ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice

Height: Head height 11cm; Maximum height with Fatum-01 12.5cm; Fatum-01 maximum wingspan 19cm

Articulation: 28 points total, plus various points for Fatum-01: Ball jointed neck; 6 each arm - double jointed shoulder, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, ball joint wrist; Ball jointed waist; 6 each leg - Ball jointed hip, triple jointed knee, double jointed ankle.

Colors: Molded pink, purple, black, grey, clear pink, clear purple; Painted pink, white, green, yellow, silver, black, blue.

Accessories: Fatum-01 Subflight Lifter, stand, shield with beam blade and beam shield attachment, beam rifle, beam sabres x2 with removeable blades, extra hands x4.

Release Data: Released in Japan on September 23rd, 2005 at a price of �¥2000.

Gallery: 36 images.

Author: ExVee


The Figure


Without getting much into how I feel about the ultimate handling of SEED Destiny, since that's not why either of us are here, suffice to say one of the nails in the coffin was the introduction of the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice, the replacement Mobile Suits for Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala, quickly becoming the hero characters in Destiny in place of Shinn Asuka. Regardless of how I feel about the way things were handled in the story by the time it was introduced, the design itself is not automatically bad. Indeed, I like much of the mechanical design, so long as I can separate it from where it originally came.

Like the Strike Freedom (reviewed by RAC), the Infinite Justice took the basic qualities of the original Mobile Suit and exaggerated them. Fans of SEED will surely recall Athrun's favored use of the Justice's double beam sabre. While Infinite Justice does not have the combining grips gimmick, Extra beam emitters in the legs, shield and Fatum-01 practically make this the Knife Fight Gundam. The projectile weapons on the Fatum-00 became beam cannons on the Fatum-01, the shoulder mounted beam boomerangs become a giant combination boomerang/beam sword, and the shield is of course upgraded to the new technology beam shield. Like I said, exaggeration.


The Head

As with any Gundam type suit used by Athrun, it has a ridiculously tall sensor crest on top of the head. I never have figured out what the deal with that is supposed to be. Despite the rather long neck, the articulation of the head is surprisingly restricted. Though it can of course rotate all the way around, the up/down and left/right tilt is very limited. I'm not entirely sure about the sculpt of the head, either. The face seems small within the head, and the lack of vent lines on the face, though not present in the lineart, makes it look under-detailed. The V-Fins are also more horizontal than I really like, which serves to make minor issues with the Fatum.

Arms and Torso

No real innovations here. The torso features special hardware for mounting the lifter unit, in the form of hinged ports on the back that plugs on the Fatum lock in to. There's also grooves cut into the torso on either side of the collar area to lock down the Fatum-01 when in flight mode. The waist is a very restricted ball joint that basically has only just enough freedom to let you determine it is a ball joint, but for no other purpose. The double shoulder joints are also quite limited by the size of the shoulder armor, which nearly nullifies the hinge entirely. Aside from that, the arms are pretty well standard. There's a hardpoint on both forearms for attaching the shield, but because of the shape of the forearm and placement of the hardpoint (on the sides, thankfully), it can be tricky both to get it locked in securely, and to determine that you have in fact gotten it locked in securely. The wrist ball joints are fairly small, which gives me concerns about them potentially snapping off if one was to remove the hands and stress those pieces just the right way. Probably not a real or significant concern, but it makes me a bit nervous regardless.

Legs And Feet

Once again, nothing groundbreaking here. You have all of your standard articulation, with some decent range in the double ankle joint despite the ankle armor piece. The shape of the calf somewhat limits the range of the knee joints, but there's other, greater concerns related to that. The normal warped skirt armor danger applies, plus a bit extra. The armor is rather stiff, and does not bend much at its connection point at the waist. What this means is that if you raise the leg, the skirt armor is going to tend to bend in the middle of the panel, rather than at the top. This is a much greater warping danger than usual, and you'll need to take extra care against this. Interestingly, the rear panel has a hardpoint meant to mount an accessory, but no accessory is included with a peg to fit there. The leg mounted beam blades and related elements will be covered in Accessories.

Sculpt and Deco

Overall, the sculpt is actually fairly nice. This design is a mess of small details to start with, and they seem represented quite well. From the machinecannons to apogee motors to small thrusters are rendered nicely, with clean, sharp edges, and are well-defined from the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, the paint work is not nearly so competent. Most ever area of paint runs over its edges, is glaringly uneven, or even has visible gaps in the coverage. A few spots even have bits of paint that shouldn't be present in the first place. I cannot say whether this is representative of any given example of the figure, or if I received a particularly sloppy one, but this could and should have been painted much better.


Sculpt and Engineering get 7/10
Paint and Deco get 5/10


Accessories

-Fatum-01 Sublight Lifter and stand

The gimmick for the Infinite Justice. As noted, it plugs into two hinged ports on the figure's back. This is trouble, since you'll be trying to plug two hinged pieces into two other hinged pieces, both made to move easily. It's helped a little by a sort of "lock" position on the Fatum's connector plugs, but the force needed to lock it into the figure's back can just as eaily push the plugs out of that position. Once you finally do get it plugged in, one of two things can happen. First, the plugs are still in the locked position, and everything is fine for having the Fatum folded down. If not, and the plugs came loose from that position, the Fatum will try to fall away from the body when folded down. The connection is very secure, so it won't actually become disconnected, but it will angle away from the back as much as it possibly can. It absolutely has to be in locked position to store correctly.

