Mobile Suit Ensemble Part 18

Ensemble Part 18 is the second installment of the increased-to-six-figures retail sets and is a bit of a pain to try to collect. Due to the new seeding of A+B versions of a pair of figures in the sets it just means that there will be less chances to find complete waves for sale. You'll likely have to dig extra deep to find the forced rarity items. Availability has simply been quite scarce across te board and especially so for some of the individual figures.


Wave 18 was released in July of 2021 and has no distinct theme this time and mixes figures from all over the timelines which I always enjoy. The review is based on various singles that I had to track down one by one and in a splendid disaster I ended up with half a dozen equipment packs that had been mislabeled by the otherwise dependable Mandarake webstore as ZAKU Warrior figures. I usually try to create a squad of the mass production type suits but that will take years to complete with this wave if at all possible.


One thing the pandemic hasn't managed to kill off is the different distribution; figures are still sold in either Gashapon capsules or random boxes like the one above. You know I have to get at least one of each to get that pretty booklet as well.





109 : RX-78-1 Prototype Gundam


First out is the Prototype version of the RX-78. Apart from its sexy black and grey colour scheme it is mostly similar to the basic RX-78-2 figure although there are some minor sculpt differences, the joints at the feet being the most obvious. You may as well take a spare old figure and repaint it without much loss of character.


A standard Ensemble set-up here. The beam rifle is also a new sculpt and the loose ankle guards are an interesting addition. I wonder if future incarnations of the RX-78 will also begin to feature similar components.


Side-by-side comparison of the Prototype figure next to the standard RX-78-2 and the RX-78-3 (the G3 is a simple colour variant of the RX-78-2).






110 : ARX-014S Silver Bullet Suppressor


It seems Narrative is mostly dead and buried by now but here comes an interesting mobile suit choice, the weird Silver Bullet Suppressor that carries a magazine of right arms on its back. The way the story goes, the Suppressor's arm will be damaged by the heavy recoil that comes from firing the Unicorn Gundam-series Beam Magnum rifles. So how did the designers go around solving this? By installing a set of four replaceable underarms and a crane and winch system to replace these in the field. I mean, dude, if you really need the weapon that bad - why not put it on a remote platform?


The Suppressor figure looks exceedingly complex at first glance but this is mostly due to the large storage of additional arms on its back. The rest of the figure is fairly traditional as far as Ensemble goes, featuring beautiful armor panels that slot into the peg holes at the knees. The suit notably carries no shield (which I'd personally pick over an oversized rifle any day).


This figure has a unique add-on to the regular Ensemble stand that allows it to support the heavy backpack. This is an elegant solution that of course won't work if you want to place the mobile suit on an Ensemble stand itself. As evident from my photos the figure can stand unaided but it will not take much effort to topple it over.


We have seen the Silver Bullet Suppressor before in Converge #17 (released in December 2019, wow has it been almost two years already?). The Converge figure highlights the rather dreary colours on the Ensemble figure which would have looked happier with a bit of that additional colour. Bonus points are awarded for the multi-part chest and cockpit area though which has beautiful colour separation.






111 : ZGMF-1000 ZAKU Warrior


Alright, so this was supposed to be the highlight of the set. I really wanted a ZAKU Warrior squad so badly but man, these things are impossible to find. I consider myself fortunate to have found just the one. The price skyrocketed already at release, Mandarake would sell the other figures in this set for ¥600 but they knew of the Warrior's value and priced it accordingly at ¥1800 which really hurt. Still, I was unfazed and decided to go all-in on this machine and managed to find and order half-a-dozen units from many of their different shops. When the figures began arriving one by one it turned out I had been sold the equipment packs (which contain a green helmet piece that can easily be misidentified as the mobile suit itself) every single time. In the end I managed to get one figure bu man I am really frustrated by this, since the Warrior is a really beautiful figure.


From a strictly technical point the ZAKU Warrior figure is also a fairly standard Ensemble figure, certainly nothing you haven't seen before. It has some nice colour apps on the chest and shield and multi-part feet to aid in the colour separation. The upper half of the head can be removed and the mono-eye manipulated. The figure gains a lot of bonuses n the equipment pack so we will return to it shortly.






112 : ZGMF-1000 ZAKU Warrior (Lunamaria Hawke Custom)


One of the reasons the ZAKU Warrior is so rare is that it has to share space with Lunamaria Hawke's custom red variant in the box sets, making both of them rarer than the rest of the figures in the set. While this figure is also quite hard to find compared to the others in this set it was still not sold at an inflated price, clearly demand for it is lower since you really only need one in your collection I guess. Colouring apart, the figure is identical to the mass production type.


Yep, nothing special to see here, being 100% similar to the mass production type this opens up for customizing. You could for example take the shield arm of one figure and attach to the other, as a first step to make a Blaze or Slash Phantom geared figure (you will see more of this in the equipment pack section).






