SD Gashapon Senshi Forte EX 06 : NZ-333 Alpha Azieru

We're keeping up the pressure. Mobile Armor Week Day 5 sees an absolutely formidable mobile armor piloted by a psychotic teenager with a bad crush on Amuro Ray and one on Char Aznable as well. I don't know exactly how the Zeonic mobile forces screen their pilot material but it seems they should expand their requirements list to include more bullets than "newtype potential". I've said it before; Char's Counterattack has some of the best mobile suit designs and some of the worst writing...

The Gashapon Senshi Forte Alpha Azieru is the biggest Senshi Forte figure yet and was released through the Premium Bandai program more or less side by side with the Apsalus II from Mobile Suit Ensemble. Delivery began in July 2019 and the figure was priced at ¥5184. When it reached me in September the price had already climbed to ¥6000 but there was no way I was going to miss out on this one.

The figure comes ina pretty large box and contains five bags crammed full of parts and a very large step by step assembly guide. Hmmm.... this looks like it is going to be a bit complicated.

Yikes... that's a lot of parts for a Gashapon toy. That's right, we are talking Gashapon toys here, not model kits but Bandai seems to think they two terms are interchangeable...

The assembly guide will take you through building the different extremities one by one and then you assemble them all at the last stage. Overall I found assembly straightforward once I figured out exactly which pieces I was supposed to use where. Most components are hard plastic while some details are made from the softer plastic you are used to in the Senshi Forte line.

Just look at this beast. This figure is about 21 centimeters tall when sitting on its base. I remind you again that the Alpha Azieru belongs to a capsule toy figure series where the typical figure will be just a few centimeters tall.

The head opens up to reveal a traditional Zeonic monoeye cylinder that you can manipulate to have the mobile armor look left or right. As usual I tend to just put it facing straight forward.

The Alpha Azieru stems from the Neue Ziel and you can see resemblances to its design here and there. The two claw arms for example look very much like the ones on the Neue Ziel. These hands sit on little arms which feature the traditional Senshi Forte style rotating joints and you can also remove the entire arm and replace it with a panel that shows the arm covered up (see examples of this further down). At the tip of the arms we also have the hand-like five-barreled mega beam cannons. These are Psycommu controlled on the NZ-333 but here you have to make do with swiveling left or right.

On the back skirt we find the dreaded Funnel weapon system. Nine Psycommu controlled remote weapons extend the range of the Alpha Azieru's combat range tremendously and does away with dead angles as they can move around on the battlefield independently of the mobile armor itself. The figure comes with extra fins that you can put on the funnels when they are out and about but you have no way to actually pose the Alpha Azieru with flying funnels unless you go down the path of doing some sort of custom diorama.

The coolest thing about this figure is in my opinion how it transforms into landing mode. You basically remove the claw arms and replace these with closed panels under the arms, and then remove the head and fold the head armor together. Next you tilt the booster tanks backwards (they sit on Senshi Forte-style leg joints) and reposition the claw hands attached to the legs to form the front landing gear. The tail landing gear is attached on an extra pipe component to have it reach down and form the rear landing gear. It looks easy in the instructions but I found it a bit fiddly to pose correctly.

I love the figure in this mode and I heavily debated getting a second figure to have one permanently folded up like this. Still, with the parts transformation being pretty simple and the painfully high price of the figure that sits way down on my priority list for now. Hats off to the designers for making this mode possible!

The Alpha Azieru figure isn't just huge and imposing when parked next to these two Senshi forte Geara Dogas but I think that it actually works really well as a complement to figures from other series as well. We will take a quick look at how it compares with some other figure lines.

I felt that Gundam Converge was the natural choice to compare. The proportions and head style of the Senshi Forte Alpha Azieru style is very similar to how the Converge figures look and I definitely think it blends in perfectly with these. To be honest I don't really see the need for a Converge Alpha Azieru now that we have this one but it wouldn't surprise me if they'll get around to making a really pricy Converge figure anyway.

Did I mention just how imposing this figure is? Here it poses with two EX figures from the Converge line; the Psyco Gundam Mk-II and the Queen Mansa. The Senshi Forte Alpha Azieru easily dwarfs both the Converge Neue Ziel and Neo Zeong figures as well. Once again, the proportions and style of the figures go together like hand in hand.

So how does the Alpha Azieru stack up next to the Mobile Suit Ensemble line? Really well would be my reply. While the regular Ensemble figures might be a bit taller than the Converges and the Senshi Fortes they still don't reach even the skirt armor on the Alpha Azieru here. Again, a great fit in my opinion.

Speaking about Alpha Azieru figures in general we have a really tiny one in the SD Gundam Full Color series which basically looks like the tip of a finger. The Gundam Collection line produced a large figure in 1:400 scale (which I don't have available for comparison) and I believe there is also a traditional model kit in 1:550 scale. The Gashapon figure that you see to the left in the picture above is much smaller. It hails from the non-scale Gashapon Mecha Selection series volume one, released in 2000. This series was a direct continuation of the Gashapon HG EX Mobile Armor Selection series we reviewed here earlier this week but the line now also contains mobile suits and other vehicles and not just mobile armors.

As you may have guessed by now, I am madly in love with this figure. While I normally don't like to focus on the huge figures instead preferring to have many different types of grunt type figures I can't deny that this figure is magnificent and I highly recommend it if you have the funds to spare.