Banpresto Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Figure Keyholder 2

There is certainly no shortage of super deformed figures from the Cosmic Era timeline. SEED was still fresh back when the SD Gundam Full Color and Full Color Custom series were around and kicking and so these have a wealth of figures on hand. Once you go beyond these sets however the supply begins to runs dry. The Gundam Collection 1:400 Gashapons are also a great source of figures and the 1:285 Gashapon HG series is pretty well stocked too but these are all ancient by now. So, yours truly is trawling through keyring figures at this point just to get a bit of a Cosmic Era fix.

Banpresto is a major player in display figures of all sizes and they have pumped out a considerably amount of Gundam themed keyring figurines. Apart from super deformed figures such as the ones we will look at today they also release realistically proportioned mobile suits in both static and dynamic poses, often featuring really rare custom machines, MSV's or odd colour choices. While they can be hard to obtain these days, and pricey unless you go straight to the source (read: order from Japan) they are still an alternative for mixing things up in your collection or just getting that hard to find mobile suit for your line-up.

The Gundam SEED Figure Keyholder 2 set is unsurprisingly the second set in a line of keyring figures following the release of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED which premiered back in late 2002. This set contains five different figures released in 2003 and all the figures in this set have the Banpresto identifier 31439 on their respective cards. Being keyring figures they will have metal screws or rings inserted into their heads or backpacks which will of course leave holes in said locations. Buyers beware.
      

GAT-X105+AQM/E-X01 Aile Strike Gundam

Let's start with the Aile Strike Gundam which will be a good example of what to expect from this figure series. As you examine the pictures below you will begin to quickly draw a number of conclusions. One of the first realizations is that the figures feature really detailed paint applications. Study those eyes carefully. The paint apps are also vivid on the figure's back, something Bandai often skips on even on contemporary Gashapons. I guess that Banpresto has a different policy about how they expect their figures to be viewed. I guess these keyring figures are intended to be hanging from a backpack and dangling freely.

The second big feature of these figures is of course less impressive. It is the dreaded use of soft plastic which leads to exceptionally sturdy figures but that you can expect to see a lot of bent V-fins, gunbarrels etc. You will also note that sometimes keyring figures are sculpted in dynamic poses not intended for standing on a flat surface. The Aile Strike Gundam for example holds its beam rifle really low and the fins of the Aile Striker pack also reach beyond the heels of the feet leading to a very awkward pose. In general some of these keyring figures will work better than others.

Here is a size comparison with a classic SD Full Color Aile Strike, a Gashapon Warrior NEXT figure which is almost the same size though the proportions differ a bit, and a modern Gashapon Senshi Forte Aile Strike on the right.
   

GAT-X102 Duel Gundam (Assault Shroud)

With the Aile Strike Gundam being such a popular figure represented in so many places it may make little sense to check it out as a weird keyring figure. There are however more interesting mobile suits available in the keyring domain, such as this Assault Shroud Duel Gundam for example.

The Duel stands upright and as such works better as a stand-in in your average SD figure line-up. You can still see some annoying bent components here and there but overall it works much better than the Aile Strike and the paint scheme is superb. When was the last time you saw beam sabers painted in a different colour on a super deformed figure for example?

The Duel Gundam and its Assault Shroud version popped up a couple of time in the SD Gundam Full Color and Full Color Custom series but then there was radio silence between 2006 and 2019 until the regular Duel Gundam made an appearance in Gashapon Senshi Forte 08. Thus figure is a good way of injecting the Duel into a collection of Gashapon Warrior NEXT or DASH figures.
   

GAT-X105+AQM/E-X03 Launcher Strike Gundam

This set comes with one additional variation of the Strike Gundam, carrying the large Hyper Impulse Cannon as well as a mixed weapons attachment on its right shoulder. This is quite a rare form of the Strike that rarely manages to make it into figure form.