113 : MS-12 Gigan


Now, of all the odd things sharing space together in wave 18 this is by far the weirdest. Starting its humble life as an MS-X concept for base defence, being little more than a mobile turret, it has since been making odd appearances here and there. I guess the reason it was chosen for Ensemble is the habit of throwing in a support vehicle or similar in the next to last slot of an Ensemble wave. I had no idea where to begin with the assembly but thankfully the official Ensemble site as a build instruction (after that site is terminated you are on your own).


If I were to hazard a guess I would say that early support units like the 0 Raiser and the G-Fighter were likely introduced both as a means to lower the development cost of an Ensemble wave and to extend playability of the mobile suits in the same wave. The 0 Raiser could join up with the 00 Gundam, the G-Fighter with the RX-78 and so on. At this point you can see for yourselves how complex the designs have become and you will have little playability extensions for the mobile suits as well. I think at this point Bandai may as well focus on mobile suits and cut the waves back down to five boxes with four suits and an equipment pack.


The Gigan has actually seen life in figure form once before, in the old Converge line (Volume 15, released in June 2014). I have to say neither figure really captures its soul that well. The Ensemble figure is well engineered but feels a little soulless while the Converge figure is rather garish and oddly proportioned. One thing that bugs me about the Ensemble design is that the left hand claw is the same colour as the arm. I had to look several times if I was indeed missing a part but apparently not.






114 : Equipment Set for Wave 18


The equipment pack for this volume is mostly geared towards the ZAKU Warrior figures and contains no basic parts such as your average beam saber or connector components. I was a bit annoyed that there are no build instructions for the equipment set on the Ensemble page. I fumbled around for some time before I figured out where all the components were intended to go. And I still don't know how everything is supposed to fit together for the ZAKU Gunner wizard pack as we shall see.


The Prototype Gundam gets the awkward but somewhat iconic Beam Javelin close combat weapon. The tip of the spear is assembled by carefully inserting the two additional clear spikes into the sockets of the larger component. Exercise caution here since the peg holes are really narrow and the parts very easy to break. The end result is ok I guess, personally I would have preferred an opaque pink colour tip rather than the clear plastic that they went for.



ZGMF-1001/M Blaze ZAKU Phantom


The main course here is the Blaze Wizard pack for the ZAKU Warrior which attaches two large missile launchers to the back of the mobile suit. The spiked right shoulder is removed and replaced with a mirror image of the left shoulder with an extra shield with another two spare clips for the machine gun. Rounding out the look is the head piece with the antenna and an MA-M8 Beam Tomahawk close combat weapon. You can also opt to retain the right arm as-is without the extra shield to replicate the ZGMF-1000/M Blaze ZAKU Warrior. I'd love to build a nice line-up and show you, welcome back in 2025 when maybe I have managed to find some more figures...


While both the Blaze ZAKU Warrior and Phantom are canon in mass production-green, the most well-known Phantoms are the white and orange machines seen in SEED Destiny being piloted by Rey Za Burrel and Heine Westenfluss respectively (Dearka Elsmanns' black unit to a lesser extent as well). I will be very disappointed if Bandai does not milk this fine design further with some EX figures featuring these suits as well as the Slash ZAKU gear for Yzak's blue Phantom - and throw in the pink machine for Meer while you are at it. :)






ZGMF-1000/A1 Gunner ZAKU Warrior (Lunamaria Hawke Custom)


But wait, there's more...! The remaining gear in the equipment pack is used to transform Lunamaria's ZAKU Warrior into the Gunner ZAKU Warrior type. Actually all the Gunner Wizard pack components are black so there is nothing stopping you from upgrading the mass production machine instead. Man, the squad you could build with these things if only there were some mobile suit figures available...


The M1500 Orthros beam cannon can be carried either in hand or stowed on the backpack. When stored, the front section of the gunbarrel folds elegantly and sits perfectly in place. I did however have trouble trying to figure out how to arrange the parts to allow the cannon to be attached to the backpack when in deployed mode. With no instructions at hand I decided not to bother with it so my figure does not connect the two and it doesn't really bother me. I am sure an engineering team spent a lot of work to figure it out however, so apologies to them. :) In the end I prefer to keep the cannon stored on the back anyway.




Update October 2022: Revisiting this review a year later I have now managed to build a little squad after aggressivley hunting ZAKU Warriors online. The prices have not come down and availability is also unchanged, you can easily go months between seeing it on Mandarake only for a sold out figure to appear on the latest news page. I stepped on more duds where I ordered the figure only to get the equipment pack instead, I am swimming in the latter by now.



Conclusion

The eighteenth wave of Ensemble was a bit of a frustrating experience for me. I would have liked to heap more praise over it but the limited availability of the figures is a real turn-off although this shouldn't really reflect on the figures themselves. Perhaps if Ensemble is still around when it is time for Ensemble 18.5 they can correct the distribution model... The only advice I can give is - if these figures interest you, buy on sight.