the book closes out with a couple of art panels that are supposed to go on top off and on the sides of the Gashapon vending machine. I can't really get my head around if these were created specifically for the book and if so, how you are meant to use them (since you couldn't cut one out without damaging the other). I'll have to assume this is simply documenting promotional material of some kind. All in all, this book does a decent job of closing the gap regarding the missing content in the author's previous books but I really do hope we get to see a fourth volume that goes into the uncovered figures in more detail in the future!

SD Gundam Bind 03

In the Gundam world, we have a sliding scale which ranges from intended realism (as realistic as gigantic mobile suits could possibly be anyway) to cartoon action. At one end of the scale we see complex political conflict where the machines themselves are just one of the many tools available in the toolbox. We then start sliding down the scale passing super-heroes (Newtype abilities), gimmicky designs (Windmill Gundam...?), sentient machines and all the way down to mobile suits which are actually characters who fight mechanical dragons... Wait, what? Yeah, I don't know either, but what I do know is that SD Gundam Bind is at this far end of the scale.

Released some time in 2009, SD Gundam Bind volume 03 is the third of a total of seven figure sets in this short lived series. The whole series is build up around a central gimmick; that you can build a behemoth machine by combining parts from the others. However, SD Gundam Bind isn't quite as ambitious as the contemporary Bandai Minipla Shokugan series, as we shall see.

Each volume of Bind consists of ten figures, divided into two groups. The first five figures each depict a mobile suit or mobile armor from one of the different Gundam timelines. The figures very much resemble the SD Gundam Full Color and Full Color Custom series and are designed with likeness of the original machine in mind. The last five figures however, all come in a single color. In the case of volume 3 all the figures are dark purple, in volume 04 they are all brown etc. Each figure also has a single eye painted in green.

Now, you'd expect this to be something as simple as the first five figures being recycled and recoloured to create the last five, but Bind follows another route. While the last five figures are commonly also released in full colour versions (normally included in another volume), the sculpts are actually also modified. Each figure will receive a different bodypart somewhere, perhaps an arm with a new weapon, or wings and legs are tampered with, to create something new. These alternate parts are then used to build something completely different, more on that later. Let's begin by taking a look at the initial five figures of the set.


21 : RX-93 Nu Gundam

Things start fairly conservative here, with a Nu Gundam figure. You might expect it to be paired up with a Sazabi and while there is indeed a Sazabi in this set, it is only as one of the purple figures. The normal colour version of the Sazabi was released in Bind 02 however, together with an all-red version of the Nu.

The Bind figures are pretty tiny but they still feature a decent amount of details in their sculpts. The paintwork also tends to be a little bit simpler although there is reasonable detail on the Nu Gundam, complete with Amuro's logos on the shoulder and shield. Only one Fin Funnel set is included but the backpack has slots for two. The Fin Funnel component itself has pegs on both sides so if you happen to own two Nu Gundam figures you could add a second set to the backpack, pretty clever design there. The figure also features a rotating head and swivel-joint shoulders as well as a removable beam saber.


22 :  NRX-0013-CB Gundam Virsago Chest Break

Now, here is something you don't see every day. Gundam Virsago in figure form is a very unusual thing to behold. Except for its appearance in Bind I think it has only ever also been featured as a HG Gashapon figure in normal proportions (one that I don't own of course...). There appears to be no single colour version of it in Bind (at least as far as I can tell) but it isn't completely alone seeing as the Gundam Double X is present in Bind volume 2.

The Virsago Chest Break is the largest of the figures in this set and is approximately the same size as your average SD Gundam Full Color figure. It comes with a head that can rotate and arms that swivel at the shoulders. The exotic colour scheme means it stands out well in the collection which is something I really appreciate.


23 : GF13-017NJ Shining Gundam

Bandai continues to mix and match, next up is the Shining Gundam from the Mobile Suit G Gundam television series. I have also spotted the God Gundam in Bind 01 but the Master Gundam seems to be conspicuously absent here. The promotional images I have dug out from Bandai are so tiny though that it isn't always that easy to see what things are supposed to represent.

