May 2006
It's early if I say it is!
ExVee, 05/16/2006
In the process of writing the review of the EMIA Freedom, I got a bit put off the whole figure, which killed my interest in taking the pictures to go along with it for a while. Still, updates must go on, and I put together a gallery of 27 images of it. Part of why I lost interest is something I bring up at the end of the review, but I think may bear bringing up here as well. I of course bought the EMIA Gundam, but immediately upon receiving it found that it felt, well, wrong. It's a difficult thing to describe, but there's just a certain way I expect an MSiA to feel when I pick it up and move it, perhaps a certain level of expected resistence or even rigidity in the figure. It's part of the experience for me that there's ways a figure simply will not move no matter what. It's a knowledge I use to my benefit, I can count on those points as places to hold and push against when moving other parts. But the Gundam was different. All of those solid points weren't solid anymore. If I move one part, two more go flying out of where I had them. The extra articulation made the figure overall structurally weaker, and I find that to hinder play. It is perhaps a wonder that more and more articulation can be added to these small figures year after year, but there does come a point when it's time to say "enough", and leave things alone. When I got the Freedom and found the exact same feel, it really became a trouble spot for me. If I were to review the Gundam, I suspect I would detail more failings in it than I did with the Freedom, but in either case the faults that really matter are still present.
In pondering this situation, one conclusion came to me that seems to make some reasonable sense. See, with the past Extended Mobile Suits in Action, the designs they're based on either had no modern figure, or had a basically flawed recent figure. In these cases, the result seemed always to be positive. These figures fixed fundamental flaws in their predecessors, and that's great. The figures were great, it was a good process. But with the Gundam, its predecessor, the Second Version, was basically fine already. No changes were really called for, and certainly not the ones that were really made (I still want a Gundam figure with a Core Block gimmick). It was simply making a figure and adding as many joints as were available because they could. Freedom did have some failings to begin with - notably the inability to do Hi-MAT Burst Mode, and that is something that might call for fixing. But the Freedom was still rather new when the EMIA was announced. Functionally this EMIA is almost identical to the MSiA it's based on, except that new jointing was added just to justify it as being Extended. Not only do these changes result in lowered overall stability of the figure, some make it even look lopsided all the time. It became very clear that if an EMIA is made just because it can, there's going to be a loss of the positive qualities that have made the subline as enjoyable as it had been until these two.
I find myself somewhat concerned about the EMIA Justice due for July. On the one hand, since it already has to be different from its closest ancestor, the Infinite Justice, there's a real chance it will be spared this undesirable fate. But then I worry moreso, because the decision was made to have this be Extended from the start without a true MSiA counterpart. It's technically uncharted waters, and no precedent may apply at all. It's a fearful situation after handling the Gundam and Freedom, I must say. The Hyaku Shiki later this year I find myself not worried about. It follows the past rule, and has an utterly miserable existing figure. It was bad even by the standards of when it was first released back in 2000. From one point of view there's really nothing anybody could do to the design to make a worse figure out of it, and that really gives me hope. That and some aspects of the design seem like they should resist the really bad things that got done to the Freedom and Gundam, like those extraneous shoulder joints that for me only ever seem to get in the way. ...that became rather more lengthy than I'd intended, and if you actually didn't give up halfway through, I thank you and salute your attention span towards my mad ramblings.
Right now I don't want to make any guesses as to when the next update will actually turn up, since there's a decided lack of BuCUE in the early Hong Kong MSiA release pool from which we often draw our review subjects. Figures that it happens on a figure I've been waiting a good two years for, huh?
It's late when it takes me 47 days
RAC, 05/17/2006
At long last, as promised, I have the review of the EMIA Gundam. Apparently, a month and a half is the new "soon," which may be handy for you to know when putting things off.
I think the review reinforces ExVee's impression of "Change for the sake of change" in the last couple EMIAs, but I think I'm a bit more keen on the new shoulder articulation than he is. I like the range, it's fun to play with, though functionally it may be overkill. Unfortunately, not a single balljoint on this figure matches the Gundam Second for size, so you can't play mix and match and create the perfect Gundam figure as I tried to do.
Aesthetically Bandai is always schizoid on retro-styled RX-78s such as this one. The torso and hands are clearly designed to evoke the simplicity and shapes of the animation model, yet the head isn't anywhere near the animation model and the shield features the later addition of the extra Beam Saber storage. I really wish they'd just start doing a double-release for Gundam figures: one anime-styled and one modern version, which makes a lot more sense than bizarre compromises that please no one.
(For those looking for a good anime-styled Gundam I recommend the Arch Enemies release from a few years back. It's pretty much on-model and has a working Core Block to boot.)
I'm not even going to attempt to promise an update with any kind of timeframe here- still a lot on my plate, and leisure time is at a marked premium for the foreseeable future. But, I have a couple non-MSiA things on order I suspect I'll want to talk about. And I've got my eye on the upcoming MSiA GOUF Ignited as well, so check back from time to time!
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