I have been burning through Ensemble EX figures lately and today the turn has come to the recently released Crossbone X-1 in its Full Cloth configuration. This was a Premium Bandai release that delivered to customers in July 2022 and it came with a price tag of ¥5500. Not as steep as some of the EX figures out there but still ten times the price you would pay for the retail figure. So far this figure is hovering around the ¥6000 mark on the secondary market and so hasn't seen any nasty price-hike thus far.
Good looking box there, still haven't figured out why we have both the classical Bandai logotype and the new ugly Bandai Namco one on there. As far as I understand it, this is a software division so maybe it is some sort of cross-promotion to have different divisions get in on the fun of funding these products? If anyone has any insights I'd be curious to know.
The box contents honestly aren't as overwhelming as the EX-releases tend to be. We have six bags in here where a typical figure would have three.
Once you look into the components you will quickly see that there are a lot of option parts in here. Plenty of nice translucent red components are also included.
The style of this review will be a little bit different because what we are looking at is basically a regular Ensemble figure with a boatload of accessories. Figures like these tend to give me a lot of headache because ultimately I will select a configuration and then never bother with the other gear options again. I prefer multiple gear choices for mass-production type figures and for signature machines like this one (or the dreaded Gundam Converge Anchor) to stick to one main gimmick but this is subject to taste of course.
On the left we have the new EX39 figure and on the right the basic XM-X1 Crossbone X-1 figure from Mobile Suit Ensemble Part 20. As you can see, these are the same with a slight colour change in the black areas but this might just be a manufacturing variation rather than intention.
This should give you a better idea of all the funky gear choices that come with the Full Cloth figure. Some of these weapons are modular as well, giving you multiple little accessories to keep from disappearing.
You are not going to see every gear option in use in this review, because they require quite a bit of parts swapping. Here is the most obvious example. You get two different skirt components. One is the standard Ensemble skirt and the other has optional front skirts that let you either swivel the front sides of the skirts forward (which is an interesting concept for Ensemble figure articulation but also flimsy) as well as having these optional claw-style weapons shoot out from there. These claws are made from softer plastic and come with two special stands to help keep them upright, firmly in the uninspiring style of Ensemble bases being completely horizontal, not encouraging any dynamic posing whatsoever.
This figure gets really busy with all the weird stuff going on. You have multiple knuckle-style choices where the wrist guard on the back of the arms can be handheld and used to wield different types of melee weapons. Notice also the two bladed weapons that can shoot out from the underside of the feet. I am assuming that these are the primary reason for Bandai designing the optional skirt armor with loose front skirts to allow for a forward facing kick. The chain-linked weapon you see here in the right hand also has one of those clear stands we saw earlier but I can't imagine why anyone would want to display a figure like that.
I much prefer a good old saber and beam shield look than all the weird Ninja-style shenanigans going on with the Crossbone figures. By the way, notice the optional open face plate here (which could have benefitted from some painting but I am afraid I will mess it up) as well as the different head which features an antenna on the left side. Notice also the weird hooked shield attached to the left arm which features two positions for the hook; extended as here, or retracted.
The Full Cloth figure has these strange fanged skulls hanging from its shoulder armor and they are designed to be removed and linked up to handlebars that lets the figure wield them. These are extremely flimsy and not only will the teeth fall out very easily, the whole skulls tend to come off the shoulder if you touch them because the beg that attaches them there is very small. The big blade looks really nice though and comes with two differently sized beam emitters up front. Notice also the different torso armors with different insignia, you can either use the skull and crossbones or this more stylized shield in red and gold.
Here the large beam saber uses the bigger beam emitter up front. The length is the same but this one wraps around the edge in an attempt to link it with the saw-tooth sides of the blade. It looks a little bit funky because you can see through the component and so I prefer the smaller saber tip. The beam shield itself can either be attached to the back of the arm or wielded n hand using a special grip-component.
Like most EX-figures the Full Cloth figure comes with a unique stand designed specifically for it. Tis one is pretty simple and mainly focuses on giving support for all those chain-style weapons shooting out in front of it. And as usual, I never bother with these.
Here is the main selling point of the figure, the blue and red cloak armor attached. The rear sections have a ball joint-attachment to a larger black frame that helps keep lock in place with the figure's back and the X-shaped Core Fighter is then attached to this frame rather than the figure's backside directly. As already mentioned, the skulls attached to the sides of the shoulders are kind of loose and you will not get a whole lot of interesting articulation out of this mode, especially if you want to mess around with those large accessories. Notice also the different frontal armor that sits on top of the cockpit, yet another parts swap accessory.
The Converge Full Cloth figure (EX 25, released in January 2019) is a worthy competitor to the more recent Ensemble figure and features more paint applications at the expense of less accessories. Still, Ensemble cannot even begin to try to compete with Converge which now features a crazy range of Crossbone-figures (including the X-0 Ghost, X-3, Phantom and Phantom V2 and the Anchor and several army builder types of the Crossbone Vanguard).
Posing together with the regular X-1 and the X-2 from the Mobile Suit Ensemble Part 20 wave, released in February this year. Coming in at 500 yen these figures also feature capes as accessories and so I got two of each of those retail figures.
Conclusion
Overall the Full Cloth figure is a well-executed design but hardly the most exciting EX-offering to be found in the Ensemble family. Unless you are a real X-1 fan the retail figures should serve you more than well and you won't be missing much if you save up this money for the benefit of something more interesting. I doubt we will see the more extravagantly silver-, green- or orange-painted cousins of this figure in Ensemble form but you never know.
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