| EMSiA
RX-78-2 Gundam
Series: Extended Mobile Suit in Action!! (EMSiA) Title: RX-78-2 Gundam Release Date: 02/2006 Suggested Price: ¥ 2000 No. of Parts: 1 Gundam figure + 25 parts Plastic colors: rain cloud, blue, red, white, tan, black, chrome, gray yellow, green, transparent pink Gimmicks: open hand (2), trigger hand (2), fist (2), hand with Zaku mouthpiece, widely spread hand (2), spread hand, beam rifle, beam rifle rack, hyper bazooka, hyper bazooka rack, beam (2), beam saber hilt (4), Gundam hammer, hyper hammer, damaged Zaku head, damaged Gouf arm (2), beam javelin, shield
Contributor: White Wolf Date: December 6, 2006 Another new MS for the Extended MSiA is the famous RX-78-2 Gundam. This is the third MSiA mold for the Gundam (original, second version and Extended). Let's see how it holds up.
The head is connected to a neck via ball joint. That neck is connected to the torso via ball joint. That's a double ball-jointed head. It has an awesome range of motion and can look up and down a lot and can go around 360 degrees easily. It has a Katoki-ish sculpt to it that I like. The two cameras on top of its head are red along with the middle of the command antenna and the chin. There's also red around his eyes. The eyes are yellow with black underneath them. There are also tan panel lines on it. Sadly, the vulcans are not painted but that's no big deal. There's so little slop with the paint that it's unnoticeable unless you look really, really closely.
The torso of the Gundam is very articulated and painted well! The upper torso is connected to the lower torso with a ball joint and then there's another ball joint in the middle of the torso allowing it for even more movement! The cockpit is also connected to the torso with a ball joint so that it doesn't get in the way. The lower torso has no articulation and, of course, you must watch out for warping the skirt armor. The backpack, though it can't come off like the second version's, is great. The two thrusters are connected by ball joints and there are holes for the beam sabers to go in and a hole for the shield to be stored. A neat addition is that the beam saber racks are connected via a peg and can swivel from front to back to allow the Gundam to reach them easily. There's also a rectangular hole for either the beam rifle rack or bazooka rack on the rear skirt armor. On to the paint, everything looks great! The collar area's yellow and the upper torso is blue with red near the bottom and yellow for the vents. The lower torso is mostly white. There are two squares on the left and right front and back skirt armor that are yellow along with a little yellow “V” on the crotch area. The area around that “V” is red. The backpack is a rain cloud color. The thrusters are chrome colored with black on the inside. All the panel lines are a tan color and there's also a tan weathering on the white parts.
The Gundam's arms are full of articulation. First off, there's a square cut out of the shoulder part of the torso. In that cut-out square is a hinge, connected to the bottom of that cut-out square by a ball joint, that connects to a separate square that basically fills that hole. This allows that square to move up and down and the Gundam can put his arms above his head very easily. Then there's the shoulder pad which connects to the piece between the ball joint and the cut-out square. The actual shoulder pad is connected to that piece with a hinge and allows it to move with the arm and not get in the way at all. The actual arm is connected to the cut-out square with a ball joint and then has a swivel joint at the bicep. The elbow joint is the new standard double joint and the hand is connected with a ball-joint. The hands have a pretty good range of motion and stay on very tightly.
The paint on the arms and shoulder pad is white. The elbow joint is gray along with part of the cut-out square. The top part and top of the sides of the cut-out square are blue so it blends in with the rest of the torso. There are more of the tan panel lines and more of that tan weathering.
The legs of the Gundam are very well done. They are connected to the lower torso via a ball joint and have standard, double jointed knees. The foot guard is connected to the foot with two pegs and can swivel up and down. The foot itself is a little box that makes up the back of the foot that connects to the leg with a ball joint and connects to the front of the foot with a ball joint which makes the foot very articulated.
Both of the legs are painted white along with the top of the foot and the foot guard. There's two little vents under the knee that are painted gray and the knee joint, uppermost part of the leg, and back of foot are gray too. The lower part and bottom of the foot are red. There's two thrusters under each foot that are painted chrome with black on the inside and gray around it. Again, there are tan panel lines and tan weathering too.
