SD Gunpla

Super Deformed Gundam or SD Gundam originated from a contributed illustration of a junior high school student from Nagoya by the name of Koji Yokoi to the "Model News" magazine that Bandai was issuing in the 1980s. The illustration is of a Gundam but with the weird proportion where the overall height of the Gundam is equal to 2 of its heads. This illustration interested the chief editor and so leading to Koji Yokoi serializing SD Gundam in 4 frame comics in "Model News".

The super deformed design was suitable for capsule toys and so SD Gundam started merchandising with the Gashapon series "SD Gundam World" in 1985. By the 90's SD Gundam spawned many spin-off series, SD Sengokuden (SD Warring States, Musha Style), SD Gundam Gaiden (Knight Style) and SD Commando Chronicles (Military Style) to name a few.

With its popularity, SD Gundam merchandise expanded to include manga, trading cards, anime and video games. Several games based on the SD Series were also made ranging on consoles from the SNES to the GBA. The SD Gundam G Generation game series features the SD Gundams in a turn-based strategy game.

The SD Gundam designs were also used throughout the earlier Super Robot Wars games (up through SRW F and F Final, stopping at SRW Alpha for the PS1), as can be seen by the pupils present in the eyes of the various Mobile Suits that appeared. From SRW Alpha and beyond, however, the eyes of Mobile Suits remain blank, though the robots themselves are still super-deformed (just as all mechs represented in typical SRW games are).