Last year when I reviewed my Spiral Zone Saint Seiya Sagittarius figure I bemoaned the fact that I was never able to purchase the companion piece to it, the Spiral Zone Saint Seiya Gemini Saga. After the review I made it a priority to locate what I though was the last Spiral Zone figure I needed to complete my collection.

If there is one item in both the Bandai and Tonka Spiral Zone lines that is remembered by even the most passive toy collector, it is the iconic Act 10: Monoseed. The sheer audacity of the one wheeled designed assault motorcycle along with Bandai’s beautiful multi-media engineering and high craftsmanship resulted in Monoseed being one of the few Spiral Zone acquisitions by non SZ collectors.

Reissued and re-colored releases of previously manufactured toys have always been a blessing and a curse for collectors. Some re-releases could be very creative and well thought out while others releases can be a blatant cash out for the manufacture without any thought to the quality of the toy line.

The first of the two Bandai’s 1986 SF Spiral Zone optional backpack units was Act 8: Personal Floater. Nearly 25 years later Personal Floater is still one of the easiest items to locate inexpensively in mint sealed in the box condition.

Where as the Spiral Zone Kamen Rider Black was pure toy and The SFG Spiral Zone line proper was a fine balance between toy and model kit, the Spiral Zone Saint Seiya Sagittarius and Gemini were pure model kit.

The design of Spiral Zone's Act 2: Hyper Boxer has grown on me over the years, mostly due to the fantastic colors the armor was molded in, the lime green combat suit and the protect suits odd features and detailed weapon accessories.

Act 6: Bull Solid “Machinehead” was the second and last recolor of Bull Solid. I bought my Machinehead armor from Pony Toy Go Round back in the late 1980’s for $20.00.

Bandai’s SFG Spiral Zone released only three optional weapon sets for their Spiral Zone deluxe figure sets and optional Coating Armor sets. Acts 8, 9 & 10 would be allocated for those releases.

After releasing four SFG Spiral Zone extra Coating Type uniforms without figures, it would be expected that Bandai would release basic figures to go along with their coating armor sets. Spiral Zone Act 11 Figure Type 1 (White Man) and Act 12 Figure Type II (Brown) would fulfill those expectations.

Two Spiral Zone figures were created to be paired with one of the four Coating Type extra armor uniform sets. While the other three figures looked Japanese in their face sculpts, Bandai choose to release two figures with an African ethnicity and European ethnicity.

Special Forces Group Spiral Zone was a very short released series of action figures and equipment manufactured by Bandai in 1/12 scale in 1985. Not many pieces were released with only 12 releases, which were numbered on each box as “Acts”, with Bull Solid as Act 1.

Pony Toy Go Round, Los Angeles California - circa 1986: I was given a choice by my parents to make the decision to purchase one of two Spiral Zone toys that was needed for the collection: Monoseed or Sentinel Bear. Both were priced at $45.00 which was a lot of money those days. I correctly chose Monoseed but for the next 20 years I always dreamed of owning the third Spiral Zone figure Sentinel Bear.

I believe Bandai was heading in the right direction with their 1/12 scale SF Spiral Zone line when they began to manufacture some of their other Bandai licenses as SZ figures. As far as I know only three figures would be made: Kamen Rider Black, Saint Seiya Sagittarius and Saint Seiya Gemini.