The Shining Gundam surprisingly comes with a pink beam saber. Here's an opportunity where they could have gone for something lazy like a green coloured hand but instead we got a functional accessory that can also benefit other figures in the line. Notice also how the shoulders have been fully painted on the backside, something I wouldn't have expected on a ¥100 figure (the feet aren't though, so there's that...). Articulation follows the two previous figures with moving arms and head.


24 : Apsalus III

While the Virsago is also a novel inclusion here's what really inspires me about this set; the Apsalus III mobile armor. How awesome is this? We also have the Apsalus II in the SD Gundam Full Color range (Stage 25) which goes just perfect together with this. The Apsalus III also appears as a single-color black figure in Bind 01 with a Gundam-type head!

As a figure it doesn't actually do much, but you can pull it apart into smaller pieces if you would like to play around with it. Isn't it strange by the way that the Apsalus II was never made in Gundam Converge form? Now that we have a whole group of 08th MS Team figures coming out in Mobile Suit Ensemble later this year perhaps a Converge or MS Ensemble version of this mobile armor isn't all that far away?

 
 
25 : RMS-099 Rick Dias

The Rick Dias is one of my trusted and always dependable favourites. If a figure series contains the Rick Dias (and for some reason they often do) you can be pretty sure it is going to be a solid and entertaining figure and this is no exception. The mobile suit also returns in Bind volume 05 as an all-blue variant with extremely odd organic-looking arms.

In Bind 03 form however it is still looking the part. Decked out with both a Clay Bazooka and one of its puny pea shooters it is the only figure in this set to sport dual weapons. Of course each weapon is an accessory in itself so you can spread the love to less fortunate mobile suits. Or... try to seek out another Rick Dias figure to let it dual wield its guns. I love little stunts like that. As for articulation you have to make do with swivel shoulders, the peculiar head form doesn't lend itself well to being a separate part unfortunately.

Before we proceed let's just take a moment to look at the Bind-format figure and how it scales to some other figure series. In the above photo you can see the Bind 03 Rick Dias next to a black early type Dias from SD Gundam Full Color Stage 47, the articulated Dias from Senshi Forte 02 and at the far right a Gundam Converge Rick Dias (whose clay bazooka looks really puny next to the others).


This far into the Bind 03 set we have pretty much covered the vital Mobile Suit Gundam components. What follows next requires an interest in the less orthodox side of Gundam lore. More specifically we are about to plunge into the deep end of that realism scale I mentioned earlier.

The second half of Bind 03 features five mobile suits in the same dark purple colour. Each is a bastardization of an existing mobile suit or mobile armor, and the represented designs aren't always that obvious. The last five machines are variations on:

26 : ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam (Wings of Light)
27 : GX-9901-DX Gundam Double X
28 : MSN-04 Sazabi
29 : ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice Gundam
30 : MA-04X Zakrello

As mentioned earlier, each figure has received one or two modifications to its sculpt. The exception here is the Sazabi which remains unmodified. Instead a large leg-component is included with this figure. Below you can see the figures laid out with the modified or included custom part below.

As you can see, in this manner the Destiny Gundam provides a head, the Double X a pair of wings and the Sazabi some nasty legs etc. The parts combine together like so:

And here we have it... whatever it is. A bird? A dragon? A mecha character? Is it something out of the SD Gundam lore or just a random custom build? You tell me, I haven't got a clue.

While the whole combine-spread out-parts-into-a-special-figure gimmick is certainly nothing new I guess there is some moderate level of entertainment to be had out of it. For about two minutes... Was it really necessary to create five alternate figures when all you really need from them is to take them apart to build this monster and then be left standing with five incomplete figures? Perhaps the sales team figured it was a good way to get people to spend more money in the Gashapon machines. Wouldn't just a traditional five coloured mobile suits with five transparent color versions set have done the job just as well?

As it stands, SD Gundam Bind is a bit of a failed concept (having only seven waves under its belt) but the traditional mobile suit figures themselves aren't bad at all and can be used to round out your SD figure collection quite well. Availability is pretty much nonexistent however. You really need to stumble on these in some dusty old secondhand shop these days. The figures also have a tendency to pop up randomly among other SD Gundam figures as many secondhand sellers wouldn't really be able to tell them apart.