Bandai Mobility Joint Gundam Volume 2

When Mobility Joint was first announced I found it very hard to work up any interest. Over the years I started to fall into the same rut that Bandai already has; rinse, repeat, recycle. Oh, the new toy line wasn't a huge success from day 1? Cancel. Not enough pre-orders? Let's come up with a small gimmicky improvement and release the same old figures one more time. At this point the line is starting to blur for me between Ensemble, MicroWars and Mobility Joint especially, I start to feel like the mobile suit selection is just getting narrower and narrower. What I want to say with this is that I wasn't exactly being very gracious going into this review, and expected nothing but being underwhelmed. This bias is quite unfair because the toys themselves aren't bad, had they existed in a vacuum and not as tired MicroWars/Gframe/Ensemble cast-offs they would no doubt have garnered more sympathy on my part. So buckle up kids, here we go.


The first review of MJ didn't really convince me that I needed to carry on this line. I mean I am running a huge back log on Ensemble already and the kit-building part that Bandai have introduced in the last couple of years is really a pain for a figure collector who would just like to buy prepainted figures with minimal articulation. Then the equipment packs happened. Gframe too things further by splitting each figure up in two boxes and this practice was carried over to Mobility Joint as well. The gimmick is, you buy the main figure in one box and its cool accessories or sometimes parts replacements in the EX-accessory box. This leads to problems where people have to hunt for an uneven amount of boxes if they would like to do say the Zeong and the Perfect Zeong which we saw in volume one. In Mobility Joint 2 Bandai thought it prudent to build a set of seven different boxes, the Sazabi and the Nu Gundam get to share their equipment box. This adds another hurdle where a person who is interested only in the Sazabi will get stuck with Nu Gundam options parts that another customer might not find. What will they think of next?



01 : RX-93 Nu Gundam


I'll run through the boxes in numerical order through this review. This means we get to see the four basic mobile suits first, and then we revisit them with the option parts sets. First up is the Nu Gundam. This is a real fan favourite but when I see it here I just see me having to paint up a figure with too many plain white sections. There are a lot of stickers for this sucker too, several are wrap around type - which are bound to come off after a couple of years just like the Universal Unit figures are currently rotting away. On this figure I used the stickers for the eyes, Amuro markings and yellow detail on the elbows and side skirts. The big stickers for the feet can usually be replaced with black or red marker depending on Gundam type thankfully.


You will find no great changes since the figures from the first wave. The figures feature a lot of joints indeed and this means you have to be careful when snapping balljoints into place as limbs enjoy twisting and turning in the process. As usual with these stumpy figures many of the joints don't really matter tat much as there isn't really a great range of poses you can do with such short arms and legs but all the swiveling and rotating joints are pretty cool from a technical point of view.






02 : MSN-04 Sazabi


You cannot say "Nu Gundam" and not immediately follow up with "Sazabi" and so here the two feature as best buddies again. In fact the entire set is dedicated to Char's Counterattack which is really cool if it wasn't for the fact that we've seen it so many times before. Still, this time the Sazabi is looking really great. The dark red is looking quite good out of the box and is a major improvement over the colour used on the previous MicroWars figure.


the Sazabi comes with one of its two classic beam rifles as the single accessory which of course is lame, but hey, they have to sell that option parts set on the side too. Stickers aren't so bad on this figure and most of them are small, bright yellow spots that are easy to paint if you know what you are doing (and not rushing through the process for purposes of a review like me...).






03 : AMS-119 Geara Doga


The Geara Doga is such a badass design. Normally I would be really excited about the Doga but here I know that it requires painting visible parts in the exposed knees and elbow joints and I got sick of that a long time ago in Mobile Suit Ensemble already. Ideally I was going to wait until I had got a squad of four Dogas before embarking on the painting adventure but a shop advertised one purchase incorrectly and so I ended up with three Dogas and five equipment packs. It is the Ensemble ZAKU Warrior fiasco all over again...


The Doga comes with a minimum of stickers so not even Bandai have an easy solution to the Geara Doga's important colour splotches. Even shoddy paint apps like mine bring the figure a lot of extra character. Bandai did include dark green wrap around stickers for the feet but I just painted the edges black with a marker pen, the difference isn't that great and this paint will at least stay on. Notice the really ugly seam line running across the side of the lower leg.






04 : AMS-119 Geara Doga (Rezyn Schnyder Custom)


Rezyn's blue Doga is cool and we didn't get it in MicroWars so it is nice of Bandai to include it this time around. It is mostly a colour swap of the mass-production type although it features the commander antenna and a different beam rifle she always carries around. Another cool feature of the Mobility Joint Doga is that the shield now consists of two parts so that you can bend it to an angle you prefer. The previous MicroWars figure was much more simplistic.


The sticker theme here is similar to the green figure. You get dark blue wrap around stickers for the feet and one again I replaced them with black marker. I should perhaps also point out the movable monoeye which you can reposition by opening the head but it usually looks best to just have it facing forward.






05 : Nu Gundam Heavy Weapon Systems Option Parts Set


Alright, I powered through the mobile suits pretty fast and now we crack open the EX option parts sets. These remaining three boxes only contain accessories or parts needed to convert the suit into a different variant. The large illustration on the box cover could easily fool people into thinking there is a full figure in the rather large box but instead there are only a couple of armor parts rattling around on the bottom of the box.


The Heavy Weapon Type Nu used to be quite exotic but has become a common sight the last couple of years with appearances in Gundam Converge and Mobile Suit Ensemble. The MicroWars line did not feature and extras like Mobility Joint, but they spent the budget on openable cockpits with mini pilot figures which is pretty darn cool. Perhaps next year Bandai will do a new figure line that combines the upgraded aesthetics of Mobility Joint with pilot figurines (In a completely non-compatible scale and reusing the same mobile suits of course).


