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 the Super Bomberman 4 keshi line. This set took me a long time to complete, namely due to some of the smaller figures – people lose a little angler fish and they have no idea it belongs to the Bomberman franchise! And, because 8/10 of these figures come in two pieces, it just makes it that much harder to find them all nowadays! Big thanks to Ragey and my other anonymous friend for helping me gather almost all of these.

Now this set is pretty interesting in that it consists of five full-sized figures and five half-scale models that end up being about as tall or wide as a full-size figure. The big figures are the 4 Bomber Shitennou and Great Bomber, the bad guys of Super Bomberman 4, while the half-scale figures are mostly derived from the manual’s artwork depicting the game’s plethora of brand-new features. There also existed factory-painted variants of the whole set, pictures of which may be seen in the Super Bomberman 4 Hudson Official Guidebook. I have some of these, so I’ll be showcasing those versions in lieu of the unpainted duplicates since you can see the details better.

One last little thing: I have a lot of these figures that still have their sprues attached, and the sprues are numbered. But the order doesn’t make sense for presentation here, so I’ll be showcasing them in a more logical order. The numbers will be provided where possible in the headers.

Super Bomberman 4  Series

• Year: Circa 1996
• Number of figures: 10
• Figure size: Normal (up to 5cmx5cm)
• Known colours: Blue, green, orange, red, white
• Painted variants exist

Dogun Jr. & Black Bomber

This is one of the toughest Bomberman keshi to find due to Dogun Jr. (the little pot-like enemy) being unidentifiable to any seller who is unfamiliar with the game. For this, as well as the later Angora figure, you’re more likely to turn up the Bomberman rider alone. With that being said, Dogun Jr. is one of the more unique non-Bomberman characters to receive a keshi, and it is a delight to have. The details are etched into its body and they look great up close, though they can be harder to make out from afar. One of the eyes bumps out a bit, I believe as a clever location for the injection on the mold.

The Bomberman has a flat bottom and legs, and so he sits fairly well atop his mount, though even a slight bump may send him toppling. He’s pretty well similar to the title screen art except that he’s giving double V-signs here. Also of note is that the painted version is Black Bomber, while the title screen shows White Bomber atop Dogun Jr. Both characters have been swapped in the painted variants.

Bomber Throw (#2)

This one shows Red Bomber holding up Green Bomber. The pose is similar to the manual’s artwork, but the character on the bottom has been bent over and adjusted a bit to hold his friend steady. It actually works very well. Since the arms and legs interlock, the figures don’t come apart easily by accident, and thanks to the pedestal, the composition as a whole stays upright quite decently.

The rider’s pose has been flipped and his expression set to a more serious one than that of the manual.

Here you can see a bunch of them that I currently possess. Something odd to note is the appearance of white figures. These look to be glow-in-the-dark, though I’ve never found them to glow and haven’t thoroughly tested the theory. What is stranger still is that, as seen by the lower figure, these white keshi do not include bases. We’ll see more of them on the next page…

Bomber Push

This figure depicts Black Bomberman pushing Blue Bomberman. It’s a much different pose than the ones seen in the manual, and for the better, since the characters are turned toward the viewer. The tangle of hands in the middle kind of melds together, though the painted version makes the details much clearer.

You may notice that the rectangular base is a bit warped. This is probably due to how it was stored if it came out of a gachapon machine. It doesn’t affect the way the figure stands.

Here’s where the white keshi become… stranger. While the full figure is one solid piece, the white variant appears to be two isolated pieces with no bases. To boot, this half of the figure is sealed within its own little baggy! I have little idea as to what the story is here, but consider me curious.

Angora & White Bomber (#4)

Although I have two of these at this time, both still have their sprues connected, and I just don’t have the muster to snap them just yet. I imagine that it’s a bit less stable than the Dogun Jr. figure is, since Angora is rounded up top, but I can’t verify that at the time. If I ever change my mind or obtain another, I suppose I’ll have to update!

Angora sports a combination of its smile from the artwork and its sleepy eyes from the title screen, for a rather dopey, if cute, expression. The details are quite nice, from the bulbous lips to the bumps on its back. Even the fins and the angler (I suppose that means it’s female?) are crisp and defined.

White Bomber & Mechanical Egg (#5)

It’s White Bomber with the newly-introduced Mechanical Egg, except he’s winking here as opposed to his ordinary expression in the artwork. There’s not much to say here aside from the fact that the egg looks exquisite in 3D, and I’m saddened to feel that they may never make a return. Since this is the last of the half-scale figures, I’d also like to comment that I enjoy the way they rounded out this set of keshi by highlighting all the fun new features that Super Bomberman 4 introduced. It’s clever and it produced some of the more interesting keshi in the series.

