Hi, and welcome back to our ongoing catalogue of Bomberman keshi. If you haven’t already, please start at the first post, then check out the list of articles we have on the subject. I’m steadily trying to cover them all, but it’s going to take a while!

Today, I’m focusing on half of the keshi from the Super Bomberman 5 series. There were twenty keshi produced for this line in total, and at the time of this writing, they are among the rarest to find online. Before obtaining this set, I hadn’t even seen pictures of the majority of them. I currently only have eighteen of them, so for this article, I’ll showcase the half of my set that is more complete – the 8 Fiendish Bombers, Subordinate Bomber, and Terrorin.

Something interesting to note about this set is that the keshi are about half of the size of an ordinary Bomberman keshi. The reason for this may be that the set is so large, with twenty unique figures, so manufacturing costs would be mitigated. Another possible reason is that the complex designs they wanted to use would have been easier to produce at a smaller scale. It’s hard to determine the truth of the matter.

A Super Bomberman 5 keshi on the left, and a Super Bomberman 3 keshi on the right.

Super Bomberman 5  Series

  • Year: Circa 1997
  • Number of figures: 20
  • Figure size: Small (3-4.5cm high, 3-4.5cm wide, 1-3cm deep)
  • Known colours: Blue, purple, white, red

Bomber Woof

Bomberwan
Bomberwan
Bomberwan
Bomberwan
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It’s only the first entry, but it’s already a weird one. Bomber Woof (the pun in his name, “Bomberwan“, is unfortunately lost in translation) is the only figure in the whole set to have an attachment, and unlike characters from earlier sets, his attachment is… half of his body. His body splits in twain, is what I’m saying.

No, you can’t attach a cape to his torso. Not that I’ve tried.

Because he is no bigger than any other character, I can only imagine that there was some manufacturing quandry that led to this decision, but I don’t know what it could be. My initial thought was that his base was larger than acceptable for the size of molds they were using. Given that some other characters seem somewhat flattened in depth, this does seem like a possible explanation, but I don’t understand enough about the production of these things to know.

Now, about the figure himself… He’s cute from the front or back, but there are some oddities when you look at him from the sides. The back half of his head is flattened, and his face kind of melds into the rest of his body. His tail similarly melds to his bottom along his mold lines. In general, the Super Bomberman 5 set doesn’t seem to have quite the same consistency as the larger sets, partially due to the smaller scale muddling the intricate details, partially due to the wide variety of body shapes in the characters (and the sculptor having to fit them all within the same size frame). It’s still a good set though.

With all that behind us, a bonus point for Bomber Woof is that he doesn’t topple easily!

Baron Bombano

Baron Bombano
Baron Bombano
Baron Bombano
Baron Bombano
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Baron Bombano is one of the first Super Bomberman 5 keshi I both saw and collected, alongside Plunder Bomber. For some reason, those two, as well as some of the normal Bombermen I won’t be showing this time, are the most common in online auctions. In fact, as a result of this, I now have three of him.

Which is the fake? Well, they are all imposters, so…

In my opinion, this is one of the more solid figures in this half of the set. His pose is cool, he’s balanced, and he’s well-detailed. The only strange thing is that his head is a little flatter than the normal Bombermen, which is the case for many of the characters in this half of the set.

Muscle Bomber

Muscle Bomber
Muscle Bomber
Muscle Bomber
Muscle Bomber
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It’s interesting that the sculptor chose to include the bomb weight that Muscle Bomber carries in his artwork. It certainly makes him stand apart from the other figures. Given certain inconsistencies across the keshi sets, It seems like the sculptor or sculptors were only given game manual artwork to go by, so that might explain it. Of course, as a result of this and his sheer size, he’s scaled down a lot to fit in with the other keshi. This also makes his weight and his limbs really skinny and really fragile. I’m kind of afraid to handle this one too much. One of the copies I have won’t even stand properly because of the way one or both of his legs seem to have bent, possibly in his original packaging.

The bar held by the one in the right even seems to be bent a bit.

Despite those complaints, the attention to detail is spot on here.

Pirate Bomber

Pirate Bomber
Pirate Bomber
Pirate Bomber
Pirate Bomber
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He has his cutlass and his ball and chain, and appears in a pose nigh identical to that of his artwork. I love the detail on this one, especially that skull emblem. Because of his tall hat, he’s shrunk down considerably compared to the other characters, and he suffers from the same, strange flat-headedness as some of the other figures. His feet are longer, but are angled appropriately so that he stays fairly balanced (the ball helps as well).

Two flavours of Pirate Bomber.

Subordinate Bomber

Subordinate Bomber
Subordinate Bomber
Subordinate Bomber
Subordinate Bomber
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That’s right. He wasn’t good enough to be considered one of the 8 Fiendish Bombers, and apparently he wasn’t good enough to be left in the Battle Game roster, but he got a keshi made out of him! Subordinate Bomber is in a really strange pose if you look at him too closely, because his upper torso is turned 90 degrees, while his legs are not. I didn’t even know that Bomberman bodies could twist that way, but there you have it. The effect it has gives him that sort of swashbuckling pirate-y visual, so it works.

Also, he’s super-duper short, like in his artwork! Here he is next to a normal Bomberman from this set.

