The latest Gundam Converge news...

It has now been three years since the Gundam Converge line was rebooted and while we have seen a lot of rehashes of old figures I think a commendable lot of effort has been put into expanding the mobile suit line-up. The freshly announced volume #19 is another strong entry in this tradition with five never before seen mobile suits and only one of them from the "classic" Universal Century era. Instead this has its main focus on Victory Gundam with three machines, followed by entries from War in the Pocket, Gundam Wing G-Unit and Crossbone Ghost. The line up for volume #19 will be:

1. EMS-TC02 Phantom Gundam
2. LM312V04 Victory Gundam
3. LM312V04+SD-VB03A V-Dash Gundam
4. ZMT-S37S Zanspine
5. RGM-79SP GM Sniper II
6. OZX-GU02A Gundam Geminass 02

The Phantom Gundam is also getting partnered up with a CORE release of the XM-XX Ghost Gundam itself. This CORE set will also feature Phantom Light option parts for the Phantom Gundam figure so ideally you may want to pick up a second figure of that one. Converge volume #19 is scheduled for release in May and the Crossbone Ghost will follow in June. Damn, it is getting hard keeping up with all the planned releases and here I am still trying to secure volume #17 for review...

The latest Gundam MicroWars news...

Last year I was a bit afraid that the MicroWars line might be going into obscurity but Bandai have really picked up the pace and announced three sets witin a short amount of time. Volume 05 scheduled for May looks to be a really excellent entry into the series as well. To be honest I haven't been totally sold on the machines that started popping up from the Char's Counterattack era. I started to fear that MW might go the Mobile Suit Ensemble route and start doing titular mobile suits from various series and timelines rather than something more coherent. Set five will be really solid in this regard with its focus committed to the U.C. 0079 era and some rarely seen vehicles indeed. 2020 is going to be a great year for MicroWars and I just hope it will not be too difficult to pick these up once they go on sale.

By the way, I apologize for things having been kind of slow here as of late. I returned to HQ from an extended trip to Bangkok in December with several of the missing figure sets that I want to review in bag. Now I just need to get some more time freed up in the calendar and above all improved weather as I rely on daylight for most of the work, a resource hard to find this time of year.

The latest Gashapon news...

Alright, we have a couple of Gashapon news from the Komagata Information Bureau. The first SP set for Mobile Suit Gundam MicroWars is announced. The SP sets are Bandai recyclings of old figures repainted into something else. There are no shocking surprises here; real-type color versions of the RX-78, GM and Zaku II and then a mass-production type Z'Gok at the end. If you think these look familiar it is because the real-type color RX-78 and the Zaku II popped up as Converge CORE figures only a few weeks ago. The Z'Gok released in Converge #17 the other day and we have already seen the real-type color GM in Ensemble not that long ago. Still, it saves me the trouble of repainting a white RX-78 and a Z'Gok which I had saved up for later conversion...

The MicroWars SP set is also novel in that pilot figures are now boxed together with the mobile suits instead of being bundled with vehicles. I wonder if this heralds a future where the vehicle figures will be dropped from the line and the pilots will start going directly with their mobile suits. We shall see... MicroWars SP is scheduled for March 2020 and appears to be selling as regular singles at ¥500 per figure.

Not really new is Mobile Suit Ensemble volume 12, which was announced quite a while ago. However it was never mentioned on the Bandai Gashapon blog until now, so here is a nice clean image of the set. It is a fine set if a bit meh. In the greater scheme of things however, with upcoming EX figures of both the G-Self (with the Perfect Pack) and the FA 7th Gundam (Heavy Equipment set), I think the figure recycling is quite tedious. I foresee the Black Tri-Star figure becoming exceedingly rare compared to the others and it will be frustrating trying to collect three of them... Ensemble volume 12 is scheduled for release in January.

We also got a couple of teasers of upcoming Ensemble figures. The poster child for Ensemble volume 14 looks to be the XXXG-01W Wing Gundam which is another one of those "too big for a capsule but that won't stop us" figures much like the upcoming S-Gundam in volume 13. We shall see how that plays out. The identity of the other figure eludes me. The author hints at Gundam Maxter but with all those spikes going on I don't know exactly what it is, some kind of Death Army adaptation? It performing a special move? Hopefully someone with insight will drop by in the comments field. : )

The Gundam Collection is finally here...

The 1:400 scale Gundam Collection Gashapon series is one of the premier choices for those of us who enjoy large scale action and mobile suit squadrons. The series contains hundreds of different figures - all more or less in scale - making it one of the best choices for completist collectors, only really rivaled by series such as the SD Full Color figures or perhaps Gundam Converge. The latter two series are deformed designs however but the Gundam Collection very accurately depicts the mobile suits as they were intended.

