MegaHouse is a primary source for up-market Gundam figures and it has quite the decent backlog of characters to choose from. Today we are looking at a really classic example from the RAH Excellent Model series. As far as this series goes, this one is a bit of an evergreen because it has been reissued no less than three times; in 2019, 2021 and as late as January 2025 respectively. These resales unfortunately also offer a good but discouraging example of the surging figure prices in recent years.
The edition we are looking at here is the original 2015 release in the easily identifiable "blue-trimmed" box. I've had this thing in the collection since 2018 and according to the notes it cost ¥10000 back then. You should be able to find figures on the secondary market for roughly the same price, perhaps a little higher, due to the many reprints that are currently in circulation.
All the three re-sale editions are using a box design similar to the one you see above here. The easiest way to differentiate behind them is to look for the release year in the bottom left corner on the front, or (obviously) the barcode on the back of the box. The first and second re-sales are stamped with 2019 and 2021 respectively while the third re-sale from 2025 omits the release year on the front. The chart below also shows the steep increase in MegaHouse's asking prices (stated with or without domestic VAT).
[4 535123 715006] (2015-07) : Original release - ¥9000/9900
[4 535123 826993] (2019-03) : First resale - ¥9250/10175
[4 535123 832147] (2021-12) : Second resale - ¥11000/12100
[4 535123 841781] (2025-01) : Third resale - ¥16000/17600
Sayla is safely sandwiched in generously sized blister packaging which of course means figures of this type eat up your storage space real fast. While the large see-through areas of the outer box give you a good opportunity to enjoy the figure without taking it out of the packaging it also makes the cardboard quite fragile and it is easy to tear in the thinner areas.
Good things come in pairs it would seem. You get two optional heads, two different right arms and two different handguns. You can see the different peg designs used for the heads and arms while the handgun has to be attached without any support.
Tell me this is not a phenomenal sculpt. Style, poise and great paintwork grounded by a simple flat base (with the EFSF logo on, no less). You don't have to mess around with a lot of small components that will fall off as soon as you look in that general direction, no supernatural transparent effect parts or unnatural poses designed simply to curve the body in as many strange ways as possible. The figure also has no ungainly supports to clip around the body or to prop up arms or hair, the right foot has two pegs that go into the base and that's it. You have probably noticed that I didn't push the foot all the way down into the base, this was simply to make it easy to dismantle and store inside the box. It is not uncommon for figures to have very tight fitting pegs and I didn't want to put any stress on the material.
While the figure does come with two different heads the two are really, really similar. There was so much potential here; a shocked face, a suspicious side-eye, turning to another side, instead we get pretty much the same thing twice with a slight change of the eyebrows. Compare this for example to the MegaHouse Gihren Zabi figure which has two very different sculpts of him smirking or holding a firebrand speech.
Besides the two different arms you can also choose which sidearm to equip. On offer is an Earth Federation standard issue firearm (whatever the designation is) and the Zeon Type 62 handgun that used to belong to Ramba Ral.
If you are interested in these larger character figures (standing around 20 centimetres tall) this is a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. There seems to be no upper limited to MegaHouse figure prices with new releases currently sitting around ¥20000 and in that light this figure seems like a very affordable option. As usual, it pays to shop around.
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