Mobile Suit Ensemble EX 10 : F90 Gundam F90D/H Set

In the department of long overdue reviews we have today stumbled upon a figure released in March 2019. The Gundam F90 set is a Premium Bandai release with a really hefty price tag of ¥3780. This put it in the same price bracket as most of the smaller P-Bandai Ensemble offers but it of course sucks paying for what is essentially a basic figure with some option parts and some extra paint apps.

The box lets you build one of three available configurations of the Gundam F90, of which there is a multitude of versions, pretty much one for each letter in the alphabet, which is a bit ridiculous. And, as I'm sure you can imagine I didn't want to limit myself to just one so I went out and hunted down three boxes to flesh out my collection to the full extent (there is also a purple F90 Unit 2 but I have to set the limit somewhere...). I did my purchases over the spring and summer of 2019 and ended up paying exactly ¥4500 for each figure so the price had already went up a little. I did a cursory search for it on Mandarake for this review and it was currently out of stock with the latest price being ¥7000 so it certainly seems to have become fairly scarce.

From left to right: Gundam F90 Unit 1, Gundam F90 Unit 2 with its Titanesque-colours, the OMS-90R Gundam F90 (which is Unit 2 after it is stolen by and pressed into use by the Mars Zeon faction), the F90D Gundam F90 Destroid Type and F90H Gundam F90 Hover Type.

As usual with this type of release the box is as small as it can possibly be and the plastic bags with the various components are wrapped really tightly making it a near impossible task to put them back in the box without paying very close attention to how it was done the first time.

The figures you see in this review will have received some crude paint apps by yours truly so keep that in mind when looking at the photos. Apart from some detail enhancements the thruster vents are painted yellow and the shield has received most of the attention because it looks really unappealing out of the box.
   

F90 Gundam F90 (Unit 1)

This is the basic configuration of the F0 and is a really traditional design as far as a mobile suits and Gundams in particular go. The figure is for all intents and purposes a regular Ensemble figure with a couple of finesses tacked on to it. Specifically we have nice blue armor plating on the shoulders, arms and lower legs; that plug into the elbow and knee joints, effectively covering those ugly holes up. Since the shield occupies this slot you will have to sacrifice one of the armor plates on that arm, it would have been nice to see a different engineering solution but it is fine.

The figure comes with three types of manipulators; the regular holding hands common to all Ensemble figures as well as expressive open hands and clenched fists for both left and right arm. Apart from the single beam rifle we also have two beam sabers made up of clear plastic parts for the blades and solid whites for the handles. The handles slot into the backpack when the sabers are not in use. This simple gimmick should have been made standard for all Ensemble figures right from the start, since it makes both the sabers and the backpacks really attractive.

I put in most of the effort on this figure to make the shield look at least somewhat decent, since it is missing its yellows and most egregiously the number "90" which is almost a hate crime. Seriously, you are making a P-Bandai figure and you couldn't even put such an iconic detail on there? I obviously don't have any decals for a Gundam F90 lying around but the transfers I used for the Swedish Army project came in handy here.
  

F90D Gundam F90 Destroid Type

The F90 Destroid or "D-Type" is a variant of the F90 which decks out the mobile suit with additional weapons and extra thruster packs on the legs. The shoulder packs feature grenade launchers, the forearms have 5-pack missile tubes and there is an oddly placed Mega Gatling Gun on the left hip belt fed by the puniest looking ammo drum I have ever seen. How many rounds are there in there? 30?

Bandai's figure designers have done a really good job in making switching between the modes a simple task. Basically you just remove the blue armor sections from the basic F90 and attach the new weapon systems and legs thruster in their places. The Gatling Gun is attached to the hardpoint on the backskirt and the rest of the figure remains the same. The one exception is the T-shaped front of the armored skirt which can be carefully removed and replaced. Each version of the F90 features its own such variant component.

The F90 Destroid retains the same handheld weapons as the F90 although it can no longer use the shield (well, technically you can attach it to the missile launcher but...). It would have been cool to see the developers include a conversion piece which would allow the figure to hold the shield in front of it, like they sometimes do with particularly GM figures for some reason. Perhaps handheld shields are not canon for the F90 but it would have looked really smooth nonetheless.
  

F90H Gundam F90 Hover Type

The last version in this boxset is the Hover Type which transforms the F90 into a ground effect type strike craft kind of like the Doms and Dom Tropens that you can see skating around on hot air in the various animes. The mobile suit receives an extensive flight pack which is spread out all over its body and two large missile launchers are attached to its shoulders (you know, the same type that Arnie likes to lug around in Commando...).

The parts replacement process to create the F90H is a little bit more involved but follows the basic principles. We also get extra thrusters that attach to the hip slots and the backpack is replaced with a type that does not support beam sabers. The elbow joints support a 2-pack grenade launcher on the right arm as well as a very basic looking shield on the right arm (the actual artwork suggest the shield should be green but here it is standard black only). The standard beam rifle is replaced with a shorter beam pistol in its place.

Olive green might be a bit of an eclectic choice of colour for this pack, it is not like the rest of the mobile suit is painted in low-visibility colours. It would have been really cool to see the F90 in a ground combat colour scheme as an MSV.

Finally, here we have the real money shot, the thing that is so cool about configurable figures. I mean, how do you decide which mode to display when all of them are so different and attractive in their own right? I really hope that Bandai and FusionWorks will eventually pick up the F90 line again and give us some of the F90 variations in the Gundam Converge line, I am sure they would look fantastic.
   

Conclusion

If you can stomach the price I think you will have a lot of fun with at least one F90 figure in your Ensemble line-up, if nothing else to pair it up with the F91. We will get more chances to work on the F90 line-up once Ensemble EX21 arrives in September. That version will allow us to build both the L and the I-Type F90II (and presumably a basic F90II too...) so that means going on a drawn out figure-hunt online and getting really hurt in the wallet again.