I wanted to build a check list for this series for so long, but it also meant having to go through and re-arrange my entire collection. This project has been on a slow burn since July but now it has finally reached a state where the first version can be published. I have actually managed to misplace some of my rarest figures but they will have to be added to the list once I figure out where I stashed them. :)

You can find the check list in the tabs section or by following this link.

The latest Gundam Converge news...

The latest Converge EX figure has been announced and I can't believe we are at 30 already. Or perhaps I shouldn't use the word already, this beastly Penelope is scheduled for March after all. Considering the recent CORE 020 revival of the Nightingale and the Hi-Nu Gundam it seems prudent to add some faces to the Hathaway's Flash line-up. I think it is pretty safe to assume that the RX-105 Xi Gundam will follow this RX-104FF in the near future. The duo has been seen recently in both Universal Unit and Senshi Forte so it seems fitting for Converge to take any lessons learned there and then come up with something much more detailed. If it was up to me I would add something cool like the Me-02R Messer to the next regular wave of figures as well but it remains to be seen what Bandai's plan will be.

The Penelope has a suggested retail price of 3600 yen and can also be found through the Premium Bandai portal where it will sell for ¥3960.

The latest Gashapon news...

We have some more data on the recently revealed figures in the Ensemble and Senshi Forte figure series. As such this update does not introduce much in the way of news but the official blog post has a couple of interesting details. Instead of trying to translate the entire article I do recommend running it through Google Translate yourself. Suffice it to say here, that MS Ensemble part 13 will be a Jurassic Park-style "spared no expense" one-off allowed to go deep in the red, apparently since the recent Ensemble EX figures have been performing quite well.

The most bizarre reveal of this set is that both the S-Gundam and the Xeku Eins figures were actually found to be too large to fit in the standard Ensemble capsules. Instead, these two will come in upsized 75 mm capsules instead of the traditional 68 mm sized capsules. May I just say that could we please just get rid of the capsules altogether? I'm so tired of bent parts coming out of these bubbles and it hurts other figure lines even more. If the fancy and expensive Lunamaria and Meyrin figures from GashaPortraits will come in the regular capsules you can expect a good deal of them to have legs bent beyond salvage. I understand the nostalgia trip but pick up the cardboard box editions whenever you can...

The Re-GZ and the Z'Gok are planned for the Senshi Forte #11 line-up. Looking gooooood...

Things are high stakes also in Senshi Forte. If you have followed Bandai's reveals you know that Senshi Forte #11 will feature revised skeletal structures of these figures, and you also know that they have consistently underperformed financially. While the series apparently sells like hot cake - Bandai even points out that it is popular abroad - the figures have become too advanced for their 300 yen price point. As such, the same blog entry discusses the challenges of keeping the series alive.

Senshi Forte Re-GZ and Hyaku-Shiki budget appearances and a reveal of the AGE-1 which is coming to Ensemble vol.14.

The above images of the Re-GZ and the old SF #05 Hyaku-Shiki give an idea of what to expect if the Senshi Forte figures were indeed produced with a strict production cost concern in mind. The application of extra paint detail to reach the standard we've come to expect out of Senshi Forte is the main challenge in keeping the figures from becoming too expensive. However, the development lead mentions that dumbing down the palette is not an option so then the second effort would instead be to bump the price from 300 to 400+ yen, an effort they are also not willing to make just yet. The lead even admits that Senshi Forte should never have been allowed to continue when Gashapon Warrior DASH folded and it is pretty much allowed to exist for the sake of keeping the SD figure line alive. I guess no one wants to be the one to axe this long running and popular figure line.

The latest MS Ensemble news...

The latest premium Mobile Suit Ensemble reveal - EX 17 - is an old MSV-design dug up for I don't know exactly what reason, has this suit recently been featured again somewhere? The HFA-78-3 or Heavy Full Armor 7th Gundam which is its clunky and uninspired name follows hot on the heels of the G-Self and the Victory 2 Assault-Buster. We're seeing this trend of busy mobile suit choices for EX releases, in my opinion an EX package could also contain something innovative like a squad of mobile suits with advanced gear options but that's just my preference. :)  Preorder for the 7th Gundam will open on November 1.

We also get some feedback on the recent Premium Ensemble survey conducted through the blog page. I did partake myself but as usual you never know if comments from customers outside Japan will be completely disregarded. Basically the answers went as follows:

- Ensemble patrons would prefer the frequency of EX figures to occur around once every two months.
- Four out of five respondents want to see broader gear ranges and option parts in the EX figures.
- Regarding development of the Ex-S Gundam and/or the Deep Striker people want to see both.

The developer team comments that 2020's EX figures have already been planned and we can expect to see Premium Ensemble figures appearing about once every two months and then some. So, start saving up is apparently the message to us. :)