Notice the bright colour applications that bring out the various components of the Launcher Strike module clearly and also the many fine details on the components themselves. You can forget about seeing such detail even on modern figures like the Mobile Suit Ensemble series. The pose of the figure is a bit unfortunate since the cannon is held at an angle that makes the figure lean a bit backwards but you could always solve this quite elegantly with a small base.

The Launcher Strike Gundam was last seen in super deformed Gashapon form in 2006. I guess the closest we come after that is the Gundam Converge Perfect Strike figure from 2016 (not pictured here). To the right in this comparison shot is a Gashapon HG MS figure also from 2003.
   

ZGMF-1017 GINN

The Z.A.F.T. workhorse GINN (or Mobile GINN as they like to brand it in Japan) is the Cosmic Era equivalent of the Universal Century Zaku II. Although in my mind its appearance is closer to the Gelgoog. Never mind the stupid idea of introducing the actual Zaku II in to the Cosmic Era as the ZAKU Warrior, seriously who thought that was a brilliant idea? Sure, the design turned out great but it still can't touch the beauty of the GINN as far as I am concerned.

I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something off about the GINN figure in this set. Its proportions make it look a bit too slender and anemic for my taste. The paint apps are great though, as evident on the helmet and backpack for example. The pose is again messed up a bit by the machine gun sticking out just a few millimeters too far. Putting the figure on a base could solve that of course.

As much as I adore the GINN in all its forms this figure really cannot stand up to the figures next to it in this line-up. Both the SD Gundam Full Color figure on the left and the superb Gashapon Senshi Forte figure on the right have it beat in overall appearance and shape, although they cannot match the detailed paintwork.
   

ZGMF-515 CGUE

The last figure in this set is the leg up from the GINN; the much improved replacement CGUE. However, this fine beast was in turn overshadowed by the GuAIZ and only saw limited production. In figure form things are equally bad and this is a pretty rare sight in any scale or shape.

Well, with those large and thin fins you know it will be the Aile Strike Gundam all over again, that messed up bent fin is a bit painful to look at. The overall pose fares better as its Vulcan equipped shield is held well above foot height. There are many nicely painted details here but as a whole the mobile suit has a pretty discrete colour scheme to begin with.

My the quest to build a full Z.A.F.T. flightline has moved one step further thanks to the CGUE figure although we still don't have anything sizeable enough for the AMF-101 DINN. While I haven't fully explored the entire SEED Keyholder figure range just yet I am yet to find a DINN (or GuAIZ for that matter) in the line-up which is a bit sad.

Work on a full G-project line-up also continues; now we are a couple of steps closer. The Blitz, Aegis and Aile Strike in this photo are from a different Banpresto range of prize figures while the Buster and the Duel are from Gashapon Senshi Forte.
   

Conclusion

I can appreciate that keyring figures aren't going to be to everyone's liking but to me they are a great way of expanding on the collection especially as far as filling out gaps where Bandai are never going to bother to anyway. This particular set comes from Mandarake and set me back only ¥700 and so was a no-brainer. As with many of the older figures, they are cheap to obtain but hard to find.

SD Gundam Full Color Stage 16

Full Color Stage 16 appeared in the Gashapon machines in April 2000 and is a six figure set dedicated completely to mobile suits and armors from the 0093: Char's Counterattack cinematic story. It is a direct continuation of Stage 15 which also exclusively featured mobile suits from the same movie. They were released back in the good ol' days of super deformed figurines when a Gashapon figure would cost ¥100.

While there are a handful of Char's Counterattack figures sprinkled among the other sets you really get everything you need in Stage 15 and 16 save for the RGM-86R GM III which was featured in Stage 13. Apart from that there are only a couple of versions of the Sazabi and the Nu Gundam to be found in Stage 37 and Stage 50. The Full Color Custom era figures skipped U.C. 0093 completely.
   

086 : RX-93 Nu Gundam (Ver.2.0)

The Nu Gundam is featured as the poster child for both of the 0093 sets. The first version of the figure comes armed with a beam rifle and a shield and a bazooka stored on the back. The version two figure instead features a beam saber and shield, and instead has a funnel set on the back.