Beam rifle- This beam rifle is very well done and is all rain cloud color except the handle which is gray and the inside of the targeter which is yellow. It looks a bit big but I think it fits in with the rest of this EMSiA and kind of stays true to the anime. The targeter and handle both swivel.
Hyper bazooka- This new bazooka sculpt is a little bigger than the second version's and looks great. It's all rain cloud color except the inside of the barrel which is black. The color stays true to the anime sometimes since it's seen as both all rain cloud color or rain cloud and white. It depends on which episode and which part it's staying true to. For some reason, from behind the handle and back, it swivels 360 degrees around and the little lock (it locks it in place when it's under the arm) on the back is connected via 2 pegs which allow it to swivel.
Gundam hammer- The Gundam Hammer is exactly the same as the Gundam second version's, minus the paint. This one is painted a rain cloud color.
Hyper Hammer- The Hyper Hammer, again, is exactly the same as the Gundam second version's, except the paint. This time it's all rain cloud color and the verniers are the same color as the rest of it.
Damaged Gouf arms- These arms are made to recreate Ramba's last fight. They are made to go onto your EMSiA Gouf. They are all blue except for the exposed wires and connectors, which are gray These are molded in white and painted blue so they may look a little different than the rest of your Gouf's paint. Otherwise, they fit well and serve their purpose.
Damaged Zaku head- This head is made to recreate when Gundam ripped off the mouthpiece of a Zaku in the first episode. It fits onto the head of the EMSiA Zaku II. Like the Gouf arms, this is molded in white and painted green. The mono-eye trail is black and there's gray inside the cables and mouth. The cables have black panel lines on them. There's also black weathering on the front. It doesn't look very bad alongside the rest of your EMSiA Zaku's paint.
Hyper bazooka rack- This gray rack allows you to store the hyper bazooka onto the Gundam's rear skirt armor. Well, this accessory works very well. It connects via a rectangular peg. Beam rifle rack- This gray rack allows you to store the beam rifle onto the Gundam's rear skirt armor. Well, this accessory works very well. It connects via a rectangular peg.
Beam sabers- The EMSiA Gundam comes with four beam saber hilts but two beams. Well, it may sound odd but it's for good reason. All four hilts can go onto either the Gundam's beam saber racks on its back or inside its shield. The two hilts that you would put inside the shield (for me) are very, very hard to get in and out so being able to keep them in there is great. The hilts are molded well and feature the tan panel lines like the rest of the EMSiA Gundam. The beams are both transparent pink and are made of a tougher, unwarpable plastic.
Beam javelin- The beam javelin is the same as the Gundam second version's. The whole staff is one piece and is all white. The beam is transparent pink and looks good. I don't know if the beam is removable since I haven't tried to remove it. If it is, it's very tough to get off! Oddly, there are no tan panel lines like the rest of the figure.
Hands- The Gundam comes with the standard three pairs: fists, open hands, and trigger hands. Then, there are more hands. There's two widely spread hands to recreate the re-entry scene and a spread hand for holding the barrel of the hyper bazooka or something. Then there is a hand with a Zaku mouthpiece in it. That, along with the damaged Zaku head, is made to recreate when Gundam ripped off the mouthpiece of a Zaku in the first episode. All the hands are gray and the Zaku mouthpiece is olive green with gray inside the mouthpiece and black panel lines on the cables. All of the hands serve their purpose well.
Shield- The shield looks just like the one in the anime and is red with white on the outer sides and a yellow cross near the middle. The handle and connector peg are gray and there's black weathering and black panel lines on the outside of the shield. The shield's sculpt is great and has two slots to put the beam saber hilts in. The connector peg is connected to the shield via a ball joint and just flips out when you want to store it in the Gundam's back. The handle is connected with a ball joint too. There's also a hole near the top of the shield so you can put the handle there and have the Gundam hold it upside-down like Gundam: The Origin. Oddly, there's nothing to connect the shield to the arm so sometimes it droops down. They finally make the ultimate Gundam but return to the first version's shield.
This is by far the best Gundam MSiA to date! The articulation is superb and he comes with lots of accessories. There's no real slop in the paint and the sculpt is dead on. The price point seems perfect too! There were a few very minor flaws which all together will knock it down half a point but this is still a must-buy for any MSiA collector!
Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars <<back to Gundam |
