Unifive Universal Century All Gundam Key Holder (Bandai Museum Limited)

Last year I reviewed some of the Banpresto keyring figures sold under the Unifive All Gundam brand. One of the them was a Bandai Museum limited edition, where I commented on the fact that I expected it to be a different mobile suit. I had only seen it for sale once many years ago and was beginning to think that I had been hallucinating the whole thing. Then suddenly it casually appeared over at Mandarake this winter and so here it is; a confirmation that there are at least two figures (perhaps even more?) in this limited series.


As you can see we are looking at a Full Armor Gundam variation in Char's or rather Casval Rem Deikun's custom colours. This suit is supposedly known as the FA-78/C.A Casval's Full Armor Gundam. Has this thing ever starred in a game or Manga? Very little information can be found about it at the Gundam Wiki or MAHQ, in fact I am not even sure of the official name. Here I simply edited what was written on Bandai's 1/100 Master Grade box cover (which is the only other appearance I am currently aware of).


There is not a whole lot to this figure. It is a solid soft plastic figure attached to a useless metal strap so that you can have it dangle from your phone or school bag. I immediately removed and discarded the strap which is attached through the common technique of a screw driven into the figure's back pack.


The All Gundam figure range may be simplistic but man is it detailed, and the paint applications are very detailed for such a small item. Many of the smaller figures skimp on the paint apps on the flip side but since this figure is designed to dangle freely I guess they felt the need to paint it fully all over. Just look at that hand grasping the dual beam rifle, you have a separately painted handlebar and there is even a piece of pinkish red collar peeking through. The blue speck on the left knee does look like a mistake though and as you can see the paint has been chipped here and there. The legs are a bit bent on this figure and you may want to put it on a base to straighten it out.


Here we have both the RX-78/C.A and the FA-78/C.A from the Bandai Museum set. The two have very similar barcodes which leads me to believe they were released in tandem back in 2004 (4 983164 58874 3 and 4 983164 58875 0 respectively). I wouldn't be surprised if there are indeed more figures in this set, especially if they are repaints from regular retail releases. For some additional context and size comparisons, check out the review of the other figure here.

Unifive Universal Century All Gundam Key Holder (Bandai Museum Limited)

This review is a little follow-up to yesterday's All Gundam Keyholder set which featured various incarnations of the RX-78 as well as the RX-79[G]. This particular item is a variation on one of the figures found in that set, and was made available as a Bandai Museum exclusive item. Just like how some items are sold through the Gundam Café shops today. To quote a few lines from the Wikipedia article on the museum:

 

"The Omocha no Machi Bandai Museum is a museum devoted to Bandai characters located in Mibu, Shimotsuga District, Tochigi, Japan. It opened on July 19, 2003 as the Bandai Museum at Matsudo, Chiba. It was closed on August 31, 2006 and moved to Mibu, Tochigi on April 28, 2007, where it features exhibits on Ultraman, Gundam, Godzilla, Super Sentai, and a Gundam-themed cafe along with various shops attached to the museum."

 

Looking at this particular figure's barcode and ST markings it does not look like it was released at the same time as the retail figures. I don't know if this figure was released in tandem with other figures but I do know that there exists at least one additional Bandai Museum exclusive in this figure line, that one being a Casval Custom version of the Full Armor Gundam which I sadly do not own.

 

The packaging is as you can see rather Spartan; a slip of paper and a crumpled plastic bag. Here is the figure with its metal strap before it being permanently removed.

 

The RX-78/C.A. is a variation of the RX-78 developed by Neo Zeon for the personal use of Casval Rem Deikun, better known as Char Aznable. The suit was featured in Gihren's Greed, one of those turn-based strategy games I never got to play. The figure itself has a nice paint scheme with some really fine markings on the shield, which drastically ups the detail level compared to the basic figure (which carries no text markings). Being a keyring figure, the material is soft, durable and somewhat bendy plastic.

 

There isn't a whole lot to say about the figure really, what you see is what you get. Here it poses next to the original retail version from the Universal Century All Gundam Key Holder set which was also released in 2004.

 

Here is an expanded family view togeter with the RX-78 versions from that retail set. I wouldn't be surprised if there are even more variations released of this figure; a Real Type-colour version would seem quite likely for example.

 

One thing I didn't discuss in detail in the previous review is the actual size of these keyring figures. Here is a comparison shot of some figures in nearby scales. From left to right we see:

- Casval's Gundam in 1:400 scale from the Gundam Collection figure series.

- A unique olive green-themed RX-78 from the Gundam Gsight 1:350 figure collection.

- The dual bazooka wielding figure from this particular review.

- A classic coloured RX-78-2 with weathering from the Strategy of Gundam 1:300 series.

- A non-scale Zaku II from the long-running Gashapon HG figure series, which is somewhere around 1:285.

- Another white RX-78-2 with even more weathering from the Banpresto MTSS 1:250 collection.

- Lastly a 1:220 scale RX-78/C.A. - here from the Bandai Hybrid Mobile Suit Selection series.

I don't have a whole lot more to say about this figure except that it is a great addition to your keyring figure collection, should you happen to stumble on it. I don't know exactly how rare it is, considering that the ordinary retail figures are pretty damn hard to find to begin with. Gashapon second-hand stores are probably your best bet. Good luck with the hunting. :)

Unifive Universal Century All Gundam Keyholder

Today we are looking at another Gundam-themed keyring line. This particular series, under the All Gundam name, was produced by Banpresto in 2004 for Unifive. If you dig into this a bit you will find that the company Unifive was actually swallowed up by Bandai in 2001 and there it was allowed to live on until 2006 as a subsidiary of Banpresto, another of the giant's acquisitions. Banpresto is of course now also a memory, living on under the name of Bandai Spirits. It is all one gigantic conspiracy...