The figures have decent detail on the front and at least some black for the backpack. I so far do not own the first version of the figure so I am not sure if the two figures have interchangeable components or not.

The Nu Gundam is at the front of the Londo Bell strike team. Notice the GM III to the far left which is found in the aforementioned Stage 13 ZZ Gundam figure set.
   

087 : RGZ-91 Re-GZ (B.W.S.)

Next up is another member of the Londo Bell team. It is the Re-GZ mobile suit with its back weapon system attached. You can see the legs and feet sticking out at the back but otherwise the mobile suit itself is hidden away inside the BWS support system.

Unlike many of the later SD Full Color figures, the B.W.S. figure does not come with any support or action base and also lacks any support for such a base.

While the B.W.S. figure is kind of cute it feels a bit small. The Re-GZ mobile suit figure itself is as you can clearly see much larger. I wouldn't expect exact scale or anything but I think they could have made it a tad bigger.
   

088 : AMS-119 Geara Doga (Rezin Schnyder Custom)

Switching sides to the Neo Zeon we begin with a custom blue Geara Doga belonging to ace pilot Rezyn Schnyder (who wasn't ace enough to avoid getting shot down by flak but oh well...) It is basically your average Geara Doga with a commander antenna and armed with a different type of beam rifle.

I have to say the paint job is a bit drab. For example, only the tubes at the chin have been painted yellow, you'd think a few strokes at the waist would have been suitable as well. If you want to detail up the figure you have a lot of opportunity to increase its appearance; the Sturmfausts on the backside on the shield, the various thruster ports and the Neo Zeon logo on the front side of the shield.

It is interesting that the mass production Geara Dogas received the darker painted spiked shoulders but this was skipped for Rezyn's machine. Other than that the level of detail in the respective paintjobs seems to be equal.
   

089 : MSN-03 Jagd Doga (Quess Paraya Custom)

Next up we have the leg up from the Geara Doga, the Jagd Doga with its remote controlled funnel weapons and more advanced weaponry. Strictly to be operated by newtype pilots only they wasted a perfectly good machine on the annoying brat Quess Paraya. I love how people claim Char's Counterattack to be a masterpiece and then at the same time hate that characters guts to no end. I shouldn't be one to talk however because I say the same about Mobile Suit Gundam SEED which is torpedoed by Flay Allster...

The paintjob on the Jagd Doga isn't exactly majestic either but it is at least better than on the Geara Doga. To be fair the detail on this figure is decent, getting all the beautiful colour applications in red and gold that are missing on the shield are just too advanced for a figure of this type. FusionWorks didn't even get it right on the Converge figures although their 1:220 Ultimate operation figures are dead on. With a bit of luck maybe the Jagd Dogas will became a target for the Converge reboot as well...

The two Jagd Doga figures feature about the same level of detail in their respective paint jobs which is fine I guess even though they feel a little bit soulless.
   

090 : MSN-04 Sazabi (Ver.1.0)

The Sazabi finally makes its first appearance. You'd think it would have been a member of the first wave of U.C. 0093 figures but Bandai held it in reserve for the second set. It comes armed with its unique looking beam saber and carries its shield in front in a defensive posture.

I'd like to repeat what I said about Rezyn's Geara Doga again; the paint application here is uninspired and minimalistic. Wow, they managed to put a yellow dot as its belly button... gee. I don't get why care can be taken to paint Amuro's personal insignia on the Nu Gundam but no effort can be spent to put even a rudimentary yellow Neo Zeon logo on the shield of any of their machines. I find it a bit sloppy and as a result the Sazabi figure looks less appealing to me than it should.

The Neo Zeon line-up is nice but it could have been a lot better in my opinion. At least the team is fairly complete.
   

091 : NZ-333 Alpha Azieru

The last figure in the set is the gargantuan Alpha Azieru mobile armor. At roughly five times the size of your average mobile suit it of course comes across as really tiny here.

