Robot Damashii Gundam 00

Plus Tamashii Exclusive GN Sword III

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Gundam 00  |  GN Sword III

 

Gundam 00

Height: 12.5cm to top of head

Articulation: 30 total points - Triple jointed neck; double mid-torso joint; waist swivel; 5 points each arm: Double jointed shoulder, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow, ball joint wrist; 7 points each leg: Ball joint hips, upper thigh swivel, double jointed knee, double jointed ankle, mid-foot hinge. Plus 6 additional points relating to GN Drive binders.

Colors: Molded white, blue, dark grey, clear pink, clear green; Painted yellow, red, dark grey, blue.

Accessories: GN Sword/Rifle II x2; sword/rifle grips x5; Beam sabres x2 with removable blades; GN shield.

Release Data: Released in Japan in October of 2008 at a price of ¥2500

Author: ExVee

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I'll admit, in season 2 of Gundam 00, the 00 itself didn't really make a big impression on me. Indeed, rather like with Zeta Gundam, it was the combination of the Gundam and its support vehicle that really catches my eye. And one day, when those 0-Raisers come back in stock someplace, I'll be able to fulfill my actual desires. 00 is indeed a rather plain design, such that any upgrade to it makes it more interesting. And so, one day when the Seven Sword versions comes back in stock, I'll be able to get a somewhat better version of the design plus a slightly updated base figure.

But for now, as being the first of its line, the original, plain version seems a good place to start an evaluatory tour of Robot Damashii.


Head

This neck joint is strange and alarming. At first I believed I was just looking at an MSiA-inspired double ball joint. That is in fact part of it. But just under the ball joint that plugs into the head is a hinge joint. I'm not sure at this point if it is more beneficial than the straightforward double ball joints of the past, though 00's head can move quite freely to some range. I'm saddened to not be able to completely examine the neck jointing. The obvious grey neck block is apparently a separate piece not involved in the articulation, and seems to only be there to cover up the actual moving parts.

The head sculpt is okay. I can't say it's a great likeness of the 00's face, as some of the proportions seem a little off, but that isn't an unexpected event in such small plastic figures. On the other hand, the paint work on the face is fairly impressive for how clean the edges and general coverage are. At least to the naked eye. I'll be really impressed if it still looks as good after the camera is done with it.

Oh, and better watch those V-fins, especially the yellow pair. They're super thin and very bendy. Total warping waiting to happen, though maybe that's better than the risk of snapping off altogether.


Arms

I'm not sure what I really expected going into a Robot Damashii figure. One thing I did not expect was feeling like I'd somehow ended up back in 2002. In many ways this figure's arms feel like throwbacks to the early developments of G Gundam MSiA. The double-jointed shoulder function is handled by a ball joint shoulder post functionally identical to Burning Gundam, or any number of similarly articulate MSiA from that series. It of course lets the shoulder articulate along any axis with only a single joint needed, but the range is also much less than any of the more specialized systems developed at any time in the last eight years. The rest of the shoulder joint is a swivel joint to allow the arms to raise to the sides. Any forward or backward swivel is actually a result of the aforementioned ball joint.

The other sticking point is the single hinged elbow joint. To improve the appearance of the figure the joint was incorporated into the GN Condenser on the arm, but the design of it limits to a single hinge. Except not really as you'll find when I get to the legs. I may be a bit hung up on MSiA, but I really think that at this stage of Gundam action figure development, where there is so much previous experience anyone can draw from if they wanted to, a single hinged elbow is pretty much inexcusable. Sadly they did not even make up for the lacking elbow by adding a forearm swivel. Based on the construction of the figure's arms, it would have been utter simplicity to allow the forearm a swivel or even a ball joint.

The only real positive I can point to is that the wrist joint is the same type as later MSiA, with the ball joint as part of the forearm. Sadly, though, this version of 00 has the blue wrist blocks fixed in an angled position, most likely to better support action poses with the swords. It's not fantastic for less active posing, however.


Torso

The mid-torso joint is probably among the better executions of the concept that I've seen. You can get a good deal of range out of it, especially if you feel comfortable pushing it a little farther than you think it feels like it should go. Disarticulation probably isn't a concern; from what I can see, the joint is a combination of a swivel and a hinge and it's not likely that it can be popped apart the same way a ball joint would. On the same token, be aware of this - while the plastic seems not insubstantial it could be possible to break this if the wrong stress is applied. Whatever degree of actual waist joint the figure has is pretty limited by the shape of the skirt armor. Working with the mid-torso joint still gives you a fair range of twist to either side.

The other noteworthy thing on the torso is the pair of GN Drives. A series of joints are involved here, allowing the drives to point in a great many directions. The hinged arms connecting to the backpack are probably the weakest link in this case. They don't hold their position very well. While they don't fail under the weight of anything the figure comes with, I can't imagine it'd turn out as well with any greater burden placed upon them. The swivel and final hinge are much more along the lines of strength I'm looking for. In truch, you could just about point the GN Drives in any direction if the figure's arms weren't there. But as-is, the only way they can't face is down. Except for that very first hinge, the articulation here is pretty well realized. Now if only the drives were also removable...


