SD Gundam: and you thought Transformers were nerdy!

When I was little, I spent a couple of summers in Taiwan, where my parents emigrated from. I hated being far away from my friends and not being able to speak English, but the toys were awesome. I discovered these things called "SD Gundam". Many of you are probably generally familiar with Gundam, the Japanese cartoon and comic franchise centered around giant robots that fight each other in the far future, but don't transform. SD Gundam are the super-deformed (hence, "SD") versions of the robots. I loved the toys dearly, which came in model kits. The Ganso type kits were the ones I collected, and they were much higher quality than the lower line. Most differently colored parts of the robots were created with different colored plastic parts, rather than stickers, and the plastic was very thick, high quality stuff. Unfortunately, all my Ganso SD Gundam models were accidentally tossed out years and years ago. I hadn't given them a second thought until I saw this on a Japanese toy collecting blog: The Ganso line was discontinued back in the mid-90's, but collectors never forgot them. Last year, Bandai introduced a new "SDX" line of premium plastic-and-diecast-metal collector editions of the discontinued toys. The character you see above is the SDX version of my favorite character ("Heavy Weapon Command"). It's selling for $100! I must have it. Anyway, in addition to the main Gundam theme, there were three different story lines within the SD Gundam universe: a "European" story with Gundam robots armored like knights and armed with swords and spears, an "Asian" story featuring Samurai-like robots, and an "American" story featuring modern military-style robots, armed with futuristic weaponry. From what I can gather, the stories all weave together, involving time travel, but I've never been able to gather more than that since the instructions and booklets that came with the toys were all in Japanese. Am I the only one who remembers these toys? If you're American, it's unlikely you ever stumbled on them. I'd love to know more about the characters and the story. Unfortunately, Google reveals little to nothing--not in English, at least. Here's the original Ganso version of Heavy Weapon Command, the one I had: A Japanese site with photos of many of the original figures, assembled: http://www.geocities.jp/lifezoids/GUNDAM-SD.htm

Transformers are Azn Transformers. Gundam is Gundam.

Oh, forgot: there is Command and there is Heavy Weapon Command.

Here is the SDX Command:


And original Ganso Command:


Heavy Weapon Command has . . . heavier weaponry. I think there is an Optimus Prime-like story underpinning his resurrection as a more powerful leader after being defeated by the main bad guy. Unlike regular Command, Heavy Weapon Command's weapons can combine into one big super-badass battle station. Here he is again, in SDX form, for comparison:

Dude, Heavy Weapon Command could have taken on all the Joes at once. Plus, you got to put these together, which was a big part of the fun.

Expectations for toys in Asia are much higher than they are here: