Gundam Converge CORE : RX-104FF Penelope (Metallic Color Ver.)

The RX-104FF Penelope and the RX-105 Xi Gundam are the stars of the Mobile Suit Gundam side story Hathaway's Flash which is a continuation on an alternate version of Char's Counterattack titled Beltorchika's Children, because apparently it is more interesting to tell alternate stories than expanding your fictional universe. It is centered around nobody's favourite character Hathaway Noa who for some reason gets to pilot the Xi Gundam and so it is the Penelope's job to go up against him.

The new box isn't exactly a wonder of creativity...

We first saw the Converge Penelope under the EX flag where it was released in April last year with a suggested retail price tag of ¥3600. To do some price comparisons, the original Neo Zeong EX figure was priced at ¥4200, the Pale Rider EX figure sat at ¥2600 and the Nightingale at ¥3000.


The only way to obtain the metallic colour version of the Penelope was to purchase an advance ticket package for the new Hathaway's Flash movie through the Gundam Converge Fan Club program. I don't know much about this marketing ploy but I would imagine it was only open to customers in Japan. What I do know though, is that you had to spend ¥6980 to get this promo figure as part of the package and then decide if you want to suffer through another Hathaway Noa drama. So, to find this figure you will have to turn to either secondary market scalpers or perhaps people who really wanted to see the movie but had no interest in the figure (do such Gundam-fans exist?). The metallic colour version Penelope was released sometime around November 2020 and I have only ever seen it once in the Mandarake store since then (and yes of course I spent ¥12000 for the privilege of reviewing it...).


The Penelope looks deceptively simplistic out of the box, but there is a lot of parts-swapping to do if you wish to turn it into the Odysseus Gundam variant. I apologize that this review will be a bit bare-bones in this regard but I have no desire to go through that hassle again. Instead I will only be showing of the main Penelope mode here, please see the original EX30 figure review for more insights into the further features of this figure.


I am not much of a Penelope-fan but the figure does look pretty sitting there on its stand with its myriad of fine details. As with most Converge metallic color versions I don't think it adds much character to the figure compared to the vanilla figure, I'd be much more impressed if it was delicately panel-lined or pre-washed for example. The main feature of this figure is this floating variant on a base but you can also replace the feet with standing ones if you prefer to keep it in line with the rest of your figures. The massive flight form pack will still make it difficult to display if you have your figures lined up close to a wall or edge of a display box.


Converting the Penelope to the Odysseus takes some work since not only do you have to strip it of its excessive Flight Form package components but you also have to plug a number of holes in the body with the eight plugs that come on the two sprues included with the figure. It doesn't look like much fun to do this back and forth and so I don't plan to convert the figures around beyond this point. At least now I have one of each so that's a bit of relief.


Conclusion

This was a short review but there isn't a whole lot to say about this figure. You have to be an overly zealous collector to even considering wasting this amount on money on it when the regular EX figure is competent enough. Stay tuned by the way for the Converge RX-105 Xi Gundam that will hit the shelves this May. No further Hathaway's Flash figures have been announced to my knowledge but I would really be happy if FusionWorks would release the Mufti Me-02R Messer and the E.F.S.F. FD-03 Gustav Karl in the regular line.