A year and a half has passed since Micro Wars was abandoned by Bandai and finally we can see the successor rising from its ashes. Not going to lie, I was rather salty about MW getting the axe and when Mobility Joint was first revealed I just let out a big sigh of disappointment. I mean, what we see here is Micro Wars losing its unique pilot gimmick and just getting the Gframe treatment. Still, the first volume did have some unusual mobile suit choices so I figured I'd want to at least check it out and so here we are.
Mobility Joint 1 appeared in April 2022 and are sold as modular figures in a fashion similar to the larger Gframe figures. That means you get the basic figure in one box and then additional accessories and/or components that change the suit into another in a second box. Figures are sold in clearly marked boxes where the basic figures have a special MJ logo in the top corner while the option part set has an EX logotype instead. Naturally you will want both boxes for the most part and so you have to hope that you will also be able to pick them up. Looking at the secondary market for Mobile Suit Ensemble these days for example is mostly just worthless "equipment pack" sets that are of no use to anyone who do not have the basic figures so expect to see more of that here. The price per box is ¥590 so you are looking at roughly ¥1000 per complete figure which is pretty steep when there are proper model kits around.
The MJ figures come in boxes that are considerably larger than the Converge and Micro Wars series used. Sometimes it is justified and other boxes are half-empty inside which is the way this always tends to go.
No tools required, huh? Well, I suppose you can yank the pieces of the sprues but this is no different to other Gashapon and in my opinion Shokugan should not come on sprues and be fully painted anyway...
I should point out again that you do not get any complete figures in the EX-boxes, the artwork might be a tad misleading there. Above you can see what I required to build all the figures in this review and display them together. As you can see I have made use of more basic figures than EX sets and so good luck to all the collectors out there who will only be able to find the accessory sets somewhere down the line. That's Bandai doing its normal thing I guess.
01+05 : RX-78-2 Gundam
I will review these figures in pairs with the basic figure and the optional loadout from the EX set under the same heading. Above here you can see the basic figure from box 01. It is a vanilla baseline standard figure that gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect from this series. The figure comes with a pre-assembled torso section and then you attach arms, legs and skirt armor to it. The proportions are pretty elegant and the colouring where present is alright if rather basic. I am not personally familiar with Gframe but I can imagine they took a lot of pointers from those designs. This is the first Shokugan figure I have bought where the eyes are not painted but a decal. The figure has several wrap around 3D-stickers and I have used a red pen on the V-fin and feet instead. They missed an opportunity to give us a round sticker for the beam rifle's scope. Look at that atrocious yellow star on the shield though, the Shokugan consumer experience just goes further down the toilet each year, perhaps I am just getting jaded.
It was when I first opened the Gundam box and was greeted by a lot of sprues and a sticker sheet filled with body detail that Bandai couldn't be arsed to paint that I just wanted to chuck the whole thing away and be done with it. I am so sick of these mini-kits, it is a great wonder that Gundam Converge hasn't yet folded. Once Converge is gone the transformation to model kits will be complete. I mean, look at this, does this look like fun to you? I will give Bandai props for easy to follow build instructions though (printed on the inside of the box) and the sprues have really clear markings on them. I guess the purpose is to lure people into building proper model kits.
This image should give you a basic idea of what type of articulation you can get out of the figure. The shoulder sections especially are quite flexible and the torso has a side to side tilting function. The elbows knees and head are more traditional balljoints. As usual with compact figures like Senshi Forte and Mobile Suit Ensemble the basic articulation is great but then large bodyparts like shoulders and heads heavily restrict movement anyway. Still, this is a massive leg up from Micro Wars although you have of course lost the cockpit feature.
The Mobility Joint figures are slender and a bit taller than their Micro Wars ancestors. The sculpts are clearly more refined and the molded details are really good so if you enjoy painting figures you can make them look really nice. The Micro Wars figures also suffered from stickers on primarily their feet but the faces were fully painted and the RX-78's shield also had a painted cross and hollow visor section so not everything is an improvement. I have had really bad experience with the Universal Unit figure stickers but so far the MJ decals are sticking to the figure firmly, how they will fare over time is of course another thing. I can't help but feel a general vibe of these figures intended to be rather ephemeral in their appeal and fully disposable.
Here is a second figure making use of the PF-78-1 Perfect Gundam components in the EX equipment box. You basically get a different set of lower legs and feet, larger shoulders and extra torso armor that clips on front. The backpack is replaced with a huge contraption that features an extended range cannon and you also get a tiny beam shield in black that needs an inordinate amount of stickers wrapped around it to look any good (but mine still looks terrible). As rough as my figure looks I still must admit it is pretty cool and it was one of the main draws for me wanting to check this set out.