One last thing about these guys is that none of the bases are of the same cut. Strange, right? Both rectangular bases are different sizes and different thicknesses, and while Angora and Bomber Throw’s bases are similar in size, none of the circle bases match in thickness.

Well, enough babbling about that, let’s move on…

Hammer Bomber (#7)

The 4 Bomber Shitennou are among some of the coolest figures in the whole Bomberman keshi lineup if you ask me, and not only because they have painted versions. There’s just a lot more detail in these guys that previous Bomberman designs hadn’t had, and it makes them all the prettier to see up on a shelf. As per usual, the sculptor went out of their way on Hammer Bomber’s details, even opting to have his flail extended and on the ground, where they could have taken the easier route of keeping it up at his wrist. From what I remember, when I had one that lacked his pack, the balance was a bit off, but the jetpack really helps balance him out. The same can be said for the rest of them.

Also important to note is that the general quality of the painted figures is quite higher than that of the unpainted ones. The circles and bumps from injection molding are gone – even the ones on the backs of the legs! The only one I could find on the whole figure is on his left bottom base of the jetpack, where none exists there in the unpainted variant. There’s one on one of the back spikes of his flail in the unpainted version, and that’s gone too, leaving the spike completely unmolested. Additionally, where the base of the flail kind of gradually melds into its cord on the unpainted figure, the painted one has a clear and accurate divide with a more spherical iron ball. It’s very nice.

Of course, that combined with the rarity means that people will jack up the prices on these, so have fun getting your hands on any of them.

Jet Bomber

Jet Bomber’s jets are in a nifty pose here, over his shoulders as though he’s about to take off, just like in the game. It never struck me before looking at this figure that he actually does have two big jets connected to a smaller jetpack. I guess my next question is why the four even have those jetpacks in the first place (are they even jetpacks?).

He tips subtly forward, possibly to counterbalance the weight of his jets, and stands rather firmly.

I don’t have much to say about him, but he’s a great addition to the set!

Lady Bomber (#8)

Ah, Lady Bomber. Your comrades were all named after their weapons, but I suppose that wouldn’t have been feminine enough? It’s doubly sad that this is only the second of two female Bombermen to even be depicted across the entire keshi line.

This is one of my favourite figures, though. It’s Lady Bomber, and in a flashy pose! The bits (yes, they are referred to as bits for some reason) surrounding her are even painted in the proper colours. You’d think that the positioning of her feet would throw off her balance, and you’d be right – without her jetpack, she topples quite easily. But with the pack on, she stands upright generally well.

Something to mention here is that the painted figures are not designed to be detachable. The back attachments are stuck into the bodies something fierce, and I don’t dare try to remove them. Especially because I have a copy of painted Lady Bomber who has been given such a treatment. The hole in her back looks about the same as it does on the unpainted version, but there’s a mess of rough silver paint there that clearly indicates that it wasn’t meant to be ripped apart. So if you land one of these guys, please, don’t tear them apart!

Bazooka Bomber

I quite like Bazooka’s pose. It’s interesting without sacrificing his balance whatsoever. Now, I’d always found it strange that Bazooka’s face looks rather similar to that of Brain Bomber, but even though I know what he looks like in his artwork, the sculpt really brings out the details that make him unique in his own right.

The end of his bazooka is flat, but given the high detail everywhere else, I’m not even slightly disappointed by it.

Great Bomber

Finally, it’s the big man himself, Great Bomber. As expected by now, his spread feet make him susceptible to toppling without his cape, but his cape helps him keep better balance. The injection site is really well obfuscated, such that the only possibility I can discern is a tiny circle on the bottom of his left foot. The only thing I could say is off is that the inside of his cape is blue instead of the whiter tone it’s meant to be, but at that point, I’m just stretching to find something. I can’t really stress how great the painted keshi look in this set. It’s a shame they’re so hard to find.

As one final note, if you’re looking at the pictures in the guidebook, you may notice that some of the colours are a bit different – namely, the villains’ faces are all completely black! Thankfully, in the released keshi, this is corrected, so that they all sport the grey (or brown, in Great’s case) faces of their artwork. It’s an interesting difference though, and it makes me wonder how it happened.

Well, I’m running out of things to say in this article! Please stay tuned, as my article for the 10-figure Super Bomberman 3 translucent set will be coming some day! I’ve completed the collection, I just need to put everything together (and trust me when I say that it really takes time).

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

All art was scanned in from the Super Bomberman 4 manual.
Special thanks to Ragey and another close friend of mine for gifting me most of these figures! <3