Dave Bomber

Dave Bomber
Dave Bomber
Dave Bomber
Dave Bomber
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Here’s another figure that mostly retains the pose from his artwork, with the minor difference of his right hand being behind his back. Although I do like Dave Bomber, I’m not sure what to say about his figure other than that it is accurate and decently-balanced. He also has that strange flattening effect that is prevalent in this set; this time, it’s his body. Other rounded-bodied Bombers, like Bomber Uhho or Golem Bomber, don’t suffer from this. This really makes me curious about the logistics of the manufacturing of this set.

Too Many Daves!

Gary Bomber

Gary Bomber
Gary Bomber
Gary Bomber
Gary Bomber
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Since both my Dave Bomber and Gary Bomber figures are blue, I guess that really makes them the Blues Brothers… *grooooan*

Gary Bomber has become one of my favourite characters from this game. His sunglasses, his scrawny shape, his manner of dress, his silly butt-wiggling dance. It’s too bad they couldn’t figure these guys’ shades into their in-game sprites. Without them, and without context, it was hard to get the reference back when I first played Super Bomberman 5.

His pose is unique to this figure, possibly to help him stay balanced since he’s so slender. I’m not sure if it’s meant to reference the Blues Brothers’ style of dance, but it reminds me of them. Unfortunately, because he’s so small, his limbs are pretty fragile, so I imagine that some copies will have bent legs. Even mine, without leg problems, has problems toppling due to the orientation of his feet, something that you’d think they could have learned to account for by now (remember Bomber Chun?). As one final note, his antenna is strangely absent. It might just be another case of the sculptor misinterpreting his artwork, since his antenna is not visible in it.

Two Gary Bombers.

For its shortcomings, I do love this figure… though I might be biased.

Plunder Bomber

Plunder Bomber
Plunder Bomber
Plunder Bomber
Plunder Bomber
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Plunder Bomber was always pretty cool, too, if you ask me. His figure’s head is actually properly proportioned, which is striking given the circumstances. Unfortunately, he’s missing the hat on his back, but I assume that has something to do with the size limitations posed for the set. Aside from that, the level detail on his belt, his bandana, and especially on his gun is impressive, and just shows how much care they put into their work.

Blue and purple Plunder Bombers.

Iron Mask Bomber

Iron Mask Bomber
Iron Mask Bomber
Iron Mask Bomber
Iron Mask Bomber
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I always felt that Iron Mask Bomber had one of the best designs in-game, but his artwork seemed silly to me. I suppose I shouldn’t judge too harshly the one Fiendish Bomber who was, by all indications, imprisoned for cold-blooded axe murder. But still, just look at that face.

His figure looks really good from the front or the back, but from the sides, it’s kind of a mess. He was definitely hit the hardest by the problem of flattened depth in this set. Both his head and his body are staggeringly squashed. If you’re putting him on display, you’ll probably only be showing him from the front anyway, but it’s still somewhat disappointing to behold.

Terrorin

Terrorin
Terrorin
Terrorin
Terrorin
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Terrorin was one of the most unique villains in the Bomberman franchise. He appears to be some kind of android, but he can chuck tons of bombs. He has no discernible origin, no comprehensible modus operandi, and mysterious powers. And to top it all off, he has a clock for a head. A clock for a head. I really hope Konami gives him the Super Bomberman R treatment, like they did with Professor Bagura. Can you imagine?

Since his head is a clock, the flat-headed sculpt actually works to his advantage here. When I first saw a picture of him, I thought he was giving the thumbs-up, but now that I’ve obtained a copy, it’s clear that his hand is open. It looks like he’s introducing the 8 Fiendish Bombers or something (this is why I put him to the side on the header image). I assume that was the intent. Anyway, this keshi is well-balanced and generally retains the proper details, though they are somewhat skewed. Notably, his bells are much smaller, his “moustache” is shorter and confined to his face, and the gear on his tummy has been morphed into a kind of strange ball. The end result is uniquely proportioned, but it works.

Oh great, he’s learned how to time travel.

…Is anybody else positively perplexed about Terrorin’s face? Given their colour, it seems as though those two angled slats are meant to be his eyebrows, and the circle and rectangle are like his “eyes”. But because they’re so far down on his face, I cannot help but always see the slats as his eyes, and the circle and square as like, strange spectacles (particularly because the circle is clearly meant to represent a monocle). It certainly doesn’t help that his terribly inaccurate in-game sprites only show the slats. Given that one of the artists for the official 4-komas found in the guidebook feels the same way I do, I feel kind of validated, but then again, those comics aren’t necessarily canon.

Are they eyes or are they glasses? The eternal question…

I’ll leave you all to restlessly ponder this conundrum forevermore.

That’s all I have for this article! Please check back now and then, as I do intend to showcase even more keshi in the future. My other sets are incomplete, but some are missing just one or two figures. It may be a while.

If you like Bomberman, well, so do I! Obviously! Please take a look at my other articles on the subject. Thanks for reading!

h/t: Special thanks to Ragey for helping me find the vast majority of this set, and also for scanning the Super Bomberman 5 Hudson Official Guidebook, which contained the 4-koma above.

Edited 8/20/2017 to include pictures of extra Pirate, Dave, Gary, Plunder, and Terrorin figures.

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