Continuing to dig through the Ensemble backlog I stumbled on the Virtue Trans-Am figure released in June last year. Remember when Trans-Am colours were all the rage across Converge and Ensemble in 2023? We saw all the four main figures reissued in their pink colours in Ensemble during the first half of 2023, culminating with this premium ¥4950 outing from Bandai.
Yeah, nice packaging and all. Perhaps a little bit sexier than what you actually get in the box, but that is just my own opinion. If you read the review of the original standard colour Virtue figure you might recall there was a fair bit of moaning going on... :)
Side by side with the original standard colour release from 2021. Credit to the Ensemble team who put together a new full-colour box cover rather than recycling the original image in a single colour variant which is so common with limited Gundam figures and kits.
I won't linger too long on the various sections of this review since this release is simply a re-coloration of an existing figure. In fact the light pink trans-am colour isn't really that big a change from the regular white colour. Think of this release as a really expensive Ensemble Part .5 release that we see in the standard figure series every now and then.
The two accessories in the box are almost unchanged from the first release. I somehow looked forward to seeing the SSA Gun with a trans-am coloured effect part on its large GN Condenser but it remains the same green we saw before. The power cable also stays white. This photo shows the figure in a really lazy pose, I might fiddle with setting up its vertical shooting position if I ever buy another Dynames figure because I'm lazy to try to reposition the arms and legs to match up. You get the idea of what it can do...
The Kyrios Tail Unit also returns, the colour is slightly more towards dark grey than black this time around. The pod can attach to either the Kyrios where it acts as an external stores pod or as GN particle supply for the Dynames when it is firing the Substratospheric Altitude Gun. There are no opening hatches or alternate parts, but two hatches are separate components so you could modify how they are attached to the pod. The whole thing looks like the aft body of an insect. I guess it is always nice to get extra accessories for the suits but I don't rate this one as terribly interesting.
Right, on to the main course then, the Virtue itself. This is a very bulky figure that makes use of a lot of bulky body armour components that clip on to the arms or wrap around the lower legs. This is nifty from an engineering point of view but personally I would much have preferred pre-molded arms and legs without all this unnecessary fiddling going on. Sure, it allows you to change between the GN-004 Nadleeh and GN-005 Virtue but all the additional parts swapping required is very extensive. My original complaint still stands; Bandai should have included two complete figures in this box rather than a single body for the two of them to share. You have a pretty large bag of alternate armour, head and weapon parts that will go unused. At least with the standard colour figures you can pick up the regular Nadleeh figure from Ensemble Part 17 and place it on your shelf next to the Virtue. I guess very few people want to spend on two EX figures for the privilege.
Side-by-side comparison with the original EX29 Virtue figure released two years earlier, in August 2021. I like how the Trans-am version figure has metallic colour on its over-the-shoulder GN Cannons. The large GN Bazooka can open up into its Burst Mode but it requires a bit of fiddly parts-swapping so I recommend choosing the pose you like and keep it like that.
You won't be seeing the Trans-Am Nadleeh in this review unfortunately because the amount of parts swapping between the two suits is just not worth the trouble. There are some really small parts you should consider gluing in place as well. A pity, but perhaps one day we can get an Ensemble Part 17.5 set with a Trans-Am color Nadleeh. It seems a bit unlikely though, because the other figures in the set - the ZZ Gundam and the two Jagd Dogas - don't really have any interesting alternate colour modes.
All in all the Trans-Am Virtue Set suffers from the same annoying drawbacks as the original release. The price is the main issue (ironically still moderate as far as Ensemble EX figures go) coupled with the fact that Bandai were too cheap to include parts to build both the Nadleeh and Virtue in parallel. Skip this set and stick with the EX29 Virtue if you already have it would be my assessment.
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