Legs

I'd say the figure's best engineering is found in the legs. The hip joints have a very good range, only hindered in any practical way by the side skirt panels which tend to not move out of the way at all. Small as they are also, it's not possible for them to bend much either. Forward articulation is very nice for the lack of front skirt pieces to get in the way. Backward can be a little bit more restricted, especially if you have the beam sabre grips stored. It's not terrible by any means, but you're not going to be getting 00 to do any splits either. The upper thigh swivel moves smoothly once you get it started, but initially it may be a bit stuck and feel like it's not supposed to move at all.

The knees are one of the tricks I like in the legs. At first glance it looks like the knee only has a single hinge (looking remarkably similar to the old style giant knee hinges in MSiA, even). Once you bend that hinge as far as it goes, you'll find the shin will keep going, articulating around a cleverly disguised swivel in the GN Condenser. Even though I really liked how the knee was designed to be a double joint without having the entire joint visibly exposed, it manages at the same time to drive home how needless it was to stick the elbows with single hinges when they could have been designed similarly to this.

The feet and ankles are fairly impressive. Besides the ankle ball joints, spread stances are aided greatly by a side to side pivot. One of the better details of that design is that the feet can only angle to any great degree inward, which helps the overall stability when in more normal poses. The front half of the foot is on a hinge, which helps for crouching poses. This hinge is not quite as solid as I'd really prefer, but it also has not yet led to any instances of collapse. In fact, despite how they feel when manipulating them, they're strong enough to fully support the figure when in a "tip-toe" sort of pose.

Yes, I'm here to talk about posing a Gundam on tip-toe so you don't have to.


Accessories


-GN Sword/Rifle II

00's main armament. At first glance they just look like a set of broadswords, but through a set of different hilts they can serve different functions. As packaged they have the storage mode grips attached, with the tab to plug them into 00's hip armor. If you prefer, this set can also be used as hand grips which works as well as the purpose-made pair.

Two sets of grips are made for the purpose of carrying these swords handheld. They can be distinguished by an extra unfolded arm that is meant to plug into 00's forearms. It might just be my example of the figure, but both of these sets tend to skew off center when plugged in the forearms. Plus especially in sword mode I don't like how this works since it limits the range of poses you might be able to have with the swords. For rifle mode it's not a particular problem, but the matter of the rifles being slightly off center when plugged in comes up again since the aim of the rifles won't follow the line of the arm as you'd expect them to.

The last grip is a double-ended handle for a staff mode. At least this one doesn't call for being hardwired into the arms. This grip is a little shorter than I'd have preferred - two handed poses are especially tight.

Swapping between grips is pretty simple, although in most every case you're more likely to pop the blades off first. That's probably more for a safe failure point, as the blades are a fairly rigid plastic. They also rotate depending which mode you put them in: edges lined up with the clear green parts for sword mode or rotated 90 degrees for rifle mode. The handguards are also on a stiff hinge with basically just two positions, open and closed. It's not immediately obvious, but the grips detach from the swords just behind the hand guard. Holding on either side of that will make switching grips easier.

-GN Shield

I kinda hate the standard shield mode for these. It dredges up some old problems, and adds some of its own. First up is that the shield comes in two halves, but for its normal shield mode these pieces have to be combined. It sounds like a simple matter at first, but both halves have moving, sliding pieces. The blue outer pieces have to be slid down and the grey inner pieces slid up in order for the connectors to be able to reach each other. But in the process of putting the shield together there's not any stable part to push against. Invariably you'll either push away one side's grey connector piece or slide up the blue outer part. Either of these will prevent the connection and you basically have to start all over again. The only way I have reliably been able to attach these pieces is to pop off the blur part on one side and reattach it later, but I'm concerned in the long term of possibly doing damage that way.

Anyway, once you manage to piece the shield together, it has to be mounted to the arm. To the underside of the arm. Remember these kinds of shields? And although there are two mounting points, it can only be mounted one way, which leaves the majority of the shield trying to intersect with the shoulders and very little down by the hand. All that trouble putting the shield together and this is what I get from it?

More typically you'd probably see the shield halves attached to the GN Drive binders, which is thankfully much easier to accomplish and feels less useless than the arm-mounted shield. Just simple tabs that fit happily, snugly, and easily onto slots below the GN Drives. What a relief.

A thid option is possible, which is to plug one half of the shield to each forearm. Enough of the end of the shields extends past the hands to work as arm mounted blades.