Check out the Mobile Suit Ensemble HWS which has much cleaner proportions and overall looks much more capable. There is something weird going on with the face of the MJ Nu Gundam figure that sends it into uncanny valley for me. it is not a bad expansion for the Nu Gundam figure but also not that exciting as I feel it should be. The huge black wrap around stickers on the shield area future concern no doubt.






06 : Nu Gundam and Sazabi Option Parts Set


What do you do when you are Bandai and cannot defend sticking a few weapons in an EX parts box? You take the weapons from two mobile suits and chuck them into the same box. As you can see here we get four accessories for each mobile suit. There are two stickers to apply, the beautiful neo Zeon crest for the Sazabi's shield and yet another wrap-around sticker for the Nu Gundam's bazooka. I painted that section with a black marker pen instead. Ideally you would want to add more detail to all of the Nu Gundam's weapons since they look incredibly bland out of the box - the funnel pack especially.


Well the Nu Gundam already had an accessory pack so let's begin with the Sazabi. First up we have two of its characteristic beam sabers. You may have noticed that I didn't stick the sabers all the way down into the hands, this is because the fit is really tight and I didn't want any trouble with weapons getting stuck or snapping, and since there are no option hands included I didn't want to take any risks. Gee... you'd think expressive hands would have been perfect for an "EX" option pack.


The Sazabi's long beam rifle comes with two different handles which lets it be held in one of two awkward ways. As usual with stumpy figures the short arms and bulky armor plating can make it difficult to attach and hold on to a weapon properly.


The most important accessory hidden away in this pack is of course the large shield. The suit has a connector piece with two different balljoints which lets you attach the shield either at the back of the arm or on the outside as seen here. The enormous shoulder pads will significantly limit what you can do with the shield.


I have to give the Mobility Joint figure credit for being a fantastic improvement in the looks department. The previous MicroWars figure s not nearly as flamboyant as the new figure. More could have been done with its arms and legs to add a bit of extra flare, it then wouldn't have mattered that the torso is quite blocky.


The Nu Gundam also gets two beam sabers including the often seen one with the very unique looking hilt and slightly curved blade. I have to give Bandai some credit for at least painting the blades of the beam sabers properly.


The bazooka is a decent fit over the shoulder. There is a peg on the handlebar which should go nicely into the hole on the figure's backpack, something I forgot to try out during the review process.


The most important accessory for the Nu is the left shoulder funnel pack. Here again you might think that an "EX" option parts pack may have included an optional dual funnel style backpack but no dice. At least we don't get the horrible upside down funnel design that recently popped up in Converge.


I generally consider the MicroWars Nu Gundam figure as the worst of that entire line and while I am not entirely impressed by the new Mobility Joint figure it is at least quite a big step up.





07 : Geara Doga Option Parts Set


The Geara Doga is usually spoilt for choice with a lot of different option parts. The Mobility Joint figure has three different accessories that are not entirely surprising if you have journeyed together with it in the previous figure series. However, I think we have seen more accessories for this figure before that are not included here so as an EX set it could have done better.


The first option is the officer helmet style already present on Rezyn's Doga. There is no antenna-less variant of her blue helmet.


Next up we have two Sturmfaust single use rockets. These can be attached either to the underside of the shield or to the sides of the back pack, where they stick out a bit too far in my opinion. I really should have painted the tips of the grenades orange too, maybe if I ever decide to buy that fourth figure...


The most impressive accessory converts the suit to the very special looking heavy weapons type. The large gun is attached to a balljoint on the right side of the backpack and features two handlebars. You can probably get the figure to hold on to the gun properly but it will take a bit of fiddling around that I just didn't want to waste my time on. I have bad experiences from the Ensemble Geara Dogas here (not to mention various old FA-010S and FAZZ figures...). You can of course also attach this gear to Rezyn's Doga.


The MicroWars Geara Doga is a bit basic looking and very light on equipment, so the new MJ figure kind of blows it out of the water. At least until the MW figure opens up its hatch and boards a pilot.


Just like the Nu Gundam HWS I really prefer the proportions of the Mobile Suit Ensemble figure. I am really wondering what the key selling point of Mobility Joint is supposed to be. Is it an attempt to try and test the waters for a possible cancellation of Gashapon Senshi Forte? We certainly already have better looking figures in the Ensemble line-up and the pilot-carrying ability from MicroWars has been lost. And if you really, really want to build small model kits surely Gframe should be the better recommendation?


Rezyn's gang gearing up for trouble. Below is the current line-up for Mobility Joint. I was very close to stepping out of MJ entirely when this second line-up was announced. The third wave of figures changed my mind however since it goes bonkers into Unicorn territory with two different ReZEL figures that I really want to study closer. Recently Mobility Joint 4 was also announced and it cranks things up to eleven with the Geara Zulu, Angelo Sauper's custom pink Zulu and the Rozen Zulu. While I do suspect terrible wrap around sleeve stickers for these figures I just have to see what they look like.






Conclusion

Overall I find it hard to give a really objective opinion on the Mobility Joint line. The figures are well designed from an engineering point of view and reasonably good looking for what they are. At the same time they are driving the push away from pre-painted soft plastic figures towards unpainted hard plastic kits and as I usually like to harp on about; why waste time and money on clumsy model kits when you can get the real things - SD or fully-proportional - in the proper model kit lines? Still, I'll hang in there for the Unicorn sets and I am curious to see how long Bandai will keep this line going.