The detail above the mobile armor's waist section is pretty decent but everything below is shortened very aggressively. I would have liked for this figure to be at least 1.5 times the height of your average SD figure but I can appreciate that there might have been practical problems when it comes to fitting it within the capsules. The older Byg-Zam figure feels suitably chunky for example, but the best option for the Alpha Azieru would have been to keep it in the short-lived and upsized SD Full Color DX figure series.

I have to commend the SD Full Color series on the number of various Zeonic mobile armors that have been constructed. I even forgot to add a couple of them in the photo above (specifically the Adzam, the Braw Bro and the Neue Ziel; I really have to redo this photo shoot).

Not counting different versions of the Nu and the Sazabi here is the full line-up of mobile suits from the U.C. 0093 era. You can't really ask for a whole lot more without getting very specific.
   

Conclusion

I know I moan more than I should about the painted detailed on tiny ¥100 figures. I guess I am just jealous that the Gundam figures always get the best paintjobs. Overall this is a fine set of SD Gundam Full Color figures and of course essential if you are collection anything related to the state of the war in Universal Century 0093. As far as rarity goes I'd say that these are probably somewhere on the middle of the difficulty scale. Not as obscure as the last sets in the line but also not as common as many of the early sets (some of which were also reissued).

SD Gashapon Warrior NEXT Premier 03

The Gashapon Warrior NEXT range features 24 basic figure sets, a couple of recoloration variant sets as well as eight Premium Bandai boxsets. You will find that while NEXT Premier 03 leans towards the very cheapest of these boxes it is also one of the priciest ones if you decide to break it down per individual figure. The set originally shipped in September 2014, not that terribly long ago (Converge vol. 16 was released around that time), and had a price tag of ¥2600. Today the price still seems to hover around that level as I have picked up several sets paying between ¥2500 and ¥3000 myself.

As usual with these secretive black boxes you will not have any clue what is in store for you inside without prior knowledge or actually opening it up. Thanks to the magic of translation apps we can at least decipher the text on the box to read something like "Gashapon Warrior NEXT Premier 03, partially assembled kit, limited to Premium Bandai" which isn't terribly helpful if you ask me... At least the booklet inside is helpful in offering some assembly instructions and the actual names of this rather unusual trio of mobile suits.

I messed up a bit with the parts shots here since I didn't take any sealed bag shots and I had already built the Kshatriya repair figure so i took it apart a bit to give a better representation of what is actually in the box. It features the same type of articulation as your find in the average NEXT figure.
   

NZ-666 Kshatriya Repaired

The Kshatriya is a majestic mobile suit design but unlike the RX-0 Unicorn it hasn't exactly got a whole lot of exposure in figure form. In part this can be explained by the fact that the Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn television series aired 2010. This has to be considered part of the sunset era of mass produced Gashapon figures. Another cause is of course the comparative size and complexity of the design itself. I can, off the top of my head, only think about half a dozen or so appearances of the Kshatriya in Gashapon or Shokugan form. The Kshatriya Repaired variant itself, is as far as I know only available here or as a 1:220 Assault Kingdom figure (a figure that still sits in its unopened box in my pile of shame I might add...).

Well, super deformed figure collectors rejoice; the Gashapon Warrior NEXT figure is superb. It features really great paint applications, lots of detail, two handheld weapons (well, the Hyper Beam Javelin is integrated into the left arm but the triple Sturm Faust launcher is removable) and it towers nicely over the average NEXT figure. The bulky booster tanks on its back are quite heavy though and no match for the connector joints, so these quickly droop down to the ground but at least act as added support.

Here the Kshatriya Repaired poses next to the Gundam Converge version of the Kshatriya Besserung, which is the middle stage between the full Kshatriya and the field-repaired machine. The NEXT line actually also contains the regular NZ-666 Kshatriya in its very first set from 2010, a figure that I sadly do not own.