 

There is an interesting gimmick to the blind boxes of these figures. Each box has a little peep hole in the bottom corner (covered with see-through plastic) but you'd still have to be pretty aggressive to identify the contents within. Many keyring figures are sold without boxes and with only a bit of paper wrapped inside the metal ring and so tend to be wildly bent but hopefully these will have fared a bit better.

 

Keyring figures are rather hard to collect these days, I reckon if you have access to the Japanese secondary market and plenty of time you can do quite well though. I was fortunate enough to swipe this set off the Mandarake store for ¥1000, which is outrageously cheap. It would seem that this type of figure isn't that sought after in Japan but they tend to be quite aggressively priced in markets targeting foreigners. Go figure.

 

Each box contained this nice flyer illustrating some of the other contemporary Unifive keyring figures. You'll be surprised how many unusual mobile suits have made it into keyring format which makes them worth considering for the Gashapon collector. The main drawback is that they are (of course) often not to scale with anything else on the market.

 

Take a quick look at those metal chains because they will now be permanently removed. I don't get why Bandai loves to develop beautiful and detailed figures only to permanently damage them like this. Has anyone actually ever used one of these in their own keyring? (Answers on the back of a postcard)

 

 

RX-78-1 Prototype Gundam

 

We are not going to linger very long on each figure but just admire the detailed sculpts and thorough paint schemes that have been applied to them. These figures are made of a soft plastic which makes them very durable but I wouldn't just throw them in a box as I could imagine paint scratches or perhaps even paint carrying over from figure to figure. Notice the nice weathering effects applied here and there for added realism.

 

 

RX-78-2 Gundam

 

Notice the painted detail on the beam rifle and even the backside of the shield, these are not cheaply painted SD figures but are excellent all around. All the figures in this set also have the benefit of being able to stand upright. Many keyring figure series feature mobile suits in very expressive flying poses that are impossible to display without a lot of customization.

 

 

RX-78-3 Gundam G-3

 

The G3 figure is a direct colour variation of the basic RX-78-2 Gundam while the RX-78-1 figure actually has a unique sculpt of its own. A lot of care has gone into the creation of these figurines.

 

 

RX-78-2 Gundam (Final Battle Specification)

 

The bazookas have not taken well to being stored in a plastic bag but you should be able to straighten them out if you equip yourself with maybe a hairdryer and a bit of patience. I love how the figure isn't just a straight weapon replacement, care has been taken to store the beam rifle on the back skirt and even the shield has been added to the back and it still features a dark gray back side. Very impressive.

 

RX-79[G] Ground Type Gundam (machine gun ver.)

As nice as the RX-78 series figures were it is the Ground Type Gundams that steal the show in this set. They come in a lot of different types and poses; here the most basic variant equipped only with a YHI YF-MG100 100mm Machine Gun. Notice how both hands are holding the gun.

 

 

RX-79[G] Ground Type Gundam (180mm Cannon ver.)

The next figure is equipped with what is arguably the most iconic weapon of the RX-79[G], the oversized YHI FH-X180 180mm Cannon and a large weapon container. I can imagine that this figure's ability to stand upright may vary quite a lot between individual figures, but this particular figure is doing just well.

 

 

RX-79[G] Ground Type Gundam (Missile Launcher ver.)

We even get a third variant of the ground Type, and this unit wields the YHI 6ML-79MM Missile Launcher and another classic piece of equipment, the RGM*S-Sh-WF/S-00109 Shield. This is another figure which is very top heavy, unaided it won't deal very well with even the slightest sloping surface.

 

 

RX-79[G] Ground Type Gundam (GM Head) (secret figure)

 

The first of our two "secret" figures is Karen Joshua's variant on the missile launcher wielding Ground Type Gundam with a replacement head from a Ground Type GM, a real trope when it comes to figure collecting.

 

 

RX-79[G]Ez-8 Gundam Ez-8

 

With no less than four Ground Type Gundams in the set we still have room for one more, the heavily modified Ez-8. This figure is armed with a BLASH XBR-M-79E Beam Rifle and RGM*S-Sh-WF/S-00109 Shield. On its back sits a thruster equipped parachute pack that allows it to airdrop from a Medea aircraft. I wonder if this is the reason why the figure was given a kneeling pose, I guess there was no way they could make it stand up properly without support.

 

 

RX-79[G]Ez-8 Gundam Ez-8 (green color ver.) (secret figure)

 

The second secret figure in this set is the Ez8 in military-style olive green and bronze. I don't think that I have ever seen the Ez8 in these colours before and it may well be unique to this very figure set. As far as distribution goes I have no idea just exactly how rare the secret figures are compared to the regular ones. I could well imagine these are just as common as the normal eight.

 

So here's a quick recap; we have the four RX-78 series figures with their varying sculpts and colours. I am usually not a huge fan of this mobile suit but I must say these all look really neat.

 

Here's a close up of the two "secret" figures and their regular counterparts. The GM Head figure is definitely the more interesting out of the two.

 

This line-up is one of the finest displays of Ground Type Gundams I have ever seen. What a stunning set! I wonder if there are further Ground Type GMs and/or Snipers also available in this figure series, it would be really fun to build a massive force of these.

 

 

Conclusion

 

I hope that blog entries like these can make people more interested in the often overlooked world of keyring figures. While they are hard to combine with other figure types they are certainly of very high quality and if you manage to find them under the right circumstances they should also be dirt cheap.