02+06 : MSN-02 Zeong
Lord knows I am not a huge fan of the Zeong but I was curious to see what this figure was all about, especially since there is a Perfect Zeong option in the mix. At first I should point out that you only get the basic Zeong figure in box 02, the stand propelling it into the air comes from the equipment pack (which is pretty dumb). I was surprised to discover that all the Zeon mono-eyes are also stickers (you can of course paint it also). Both the Zeong and the Zaku II have repositionable monoeyes like many other small figures. The basic Zeong will look a bit disappointing without the stand since it is not modelled to "scale" here. Notice the decal sheet filled with black and yellow detail. I painted in the black areas myself and then used the yellow 3D-stickers on the hands and it looks awful but it wasn't like I was pouring my soul into the work either. No self-respecting figure collector should use stickers but actual paint. :)
The Zeong figure is a good example of the meager contents of splitting a figure up in two boxes. You are basically getting the torso in the main box and a pair of legs in the equipment box. Sure, there are a few extra pieces but overall it feels a bit cheap. Come to think about it, shouldn't each EX box come with one of these action bases to give you some cool display options, you know like on the box? Oh, wait I forgot, this is not Assault Kingdom...
I have to give props to Bandai here, the Perfect Zeong looks great. The design avoids ugly seams on the front side of the legs but not on the back but I can live with that. The figure has a couple of extra gimmicks that I didn't bother showing here. You get two long sticks on sprue 6-C that you can use to simulate the Psycommu Hands shooting out of the sockets (which looks unconvincing I think) and on 6-B you find a connector piece with a balljoint intended for the head to attach to the tripod base so that you can simulate the Zeong's head flying around by itself.
03+07 : MS-06F Zaku II
The inclusion of the Zaku II figure into this set put me in the delicate position of deciding just how deep I was about to step into the Mobility Joint swamp. The Zaku II is the most interesting figure to customize here since you have a couple of head and weapon options and even some High Mobility parts in the equipment pack. In the end I settled for three but I actually have a fourth on order... perhaps I will get a few more. :) As you can see it is a really nice looking figure. the different green tones look great and apart from the monoeye there was no need to dabble with any stickers, a bit of black marker pen and you are home free. Notice the odd looking shoulder shield and the piping on the lower legs that actually does not connect to the thighs. It is fine compromise for a cheap figure like this I think and makes it easier to pose.
Again the EX box is anything but exclusive. Basically you get parts to modify the figure into the High Mobility form as well as an Anti-Ship Rifle. The obvious question is why didn't Bandai throw in the Zaku Machine Gun or the Heat Hawk in this box? This is really cheap and really limits your options to build a cool unit.
The Micro Wars figure looks really small and chubby in comparison but once again it is its cockpit and pilot figure that makes it valuable. I was hoping that the Mobility Joint figures would be compatible with the Micro Wars figures to help expand the armory and you obviously have to be really forgiving to say that they fit together.
This image attempts to give a basic idea of the articulation and joints in place on the MJ figures. I have to say that attaching the lower legs to the joints on the torso was a harrowing experience. You need to push quite hard while keeping both components in a firm grip or the two will just glide apart. I could easily see joints being broken off if you apply too much force.
You get a Commander antenna option part with the basic Zaku II figure but the Machine Gun and Heat Hawk both come from the Johnny Ridden figure. Notice the peg on the back skirt which allows you to store the bazooka there. The Heat Hawk also has a small storage peg but I am not sure where they intended me to place it.
Here we have the Zaku II with the optional High Mobility Type lower legs and backpack as well as the different head with larger antenna. The Anti Ship Rifle comes with two ammo packs that you can store on the shield. Again, I think Bandai could have designed an optional shield without these peg holes and put it in the EX pack.
04+08 : MS-06R-2 Zaku II High Mobility Type (Johnny Ridden Custom)
Lastly we have Johnny Ridden's High Mobility Type Zaku II. Or rather, if you only buy the basic figure you get a red MS-06F Zaku II. You need both boxes to build the proper figure. Here Bandai is basically mimicking the Zaku II figure as a red counterpart and I guess this is why we did not get Char Aznable's Zaku II. I think Bandai's decision to sell each mobile suit as a basic figure with an expansion pack is going to come back and bite them in the rear before long since there are only so many candidate mobile suits to choose from. The right option here should have been to sell Char's Zaku II in one box and Ridden's High Mobility Type in another, extremely few people will want to display his basic MS-06F Zaku II I'm sure.
These figure is quite similar to the green Zaku II and that is fine. Notice how we get basic Zaku II weapons in the standard box and the Bazooka in the EX-set. This is nice but as already mentioned the standard weapons really needed to come with the mass production type figure as well. I am guessing not many would want to put the bazooka on the back skirt and display the figure unarmed.
Here we have the figure complete with the components for the EX box, and this is of course how it should look. This is the only figure in the set I didn't buy multiple basics of because I see no need to display a red MS-06 unless it was Char's or Garma's. My figure has very black feet because I didn't bother putting the red wrap-around stickers on its feet. If the feet were molded in red I could have painted the upper section black instead. Man, these stickers are such a disappointment.
Conclusion
What is your general impression of Mobility Joint? I really hated them at first sight but I guess I have grown used to them. Still, I don't see this being a long-running brand, I imagine the designers will tire of trying to come up with EX figures after the most obvious choices. Volume two will be out in August and features the Nu Gundam vs. the Sazabi and a pair of Geara Dogas. They tossed pretty much all the accessories for the Gundam and the Sazabi and the Heavy Weapon Type Gear for the Geara Dogas in the respective EX packs which already seems like a cheap cop-out. Stay away from this series is my overall recommendation at this point.