   

AMX-101E Schuzrum-Galluss

The AMX-101 Gallus-J is a low-spec urban warfare machine of Axis origin with a rather attractive appearance and a birdlike face. It can be seen in the early stages of Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam where Mashymre Cello bumbles around in one inside the Shangri-La colony searching for the Argama. A truly despicable fate for this proud eagle. Imagine if someone made a The 08th MS Team style series where a unit of Gallus-Js and ZSSAs fought a desperate battle against Earth federation forces in a hellish cityscape. One can always dream, right?

Still, in spite of its troubled first appearance it does have a cameo in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn and it also received a couple of lovely variations. I just wanted to add some pictures here courtesy of the Gundam Wiki. From left to right we see the Gallus-J, the Gallus-K, the Schuzrum-Gallus and the Gallus-S. The last design hails from the Advance of Zeta Reboot concept series. Maybe 5-10 years from now as production techniques continue to refine we could see some really crazy beautiful and outrageously expensive 1:220 limited edition figure series. This baby would fit right up that alley.

The Schuzrum-Gallus is a quirky mobile suit concept which sacrifices a thruster backpack and features less armor in exchange for mobility. Even more idiotic is that it carries no weapons into battle except for a pair of knuckle shields and a chain mine; you know that ridiculous weapon featured in a single scene in War in the Pocket. Why you couldn't just give it the simplest of Beam Gun or Saber I don't know. The Chain Mine accessory is here though, and it doesn't really look that cool in SD figure form and is completely static as well. At least the spiked knuckle shields and the two larger Geara Doga-style shoulder mounted shields can be mixed and matched to create your favourite brawler configuration.

Questionable gear choices can always be retrofitted though, and the rest of the figure looks absolutely great. The colour scheme is really on point and the detail on the Sleeves crest on the chest armor is so fine you need to go really close up to notice all the fine detail.

  

RGM-89De Jegan (ECOAS Type) (Conroy Haagensen Custom)

In Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, the Schuzrum-Gallus has a bit of a Kämpfer-moment onboard the Nahel Argama including an altercation with an ECOAS Type Jegan so it is fitting that the last figure in this set is that very combatant. Actually there are so many cool throwaway mobile suits featured in Unicorn that it would have been amazing to see this set expanded with a couple more figures but at least this trio is excellent.

The De Jegan has more of a low-visibility colour scheme but there is just enough detail in the paint applications to make the figure visually appealing, well unless you count the backside which is just all brown. I can't say how much I appreciated little details like the E.F.S.F. logo on the shield for example, when a figure misses such an obvious mark that can drastically increase its appearance and ultimately its appeal.

Haagensen's De jegan features some distinct weapons that differ from the regular RGM-89De. You can find them in this figure as well, such as the beam rifle being replaced with a metal combat dagger and a beam gun attached to the left leg. Even the grenades stored on the side skirts are modified. The dagger comes both as a shiny metallic hand held gear option or sheathed as a dull brown attachment to the left shoulder (the peg is not compatible with the leg mount for the beam gun). Technically the knife is supposed to be stored upside down but I just didn't like the look of it, I guess it has to do with the super deformed dimensions of the figure.

Both the RGM-89D Jegan and the rifle-equipped RGM-89De Jegan are available in the NEXT line, but I haven't been able to find them... :(

The Gundam Converge RGM-89De is an amalgamation of the basic De Jegan with beam rifle and traditional grenade pack as well as the option parts from Conroy's machine. On the right is a regular RGM-89 Jegan from Senshi Forte for comparison.


   

Conclusion

You have no doubt already figured out that I am really into this set. Unusual and obscure mobile suits are a personal favourite of mine and I love expanding the line-up with as many variations as possible and this set delivers in spades. Due to the relatively low price of admission I have picked up four boxes and sold of the spare Kshatriyas and formed up a pair of interesting combat squads. Now if only I could manage to repeat this achievement with some of the regular Gashapon NEXT figures as well...