Robot Damashii Susanowo

Height: 12.5cm to top of head

Articulation: 32 total points - 8 points in torso: Triple jointed neck, clavicle-style pre-shoulder hinge, mid-torso double hinge, waist swivel; 5 points each arm: Double shoulder, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow, ball joint wrist; 7 points each leg: Double jointed hip, double hinge knee, double joint ankle, foot hinge; Plus additional joints for binder claws.

Colors: Molded black, gunmetal grey, blue, light grey; Painted light grey, yellow, silver, black.

Accessories: GN longsword "Shiranui"; GN wakizashi "Unryu"; Power cables, long and short; Flag option head and collar; GN Condenser; Tamashii Stage adapter; Extra Hands x4

Release Data: Released in Japan in January of 2010 at a retail price of ¥3200

Author: ExVee

(more...)


Of course, I didn't realize at the time that it was a retool and recolor from the Masurao. Give me a break, I only saw the second season of 00 once so far!

It's an almost irredeemably silly notion, that a military pilot would adopt a samurai style behavior, and then get whatever machine he uses customized to reflect this fact. But there's something about the design of Mr Bushido's mobile suits that just seems to work despite the goofy circumstances. For a few very minor reasons I prefer the Masurao version of this basic suit design, but all of the functionally important parts carry over to Susanowo, plus a few new gadgets and options. Plus that Flag head makes me vaguely wish normal suits from other series would get modded out to be samurai or ninjas or pirates or whatever.

Hey, they proved that it can be made to work, right?


Head

The neck seems to be a variation of the triple-jointing system used on 00, though in this case the base is a swivel instead of a ball joint. It retains the hinge in the middle, and due to the design of the head that's where the majority of posing will occur that's not related to simply turning. It'll pitch to the sides a bit on the ball joint, but the large helmet design kills the ball joint for back and forth. Apparently this is why we need triple-jointed necks. Who knew? The large crests or "antlers" on the helmet (I think I'll call them rabbit ears - he probably gets decent TV reception up there...) are independently hinged. I'm not sure why this was important to have, but there it is. Maybe it really is about getting a good TV picture.

See more about the head toward the end of the article.


Arms

It's hard sometimes. Being that the figure the Susanowo is remolded from was released almost a year into the Robot Damashii line, I was really hoping for some really solid, marked improvement over 00. But that is really not the case in the arms. It's basically for the same reason as 00, which is that the elbow joint is concealed within existing design details. This elbow can't even hope to pass a 90 degree bend. Oddly, it's also for the elbows being designed to contain GN Condensers...

The shoulder joint is pretty reasonable, though I've had better. One bit I appreciated was that the toy's shoulder is put together in such a way as to make it look like a piece of armor is sliding over the inner mechanism, but it's done just with a clever and simple optical illusion. The shoulders would have a pretty respectable range of motion, except the large shoulder armor pieces block most of the meaningful movement. The shoulder armor is also either not removable, or at least not easily removable. In either case, I'm not exactly game to risk breaking the thing to see if the armor can come off. The black portion of the shoulder armor hinges open to reveal small beam cannons. It's probably not really intended, but the cannons can rotate most of the way around, a little short of a 240 degree arc, maybe. The beam cannons could conceivably be removed from the shoulder armor, but on the other hand they're really nicely solid in there, so I'd hesitate to risk loosening their swivel hinge by taking them out and back in.

The left forearm has an added armor gauntlet glued on. One case where I might have preferred to fight with an intentionally removable piece, but not for any really good reason. I think I just like taking things apart. There's a movable cuff at the wrist end of the gauntlet, which is not nearly so stiff as the shoulder cannons. That one I'd prefer fixed in place because it kind of irritates me the way it'll flop around as you move the arm.


Torso

What I'm impressed by here is basically an extension of the shoulder articulation. In media they're almost always implied, but rarely realized in merchandise, but the Susanowo has a clavicle joint. Actually, more a combination of clavicle/pectoral jointing. Anyway, part of the chest is hinged to swing back and forth to expand the range of motion of the arms. And considering the limits the shoulder armor creates it's a great move. The movement is not extreme, but it's just enough to make a solid sword-draw pose possible. Plus as I said, it's not a detail often reproduced in this kind of product so I get a slight thrill out of seeing it used for a change.

There's also a peculiar torso jointing, at least compared to previous systems. Employing a series of hinged arms concealed within the torso, it has the potential to allow a great deal of front-to-back torso postures. Or it would if not for the completely decorative blade thing on the figure's back getting in the way half the time. This articulation structure is also involved in the hatch that opens on the figure's abdomen to reveal another beam cannon, which completes the tri-punisher beam cannon system.

The skirt armor is also unusually articulated here. The hip plates which normally peg into place at the figure's side also house a pair of large claws. Because of how they fold closed, the claws themselves have a great degree of movement, though the whole system is probably too weak to actually hold anything of any sort of mass. This whole design gives the figure the distinction of being able to have giant skirt armor pieces that do not have to automatically destroy the figure's leg articulation since they can be moved well out of the way as needed.


Legs

Man, just so close, and yet...

Okay, the hip joints are pretty fantastic. The ball joint for once is not the first joint, as those swivel around a common (making up terminology) pelvic axis. I'll leave it to the photo album to explain just how far these leg joints can go, but suffice to say for now that without front skirt plates it's far.

The ball joints go straight down into the hips rather than sideways, so that joint pulls double duty as the thigh swivel. I don't think it's an exaggeration to call these the best hip joints I have ever found on an action figure, it's just completely amazing.

Then you get to the knees.

Argh, Bandai.

