So I know I said before that if you know me, you know I love Doraemon – but that was sort of a lie. My first love will always be and has always been Gundam! This franchise has been running non-stop for 44 years, coincidentally exactly how old I am. That’s right, I basically grew up with this show and never grew out of it. You’ve got giant mobile suites piloted by exceptional teenagers, fantastic animation, incredible battle sequences. There is even a few live action interpretations including a stage play which is something you really need to see at least once. So yeah I bought Gundam Mechanical Story, I bought 3 boxes.
Table of Contents
The Box
We’ve got a typical cube 5-yuan box setup here, it’s cube shaped, 20 packs inside and has tons of eye catching foil and artwork to get you buy a pack. This box rivals that glitter bomb that was SCP Foundation’s 5-yuan box. Every panel except the bottom is just covered in fantastic mech action and shiny foil. I especially love how the sides feature the ZR signature cards, nobody will ever pull those right? Especially not from the first pack, that would be crazy? Don’t skip ahead.
This is also a little frog product, which feels super weird to me. I know them of course, they make all the waifu cards – I’d never seen a non-waifu product from them. I’m not sure if this is old or new or what, I’d guess old only because if this was made today either Bandai would make it themselves or Kayou would get the license. BTW, if Kayou ever makes a Gundam set you better buy a box quickly because I will be buying all of them, all. of. them. lol.
But this isn’t Kayou, this is Little Frog. That’s a manufacturer we really haven’t looked at yet. We’ve seen lots of Kayou and lots of Little Dinosaur. Little Frog makes great cards, they just don’t make many mainstream cards – but I have seen quite a few of their designs already. So this is kind of a special treat for us.
I bought this box of Gundam Mechanical Story for $24.16 (lol) from my favorite vendor C1LUXURYACC Store – although in this case they clearly took advantage of my fan boi excitement. Other vendors sell this much cheaper. $24 isn’t terrible for 5-yuan, but it is around 5$ more than it should be. This was one of my first purchases and I didn’t know any of that back then. I’ve since bought 2 more boxes from Kayou Anime Card Store, for only 16$ each. That’s what you should do if you want this set, and trust me – you want this set.
The Set
I’m gonna be honest, I bought this without even looking at the fliers. That is generally true, if you are aware of a Gundam trading card set I don’t already have (that isn’t one of the TCGs which I do already have) please let me know and I will buy it sight unseen. Looking now at Gundam Mechanical Story fliers, and having opened one of the packs – I’m so glad I bought this.
Unfortunately this is not a big set, we’re not going to see number cards, gold cards or anything crazy like that. Don’t worry – if you want that kind of thing the Duel Gundam sets have it in spades, just buy quick cause they are selling out as we speak. Duel 2 is already incredibly difficult to find.
Let’s start with the ZR level, these are “signature” cards. In that they have actual hand signed, on card autos from the mobile suit pilots themselves. Ok, maybe not, but still – where else can you pick up a signed trading card by Benagher, pilot of of almighty RX-0 Unicorn Gundam? I’m having trouble finding a complete set breakdown but I know there are at least 6 ZR cards, probably more.
Beyond the epic ZRs you’ll find TSR which are really cool duel cards. In that you put two next to each other and they make a complete battle scene, I want all of those in my binder. Then yeah you’ve got your usual UR, SSR and the base for this set is SR. Don’t let that dissuade you, the SR cards in this set are GORGEOUS and feature top notch mobile suit artwork. Let’s take a look at some next, you can expect to get 3-4 in every pack you open – which is kind of amazing considering Duel Gundam only gives 3 cards in the entire pack.
The Gundam Mechanical Story Cards
Yeah so these Gundam Mechanical Story cards are awesome. They are standard card stock, not that super thick stock you get with the Duel sets – but they are extremely well cut and finished. No curve to any card I’ve seen, and even the base are covered in foil. Not just a coating either – check out high-res scans, you see those weird markings that look like tire marks on the card? That is refraction texture work, it makes the light refract along a specific pattern. Designers use it to create energy blast effects, motion blur or sunbursts – this is kind of amazing to see on base cards.
These were the other two base SRs I pulled. Again these are base and they look amazing. I would absolutely love a complete set of these, and I might get that from the three boxes I’ve bought. The right side is ORX-005 from Zeta Gundam – one of my favorites. The mobile suit design in that series is just out of this world, and this ORX is a perfect example. Also the pilot, is kind of hot – she’s a Zeon but I can’t identify her right now, let me know if you can.
OK and then I died. Remember I opened 1 pack, 1. I got this ZR from it, it’s easily the best ZR. This features Benagher the reluctant but extremely skilled pilot of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam. The art on this card is the freaking Full Armor form in psycho mode, green frame. This it now my top card by far in the entire collection. I don’t care if the signature isn’t real, you can take you whole “Benagher isn’t even a real person” thing and shove it. This is Benagher’s signature on a trading card – and I own it.
Conclusions
Look, I admit I’m a Gundam fanboi. That should have been obvious if you got this far. Still just look at those cards, Gundam Mechanical Story is a fantastic set! This is a 5-yuan box. You can buy it for 16$… shipped! You get 20 packs, 100 cards – and they will all be at least at the SR level. I hope you can understand why I bought 2 more boxes of this and you really should be putting in your own order right now.