-Beam Sabres

Normal stuff if you know MSiA. The blades are made of semi-rigid plastic, though as the blades become thinner toward the ends the plastic gains more flexibility. It doesn't feel like a great warping or snapping concern, but I'd still take care. The blades plug firmly into the grips, which are thankfully a good fit for the weapon hands. The grips store on the rear skirt armor. The grip mounts are actually hinged, and when angled to the sides the arms are able to reach far enough to grab the sabres. Unfortunately getting the grips firmly seated to the mounts is difficult, and unless you do get them all the way on there, it's very easy to knock them off accidentally. Sadly while I like the idea of the hinged sabre grips, it contributes to this problem. Also facing straight down off the mounting point probably isn't helping either.

-Extra Hands

Besides the fists attached in package, 00 comes with only three additional hands: Left and right weapon holding hands, which are expected to do double duty with the sabe and rifle weapons, and a left hand in an open pose.

As noted earlier, the wrist joints are like late MSiA with the socket on the hand, and can be switched easily. The sculpting is reasonably detailed, especially on the one open hand, and the hands generally look very nice.

Shame there wasn't a few more of them, though...



Closing Remarks

I've been trying hard to limit my comparisons to MSiA as much as possible when writing this review, but in some ways it's unavoidable. There are elements to this that are just plainly inferior to where MSiA was at as it approached its conclusion, and given the much higher price of Robot Damashii over MSiA I'm really at a loss to determine a good reason for it.

Taking the figure completely on its own it manages to be a pretty capable Gundam figure, and it certainly does some things that I like. Plus the overall quality control seems pretty high, which is a plus in anyone's book. Aside from the face, I think it makes a nicely accurate representation of the design. At least probably the nicest you'll find on something you don't have to build and paint yourself.

If you're coming to Robot Damashii and expecting a direct continuation of Mobile Suits in Action, that's not really what you'll find here. For as much as these cost I certainly didn't expect to feel like this walked out of eight years ago. Maybe as the first of its kind, 00 is one of those stumbling points on the way to the designers figuring out exactly what they're trying to accomplish. In that context I think I do have to call 00 Very Good.

There's still designs in RD that I'm interested in, so I'll give the line a chance for a while longer. But if you were an MSiA collector and haven't made the jump into Robot Damashii yet, don't look at the price and expect some substantial advance over the previous figure line. Right now I'm just hoping for these to eventually become equal to their predecessors.

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GN Sword III

Length: 14cm (sword mode)

Colors: Molded metalflake grey, clear green; Painted blue, pearlescent white.

Accessories: GN Shield

Release Data: Tamashii Web Shop exclusive release, shipping late Feb 2010

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Bandai apparently would really like to be Mattel. Or more specifically MattyCollector. Little else can explain the pattern that has emerged within Robot Damashii of certain figures and maybe more frustratingly certain accessories being sold off as mailaway and event exclusives. I'm fairly certain my senses were taking a smoke break when I was presented with the chance to get the GN Sword III for more than I actually spent on the 00 itself. Because it's not like the GN Sword III could ever have just come with the Gundam 00, right?

Argh, Bandai.


To its credit, the sword is pretty solid. The blade is a stiff plastic, but flexible enough not to be in danger of snapping. The blade has a failure point, being that it is not glued to the rest of the weapon. But it only fails in one direction, which is not the direction it would snap, should that ever happen. So, uh, oops?

The blade is clear green plastic, to represent the GN Condenser material its edges are supposed to be made from. The middle of the blade is painted a very nice pearlish white, and the paint coverage is just fantastic. The blade is hinged and folds under, and as long as you don't push on the end of the blade when it's folded back, you shouldn't have a problem about knocking it loose.

There's a blue armor plate, normally to the bottom of the GN Sword. This is another unglued piece, but it comes off a little bit easier than the blade, but the way it's designed, it shouldn't be a problem to apply a dab of glue to fix it in place. The grip, on top, is hinged and can be rotated for rifle or sword mode. In sword mode the blue armor piece forms a guard for the hand. The struts that appear to hold the blade in place have slots cut in each of their front edges, a sad reminder of this piece's origin as part of another exclusive set and a special beam blade piece we didn't get.

In either mode, a brace at the back of the grip is meant to fit over 00's arm. It doesn't have a tab to plug in the forearm like any of 00's included sword or gun grips, and it ultimately just loosely braces. For rifle mode a small tab on the armor piece theoretically plugs into the bottom of the figure's arm, but it's not any sort of good fit. That being said, I don't have any problem with the sword falling off in any mode; the collection of kind of loose connections more or less adds up to one decent one.


Closing Remarks

You're going to pay a lot more for this than the original retail. I don't think there's anyway around that. Ultimately your options here are to either find just this sword by itself, or get the Trans-Am 00 Raiser that was also a Tamashii Shop exclusive, wherein you'll get the extra super beam sword part. But you'll probably also pay a hell of a lot more for that, too.

Oh well, if I ever get a 00 Seven Sword, this will look really nice on it. But this is absolutely nuts to have to get accessories like this.


-ExVee