聖戦士ダンバイン | Aura Battler Dunbine

Originally posted: 20th April 2026

While I was on holiday in Japan, one of our friends took us to a Mecha Model shop in Osaka. I don't really have much interest in the Mecha genre, but I do like Warhammer models so I had a look on the shelves to see what sort of models were available. It was mostly what you would expect to see, high-tech futuristic sci-fi mechs with fiddly little details. The displays had some amazing pieces that people had made already, showing off what the models looked like completed.

I didn't really find much of interest to me personally, until I noticed these really old looking 80's style boxes with beautiful artwork on the front, and I was instantly drawn in when I noticed that these were bug-themed fantasy mechs! It was like it was made specifically for me or something. This is Aura Battler Dunbine!

I spent a good five minutes or so looking through the boxes, there weren't very many, and I couldn't afford to give up space in my luggage to bring too many back. At first I was just going to buy one, but I just couldn't resist the beautiful box art for the Aura Ship Zelerna model, I was completely engrossed in the artwork, the forest looked so serene, but the fantastical mechs and the ship made it look like an exciting adventure. They also had some newer versions of the models but they were much bigger, and much more expensive as well.

When I got back to my hotel that evening, I immediately started looking up Aura Battler Dunbine, and was really happy to find out that there was an OVA and an animated series based on these models. I haven't had a chance to watch it, but I've found clips on Youtube, and honestly it looks really cool.

Aura Battler Dunbine is an "Isekai" anime, which means the main character is from our world, and gets transported to a fantasy world. Some sources say that this is considered to be the first "Isekai" anime actually, which is pretty interesting. Similar to other stories featuring mechs, the characters can pilot huge machines to fight against the bad guys, who also have huge humanoid machines. But, these are bug-themed, and they seem somewhat organic in nature as well, which I found really fascinating.

Unfortunately I don't know much more about the story, because my main interest is in the models themselves. The kits themselves (made by Bandai) seem quite nice, they are pre-coloured (which as a Warhammer fan is quite unusual, but I understand is fairly normal for mechas) and the instructions, despite being in Japanese, look fairly straightforward. I have yet to put the models together as I have a lot of other models to make, but I will update this article in future once I've built them.

Aura Battler Dunbine has released models a few times, the original release in 1983, some "master grade" kits in the early 2000's, and then it appears they have consistently released at least one new model every year since 2015, with the most recent model being set to release in June 2026.

So that's a brief overview of Aura Battler Dunbine! I think my favourite thing about the models is how insectoid they look, the big plates look like beetle elytra, their wings look really cool, and they've got those claw-like bug legs which make them look kind of monstrous rather than robotic.