SD Gashapon Senshi Forte EX 01 : RX-104FF Penelope

August was a pretty busy month as a Gundam figure collector so now I am taking the opportunity of the September lull to look at an old figure that has been sitting around in its box eagerly awaiting some love for much too long. The Penelope is the first EX figure to come out of the Senshi Forte line and was released under the Premium Bandai program in the end of July 2017. Originally sold for ¥2268 I had to cough up ¥5000 for it on the second hand market already in October the same year. Now almost a year later the price also seems to have stabilized around ¥5000 although I've seen some for as "low" as ¥3500.

So what makes the Senshi Forte Penelope figure that special that you have to set aside funds enough to buy at least a dozen standard figures to secure it? Well, it does come in a slightly larger box than your usual figure, a box decorated with interesting non-descript patterns of grey; you can't even see what it looks like except for a blurry portrait. This is definitely one of those things you need to google before you go for a purchase, which is probably exactly what you, dear reader, might be doing right now...

Upon first inspection we find half a dozen plastic bags with a couple of parts in each. In fact, this figure has a fairly respectable number of components going for it. A small instruction sheet is included but the illustrations are really tiny and not always the easiest to follow. Even after I looked up the illustrations of the Penelope on the official Senshi Forte page I wasn't exactly sure what it is they wanted me to build.

If you have ever built a Gashapon Senshi Forte (or for that matter a Gashapon NEXT or DASH) figure before you will instantly recognize the skeletal components for not one but two figures in the box. Browsing through the parts you also find four feet and four large shoulder pieces but there is only one face. At first I wasn't even sure if this box was going to produce one modular or two separate figures. To sort it out, I got to work with help of the little booklet.

The first thing we are taught to build is the basic mobile suit. I am not familiar with the Hathaway's Flash storyline that this mobile suit has been gathered from, but as I understand it this basic mobile suit is called the RX-104 Odysseus Gundam. It turns into the RX-104FF Penelope when combined with its add-on Fixed Flight Armor Unit.

This figure has all the usual traits of your average Senshi Forte figure. it features the same type of components and number of articulated joints that you would have come to expect. However, apart from the usual soft and bendy plastic used for Senshi Forte figures the Penelope also includes many parts of harder and more brittle plastic which has been painted up. These pieces do not have the same "stay together" properties as the softer plastic parts and tend to fall off rather easy. Case in point on this figure; those weird thrustery things sticking out from its feet.

The Penelope figure comes with two open and two closed fists. Each fist can wield any of the standard Senshi Forte weapons such as the beam rifle included with the figure. The figure also comes with two optional shields that attach to the forearms. Each shield can emit a beam saber and we get two beautiful translucent beam effect parts for this purpose. Sugoi!

In the pictures above the Odysseus Gundam teams up with a pair of E.F.S.F. Gustav Karl mass-produced mobile suits as well as going toe to toe with its rival and successor, the RX-105 Xi Gundam, operated by the terrorist group Mufti. The Xi Gundam was a basic ¥300 figure and it clearly shows in this comparison.

Here is where things take a weirder turn. From the leftover parts in the box we are instructed to piece together the Fixed Flight Armor Unit. It basically looks like a knight's armoured suit hung on a coat rack. The components for the FF unit are mostly made from the harder and more rigid plastic, and they are rather extravagantly painted when compared to other Senshi Forte figures. These pieces are also more prone to fall off; you can even see the right foot ready to fall out of its socket in the pictures above. It looks the part, but is rather flimsy in comparison.

Here the Odysseus poses with its Fixed Flight unit. It looks more like the Gundam is an accessory to the Flight Unit than the other way around. It is not easy to engineer these types of compact figures to transform, and the Gashapon designers have done a commendable job here, although the structure as a whole is prone to fall apart rather easily.

That which cannot be unseen: The Space Chicken head...

Finally we can assemble the RX-104FF Penelope proper. This is where those extra skeletal pieces I mentioned earlier come into play. Thankfully you do not need to tear apart the limbs of the basic Odysseus figure. You can simply assemble a separate pair of arms and legs and then replace the entire limbs. Only the hands and shields need to be transferred over. The Armor Unit parts lock in place around the Gundam figure although the pegs on the front and back armor on my figure did not line up as perfectly as we have come to expect from Bandai. As a result, the armor plates aren't locked in place as well as they should.

When fully assembled the Penelope will tower over the Xi Gundam which now looks very intimidated. Although I am not really a huge fan of the Penelope or Xi I kind of wish they would have beefed up the Xi Gundam a bit; it is almost 50% taller than the average mobile suit after all.

E.F.S.F. versus Mufti -, something only Gashapon Senshi Forte can deliver.

Overall the Senshi Forte Penelope figure is pretty cool and well engineered. The paint job is really nice and even the weapons are painted up. Whether you are prepared to spend ¥5000 on a Gashapon figure is of course an entirely different matter. Considering the range of Senshi Forte figures of mobile suits from the Hathaway's Flash timeline you may well want to complete that line-up but otherwise unless you are a huge fan you could spend this money on some nice army builder units instead methinks.