The Netflix mini-series Requiem for Vengeance premiered in the autumn of 2024 to a rather mixed reception among audiences. While this is par for the course in entertainment this day and age the show certainly had some things going for it and a whole lot of things that didn't work out at all. While I mostly suffered through the series just for the hell of it I really appreciated the fact that we got some new mobile suit types out of it.
The Gundam EX is especially wild but I have always been a mass production-type fan myself and so seeing no less than four Zaku II variations roll off the Bandai production line in the summer of 2025 really whet my appetite. From then on it was a long waiting-game trying to get my hands on the figures on the secondary market, a task that I can now finally report as completed.
All of the figures in this review come in these online distribution-style plastic bags and as far as I am aware this is also the only way to acquire them. I don't even think they were sold separately but only as a full set of five but I could be wrong. What I do know however is that I have been painstakingly sniping them one by one through the secondary market and it took me about eight months to finally collect them all. I expect a similar miserable experience trying to source the Black Knight Squadron figures from SEED Freedom that began delivery to pre-order customers this March.
Box-packaging or not, the booklet edition looks exactly like any other Mobile Suit Ensemble retail set, with five different and individually numbered figures to collect. Let's go through them one by one as usual.
196 : RX-78(G)E Gundam EX
One of the main gimmicks of the RfV-show is that the Gundam is the main antagonist (and a terrifying one at that), stalking the Red Wolf Squadron at every turn. While its looks are not as intimidating as on-screen it certainly looks capable and more than able to handle a couple of spacenoids. Look especially at that beautifully sculpted shield with its multiple colour applications - good stuff.
The anatomy of the Gundam EX is very much standard for the Ensemble line, if you have assembled any of the previous RX-78 figures you will feel right at home. The figures in this wave all use the current anatomic standard with swivelling attachment points for the arms that allow you to tilt the shoulders up and down, provided of course the head is not obstructing the movement (which it tends to be on all Ensemble figures).
197 : MS-06F Zaku II F Type (Iria Solari use)
The remaining four figures in the set make up the individual units of the Red Wolf Squadron and are all Zaku II F-Type machines with some minor variations. These are (thankfully) factory fresh and not the patched up field-modified mobile suits we see later in the show (which reminded me of the A-Team whipping something up inside a barn using tractor parts and a conveniently available welding gear). Captain Solari leads the team and her uniquely coloured machine Red Wolf Alpha has a secondary antenna which I assume is a variation of the U.C.0079 commander antenna since only her unit has one. I originally planned to paint her wolf claw pattern on the toes of the feet but the strange shape of the feet made it less obvious where the stripes should go so I decided against it. If you approach the task with a plan I think it could turn out really cool.
While these figures are no bog-standard U.C.0079 Zaku IIs they are mostly similar and you will feel very much at home assembling them if you have been messing with Ensemble Zakus before. The side-turning monoeye is available as usual and the various tubes that run across the torso and on the legs are also present although the designs have been face-lifted a bit. The only frustrating detail is that you have to attach the front- and back-facing spikes on the left shoulder separately and the shapes are not symmetric and I had a bit of trouble figuring out which way they should actually go.
There is no separate equipment pack in this set and so each figure comes fully equipped. Having said that, there isn't a whole lot of extras going on in the set either; the Gundam EX gets one of the generic Ensemble beam sabers and Iria Solari has a transparent colour heat hawk. You can get a really nice effect going on the axe if you paint everything but the blade in an opaque colour and then apply a transparent marker pen effect on the blade itself.
198 : MS-06F Zaku II F Type (Kneeland LeSean use)
While there are still three more figures to describe in this set I don't really have a whole lot of additional comments that I can make about them. This machine belongs to first lieutenant LeSean and it is painted a bright green instead of brown and the shoulder shield has the same colour as the body unlike Solari's bright red counterpart. This is not a dig at the figure though, I love having multiple colour variants of the same figure and I would love to see Bandai lean more into it when pumping out Ensemble figures; imagine if we could have basic sand-coloured Desert Zakus or Blue Team Zakus and Gelgoogs for example.
This particular figure is the one that most closely resembles a bog-standard Universal Century MS-06F Zaku II. Still, there would be no issues blending these figures in with your other Zeonic mobile suits.
199 : MS-06F Zaku II F Type (Reid "Chubs" Gelfi use)
First Lieutenant Gelfi also has a green Zaku although this one is slightly darker and has a very unique looking fat red stripe painted across its head. Unlike LeSean and Zavaleta's machines this machine has a skirt armour matching the chest colour rather than the arms and legs. I like little creative touches like this although it would make very little sense from a realistic force deployment point of view of course.
We are looking at mostly the same parts composition as for the other Zakus in this set but did you spot the difference on Gelfi's machine? Check that left shoulder again; the number and shape of the spikes is unique to this figure. I find it a bit strange that Bandai didn't opt to thrown in more weapon choices with this set, such as a secondary heat hawk for one machine, a secondary bazooka for another and so on. Perhaps the Ensemble bazooka is simply too large to include in a capsule also containing a mobile suit but then again, were these figures even available in capsule machines?
200 : MS-06F Zaku II F Type (Kale Zavaleta use)
Lastly we have the junior member second lieutenant Zavaleta occupying the impressive number 200-slot in Mobile Suit Ensemble history, but no fanfare or jubilee has been reserved for marking this occasion, Ensemble just chooses to soldier on as usual. Kale's machine has an interesting bright green colour with blood-red hands (which do look a bit toyish here unfortunately).
I didn't mention this before but all the mobile suits in this set come with an extra sprue with coloured hands, so you end up with spare black hands from all of the sprues which is quite handy. I myself made use of these extra holding hands by attaching them to various weapon options such as beam sabers or bazookas that I had lying around, so that I can switch weapon on another Ensemble figure by replacing the entire hand rather than trying to remove and re-insert weapons into the same tight grip (which usually results in the hand or maybe even the arm coming off the figure anyway...).
Here you can clearly see the little mini-sprue with the two red hands in the left corner. I realize that bling like this eats up a lot of the available budget but imagine if said sprue had also included a pair of expressive hands for each figure - that would have been superb. Notice also the green-painted detail on the tubes that attach to the figure's sides, care was taken to add some extra colour here. This was probably not a cheap action but welcome and it increases the flair of the figure even further.
Red Wolf Squadron ready to deploy, sir! Excellent, now see if we can wake up the Cyclops Team next! Imagine a set with three Hy-Goggs and the Z'Gok-E, that would be divine! I also wouldn't have minded seeing the Gouf Custom from RfV making an appearance in this set, but for now the Zakus are more than plenty enough.
Conclusion
All-in-all, the Requiem for Vengeance set is a fantastic showcase for Ensemble and I wish that Bandai would continue to focus on sets like these with multiple mass-production type suits rather than fancy and in my opinion often over-produced EX-figures with convoluted special components and enormous ugly bases to display them. The soul of Mobile Suit Ensemble is the simplistic capsule figure and there are so many types still available all over Gundam-lore waiting for a chance to shine in this format. I do suspect that Bandai would happily go down that route if it was profitable enough of course, and have to accept that dream-projects like this one will be few and far between.
The Requiem for Vengeance set is unfortunately a major pain to find on the secondary market, this is what happens when you decide to skip the retail-market and sell directly to customer (I might be wrong on this but I believe this set was P-Bandai only). If you have a problem and if no one else can help - and if you can find them - maybe you can purchase... the Red Wolf Squadron!
No comments:
Post a Comment