Y'know, single hinge elbows are kind of insulting at this stage of Gundam figure development, at least in my own opinion. Even when as a concession for design details I don't think there's a good excuse for not sneaking a second hinge in there someplace. Well, the knees are in fact straightforward double hinged. But the hinged armor panels atop the calves prevent these completely normal double jointed knees from bending more than 90 degrees. Worse is that these hinged panels do nothing for the function or even design of the figure in any way I can tell, and I'm reasonably certain that if they had been fixed in place or even molded as a piece of the leg it could have been arranged to not render half the knee joint useless.

The feet are just kind of weird, but that's not something I can blame on a toy designer, just some nutjob mechanical designer. On the one hand, the way the feet and ankles are designed gives the figure a whole load of posability, the fact that the entire weight of the figure must be placed upon a single hinge at the front of the foot is worrisome to say the least. Amusingly there are heel struts that can be folded down, but I'm almost positive those are not load-bearing no matter how you pose the figure. I have this terrible vision of a couple years from now when it's basically impossible to find a Susanowo (or Masurao) whose feet are still capable of supporting any standing poses.



Accessories

-Flag Head

As if it hadn't been obvious enough already, in the Susanowo's final battle its helmet broke and revealed a Flag head underneath, basically meaning it and by extension the Masurao were just heavily remoldeled GN Flags. The Flag head here comes with an extra collar piece as well to hide the rather long neck joint. As a result the Flag head's posability is low, but it's better than the head just hovering above the shoulders.

The only real problem I have with this is that the hinge in the middle of the neck makes it really difficult to swap the heads, since the hinge will invariably bend before you can apply enough force to pop ball and socket together.


-GN swords

Replacing Howard and Daryl are a pair of katana-like GN blades. I'm afraid of them.

These blades are rigid plastic and come to quite a point, so in effect you have a not altogether ineffective stabbing point right there. Best watch your eyes if you pose this thing holding one or both swords up. I am not lying at all when I say I can totally believe someone would do horrible damage to themselves with these if slightly careless.

The swords can peg together to form a double ended blade. It may help when trying to assemble this to remember the figure will be holding the double sword by the shorter sword's grip. It took me an embarrassingly long time to make this critical connection. And how much better the double blade would pose if there was an extra elbow hinge...

The figure comes with a pair of clips that attach to the hip panels, and then the swords clip into them for storage. It doesn't work well to try and store them in a straight line along the hip binders' long axis even though some sources will recommend that. I'm just as happy to leave them sitting at an angle the way you'd expect a samurai sword to be worn at the waist. In that vein, it works best if the blades are stored edge-up, as well. There's also a fixed clip on the lower back where the double bladed sword can be placed, but that seems a poor idea when parts are already conflicting back there.

Oh, and when using the swords, remember Graham Mr. Bushido is left handed and uses his machines the same way, so the longer sword should be held in the left hand. (and probably stored on the right hip!)


-Power Cables

The design calls for a power cable to run out the back of the head. I can not tell you why this is supposed to be a good idea. Anyway, you get two kinds, one is short and seems to be for nothing except the "ponytail" appearance that results of the cord hanging not plugged in anywhere.

The second is longer and made to reach from the back of the head to the bottom of the left hand where it plugs into the bottom of the GN sword's grip. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either.

Both cables are of course a flexible plastic, the longer maybe a bit moreso. It's not hard to plug them in under the helmet, and they seem to stay surprisingly well, even when plugged in the sword and trying to pose with it. You should note the power cables can't plug into the Flag head, even though it appears to have a port for it.


-GN Condenser

Though the design calls for several anyway, one condenser is unattached in package and fits on a ball joint in the middle of the back. It does nothing except confuse people into thinking it's the GN drive (which are actually within the hip armor per the design.)


-Tamashii Stage Adapter

It's a little clip that fits in the space between the removable GN Condenser and the back. This is absolutely useless to you unless you have either a Tamashii Stage figure stand, or the version of Masurao that came with a special version of Tamashii Stage. I have neither and cannot comment beyond that it does in fact clip to the post on the back.


-Hands

Fists are attached in package. Additionally you get one pair of sword holding hands, and one pair of open hands. It should be noted that the lefts and rights are a slightly different design. Right hands have a small flared cuff of armor over the wrist socket while the lefts don't. Presumably the freely movable piece on the left arm is meant to fill in that role.

Fitting in with the intended samurai theme, they're so large relative to the forearms that they have the appearance of armored gloves. Of course I think even the Flag had large hands relative to the thickness of its limbs, so this element may not be intended.

The left hands are easily switched. The gauntlet seems to reinforce the skinny forearm and make it easier to pop the hands on. The right arm though fights against changing hands every step of the way. I'm just thankful for the forearm to be soft plastic so that it can bend rather than crack under the stress. It might also be that the sockets in the right side hands are a little too tight, I can't be sure. But at least on my copy, the base of the joint spins around in the forearm, rather than the hand turning on the ball joint itself. I'm not really liking that...


Closing Remarks

It's sad when there's parts I really like and parts that really bother me all rolled into one figure. Unfortunately I think the failings stand out a bit more strongly to me. Basic points of articulation not living up to a standard achieved years ago is ridiculous, just for a start. There's also that many pieces of the design, including a fair bit of decorative elements weren't managed so that they wouldn't interfere with functional parts of the toy.

What it comes down to is that the Susanowo does a few things that I would really love to see tried again on a figure that's not so bad about getting in its own way, where these things can really come out and shine. As it is, they manage to more or less balance out the design problems the figure suffers, since you can get some impressive posing out of it. I can't help thinking how much more it might be able to do with a bit more care in the engineering stage. But for the most part it still came out Good enough.

I'm still worried about those feet in the long term, though. Well, that and the possibility of impaling myself on tiny toy sword. Sheesh...

-ExVee