MSiA TMF/A-803 LaGOWE

Height: 7.5 cm to top of turret.

Articulation: 25 points total: 2 ball joints in neck; hinged wings; 3 points in turret - swivel joint base, ball joint cannon barrels; 4 points per front leg - ball joint shoulder, hinge elbow, hinge/ball joint combination wrist; 5 points per rear leg - ball joint hip, double joint knee, hinge/ball joint combination ankle.

Colors: Molded orange, dark grey, light grey, clear pink; Painted yellow, dark grey, light grey, black, green.

Accessories: Beam blades x2

Release Data: Released in July 15th, 2006 in Japan at a price of ¥1500.

Gallery: 10 images.

Author: ExVee



In my review of the BuCUE, I went at some length about Gundam SEED introducing some unique design elements to Gundam. The animalistic form was not limited to the BuCUE, of course. Before the Gaia, the BuCUE was succeeded by the LaGOWE. A command unit designed for two pilots - a driver and a gunner - it benefits much more from the new technologies ZAFT obtained from the stolen OMNI Enforcer prototypes than did the BuCUE.

However, as it comes to the figure itself, very little has changed. Although the appearance is of course different, there are no leaps at all in any important areas to have any real effect on the play value of the LaGOWE. As before, this review format will differ somewhat because of the unusual form of the figure.


The Figure

In many ways I find the LaGOWE to feel more like a retooled BuCUE than a wholly new figure. However, I know this is almost certainly not the case. Instead, the same engineering principles have been recycled and applied to this figure. This may be good in that the BuCUE was fairly solid, but it also means the LaGOWE automatically shares the same failings present in that design model. Articulation of the limbs is still just as limited, which remains kind of a hit against the figure when it sort of needs creative jointing to take best advantage of the different form. One could have quite a bit of fun posing the LaGOWE, if only it had the jointing to go along with it.

The articulation of the head is similarly restriced as it was in the BuCUE, and it seems all the worse because of the more decoratively flared design of the head. The wings, while hinged, can barely move at all because of the placement of the beam cannons. Each wing has a pair of thrusters attached with ball joints, which have decent enough range. The beam cannons have an identical joint arrangement to the BuCUE's railgun turret. The important difference here is that the beam cannons are considerably longer, and this limits the useable range of that articulation. While the turret can rotate all around pretty freely, elevation is limited because the back end of the cannons hits the tops of the rear legs. Bizzarely, the targeting sensor on the turret can rotate independant from the turret itself. I can't imagine why this would be done intentionally, and wonder if my LaGOWE is just missing a drop of glue right there.

Converting to the tankish mode is basically the same process as on the BuCUE, but it feels a little trickier to get everything to line up properly.


Accessories

The beam blades are a bit bigger than the BuCUE's, but still smaller than normal. They are likewise standard blades aside from that point.



Closing Remarks

For the design being so similar to the BuCUE, you may be puzzled why I seem to be so much harder on it now than the last time. The thing is, for a single use, the design was good enough. It wasn't fragile, nor were there any immediate glaring flaws. But then to have a followup figure, and have it use the exact same articulation, it seems to me like no attempt was made to try and make this distinctive from the already released very similar figure. If not for the bright orange coloring that I like very much, you'd hardly be able to tell you hadn't picked up another BuCUE.

I'm going to rate the LaGOWE as the same Good I gave the BuCUE. However, I'll expand on that by saying that you really don't need to buy both. One or the other I think will be enough for you unless you have a specific desire for both of these. But otherwise you'll just feel disappointed by whichever one you get second.

-ExVeeBrawn