It’s that time of the year again where the top players from all over Japan come together to see who’s the best Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost player in the country! The Premium Dogfight 2013 tournament will take place on May 25th and be held at the Differ Ariake Arena in Tokyo. Last year, we saw a team of Tallgeese III/00 Qan[T] barely eek out a victory against a Zaku II FZ/Hildolfr team in the finals. It will be interesting to see what kind of matchups will be in store for this year’s tournament. Perhaps we might get some news about a possible home version of the game or even an upcoming sequel! Just because you may not be able to see the event in Japan, does not mean you cannot watch it live. Streaming info can be found on the Full Boost website here. Until then, watch some of the 2013 Tokyo qualifiers in the video below!

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The ZGMF-X88S Gaia Gundam will be the next playable unit added to Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost on May 28th in arcades all over Japan. The Gaia Gundam, piloted by Stellar Loussier, is a 2000 cost unit and will be able to switch into its Mobile Armor mode at will. Gaia can also call in Chaos Gundam and Abyss Gundam as assists with different attacks depending on what mode the player is using. No official video has been released yet, but check out the CPU Gaia Gundam in action in the video below!

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This year’s Shizuoka Hobby Show is under way and as always it has a huge amount of new model kits on display. With Hasegawa’s new Myzr Eta kit (shown above) from Virtual On Force being notable. Bar that, there’s obviously a large amount of new Gundam related kits on the way and it seems the HGUC range seems to be getting a lot of interesting new entries. If you’re curious about the show then both CyberGundam (here, here and here) and AmiAmi (here, here and here) have lots of photos. HLJ also has a nice breakdown too.

A YouTube user by the name of wipp er has uploaded an impressive fanmade anime intro for Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam. Written by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino and drawn by Yuichi Hasegawa, the Crossbone Gundam manga series spans several series (Crossbone Gundam, Skull Heart, Steel Seven and Ghost) and is a direct sequel to Gundam F91 and pseudo prequel to Victory Gundam. The series has spawned some very iconic mobile suits, designed by Hajime Katoki, that have graced several video games such as the Super Robot Wars Alpha series on the PS2, Another Century’s Episode R for the PS3, the G Generation series on various consoles and of course Gundam Extreme Versus for the PS3 and its arcade sequel Full Boost.

It has taken the creator of this animation around two years to complete and arguably has done a fantastic job capturing both Hasegawa’s character designs and Hajime Katoki’s mechanical designs in an animated form. If this video doesn’t get your mouth watering for some animated Crossbone Gundam goodness, I don’t know what will.

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Bandai is releasing an expansion pack to their previously released Robot Damashii Extreme Gundam (Type Leos) Xenon Phase. The pack allows you to transform the base Extreme Gundam (Type Leos) into the Eclipse and Agios Phases found in Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost. And when you combine the Eclipse, Agios, and Xenon parts together, you can also create its Full Burst mode! The expansion pack is tentatively scheduled to be released in September 2013 with a price of 4410 yen.

Sentinel have updated their site for the forthcoming Riobot Blodia toy from Cyberbots. Showing all manner of new shots of the figure, which emphasises its use of diecast (see above), and a promotional video that shows of its various gimmicks. All told, it looks fucking amazing and is definitely going to be the best Blodia figure we’ve ever had. Whilst it is somewhat pricy (10,290 yen) it is a lot cheaper than many of Bandai’s high end outings, which is impressive. It will also be available in 2P colours as well (blue basically). The toy is released this July and you can pre-order yours here.

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Today, the YAMS-132 Rozen Zulu gets added to the Gundam Extreme Full Boost roster. Hot off the tails of the recent release of Gundam UC episode 6, the Rozen Zulu is a nice complement to the current stable of Unicorn mobile suits. Weighted at a cost of 2000, the Rozen Zulu has a multitude of weapons to include its incom claws, mega beam shield, and psyco jammer that traps the enemy. Gameplay wise, it looks reminiscent of Zeong with decent offensive options while moving. Make sure to check out the reveal video below!

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Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan we’ve been sent the Robot Damashii Nu Gundam and Robot Damashii Sazabi as seen in the climactic film Char’s Counterattack. In addition, we’ve also included some game and anime footage of the mecha in action at the end of the review.

On February 26th, the Zaku III Kai and Gundam Astray Gold Frame Amatsu will be added to Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost. Like the last release of Archer Arios and GP-03 last month, these two units that were released as DLC for the home version of Gundam Extreme Versus will be fully realized with the newer gameplay mechanics of the sequel.

In addition, Namco Bandai is getting ready for the 2013 Premium Dogfight tournament by having qualifiers starting from February 23rd to March 31st in select locations in Japan. If you don’t know, Premium Dogfight is the national Gundam Versus tournament sponsored by Namco Bandai. Last year, a team of 00 Qan[T] /Tallgeese III defeated a Zaku II/Hildolfr team in a very thrilling battle to claim the national championship for 2012. It will be interesting to see what sort of high level team synergy will arise from the plethora of units in the sequel. The 2013 Premium Dogfight finals will take place on May 25th.

Maybe we’ll see some info on the home release of Full Boost then as well, similar to how they showed off Full Boost during last year’s Premium Dogfight finals for Extreme Versus.

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On January 29th, Archer Arios and Gundam GP-03 will be added to the Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost roster. As you may know, these two units were previously released as DLC for the PS3 version of Gundam Extreme Versus. The units themselves felt very much like they were made specifically for the sequel, so it will be interesting to see how well they both perform with their intended gameplay mechanics.

In addition, Bandai will be releasing a Robot Damashii version of the Extreme Gundam (Type Leos) Xenon Phase unit found in Full Boost on April 13th. Obviously taking cues from G Gundam units, the Extreme Gundam Xenon Phase is aesthetically similar to the GF13-017NJII God Gundam in this particular evolved form. I’m sure we’ll see the rest of the Extreme Gundam forms as the year continues.