To move to flight mode, the plugs must be unlocked, but not disconnected from the body, and pushed as far forward as they'll go. Then you lift it horizontal, and press the Hyper Fortis Cannon cowlings down into the shoulder. You actually have to press them firmly into place, at which point you'll hear a nice, solid snap as they fit into position. Then you have to either turn the head and extend one cannon at a time, or hold back the V-Fins do deploy both cannons at once. Surprisingly, I find the Infinite Justice can stand in flight mode without the assistance of the stand. Due in no small part I'm sure to the use of light, rigid plastics in the Fatum-01. Whether yours won't stand this way or you want flying poses, this stand is for you! It plugs very securely into the underside of the lifter, and only fits correctly one way so you can tell pretty quick if you have it backward. It supports the weight and awkward balance of the Fatum docked with the figure astonishingly well. I was quite surprised how stable the whole thing felt when I first set it up. There's no real options for dynamic posing here, since the stand only holds the lifter one way, much like the smaller stands (this one is taller than the figure is!) do with Asshimar, EMIA Zeta Gundam, Gabthley, and Hambrabi.

Sadly the Fatum itself is not a complete representation. Where it's meant to have beam blades along the forward edge of either wing, plus small blades from the backside of the Hyper Fortis Cannons and the underside of the "nose" piece, no such blades are included, nor are there openings to actually receive blades. Though one so inclided would be able to buy any sort of generic clear pink blade parts made by any option part manufacturer and make the required holes in the Fatum, this should not be a project left to the consumer. If I want to display the Fatum-01 with all of it's "I'll Cut You, Man" equipment employed, I should be able to di so right out of the box! Even so, with that one glaring omission aside, it still makes a really nice main accessory.

-MX2002 Beam Carry Shield, etc.

The shield is more than just the simple chunks of plastic usually added to these figures. First is the "Shining Edge" beam boomerang, at least equal in overall size to one of Sword Impulse's beam boomerangs. This also doubles as a sort of beam sword, attached to the shield or hand held, and includes the large blade to do so with. The emitter is attached to the boomerang by a plug and slot system, which allows the emitter to either face straight out from the handle, or at an angle for boomerang use. The connection to the blade is stronger than the connection to the handle, though, so expect to take the emitter with you every time you want to remove the blade. The handle fits pretty snugly into the shield, with small nubs on the inside of the storage space to help hold it in.

The small piece raised from the center of the shield is removable, though it tried to hold on really well. Once removed two tiny holes are exposed, which match two little pegs on the beam shield piece. Pegs fit into holes, and then the raised piece plugs in over the whole thing to keep it together, and thus your beam shield. I'm not entirely happy with the beam piece used here. While I certainly realize how difficult it is to replicate an energy effect in plastic, something seems missing all the same. The only thing I could think of was that the raised parts of the surface, or pehaps even the whole thing could use a thin layer of airbrushed paint to give the appearance of really being an energy shield. Just enough for it to have a soft glow when backlit as was done with the EMIA Gouf's heat sword. As it is, it's hard to see it as anything but the slab of plastic it really is. Plus, with the beam on, it tends to smack intot he Fatum, should you have it connected as well.

The basic shield itself has a tab on a ball joint which plugs into the forearm hardpoints. See the Arms section for comments on that. There's also a grip on an almost absurdly long hinged swing arm, which so far I've been unable to figure out any purpose for it to be so long. It's not as easy to pose with as I'd have liked, and I feel that considering just the beam sword option alone a forearm swivel would have been beneficial to the useful posing of the shield. It's also incomplete like the Fatum, as it's meant to have a grappling anchor which is represented only in molded detail on the surface of the shield.

-MA-M1911 High-Energy Beam Rifle

More simple and sci-fi than the model of rifle used by Freedom and Justice. This lacks the foreward grip, and much of the bulky, blocky shape. It's more streamlines, and lighter looking. It has a movable targeting sensor on top, which can move a full 180 degrees from one side to the other. It cannot be stored anywhere, but it fits very nicely in the hand.

-MA-M02G "Super Lacerta" Beam Sabres

And no combined double sabre grip this time. These are just a standard pair of beam sabres, naturally having hard plastic blades. The ebst part is that the storage racks on the hip armor are very well designed and there is no problem at all with the grips staying in place. The pretty bad part is that the grips are totally painted. AQll the white surface is paint, so paint wear is likely to be an issue over time.

-MR-Q15A "Griffon" leg beam blades

Technically these beam blades themselves aren;t named that, it's the whole system. Anyway, they're a pair of short beam blades that plug between the knee armor and the feet. because of the way it works the legs have to be in a certain pose for these to fit, and then of course you lose articulation below the knee while they're installed. I personally don't like the execution much, since it's very difficult to get an appropriately dynamic pose with them. I'd have rather lost these in favor of perhaps the wing beam blades for the Fatum-01. regardless, these fit snugly into place, and only fit facing one way and in one direction, so watch how you're putting them in.

-Extra Hands

The standard hands. Besides the fists, you get trigger finger hands and regular open hands. They fit a little too tightly, making it difficult to attach or remove, plus the previously mentioned issues on the wrist side.



Closing Remarks

It's kind of sad when the design this figure is made from focuses on beam melee, but the figure barely ackowledges that fact. If one overlooks the loss of the secondary gimmick, you're still left with a solid figure, but with flaws yet. There's lots of little things here that I think could have been done better, but when you get right down to it there's nothingly majorly wrong here. This is kind of expensive, due mostly to the two large accessories, so this may be a purchase to think over a bit more. If you've been on the fence, take note that the Extended MSiA Justice's Fatum-00 is compatible with this stand and lacks one of its own, so that may be enough to push you all the way over. I quite enjoy this figure despite its flaws, and I don't regret getting it at all. I'm giving the Infinite Justice a Good.

-ExVeeBrawn