EMIA RX-93 Nu Gundam

Extended MSiA RX-93 Nu Gundam

Height: 13.5cm to top of head, 18.5cm to top of Fin Funnels.

Articulation: 36 total points of articulation: double-jointed neck; 8 points in each arm- triple-jointed shoulders, ball-jointed shoulder armor, pre-elbow swivels, double-jointed elbow, ball-jointed wrists; ball-jointed torso; hinged waist; 7 points in each leg - ball jointed hip, mid-thigh swivel, triple-jointed knee, triple-jointed ankle.

Accessories: Beam Rifle, Nu Hyper Bazooka, Long Beam Saber with removable blades, Beam Sabers x2 with one removable blade, Fin Funnels x6 with connectors, Shield, Extra Hand with Sazabi Escape Pod, Extra Hands x6.

Colors: Molded gray and transparent pink. Painted white, black, red, yellow, green, gray, and rust red ink (panel lines).

Release Data: Released on December 21st, 2006 at a price of 3,150 Yen. This item is still widely available as of this review (January 13th, 2007)

Gallery: 31 pictures.

Author: RAC

The Figure

Amuro Ray's final Mobile Suit, Nu Gundam is an astoundingly powerful machine. Equipped with all the basics befitting a Gundam as well as the versatile Fin Funnels and a Plot Device of the highest order, Nu Gundam can be seen closing out the first Universal Century in the film Char's Counterattack. Originally released as a large but unremarkable MSiA in 2001, the new EMIA version once again reminds us what a difference five years makes in the MSiA line.

The Head

The head is a spot-on match for Yutaka Izubuchi's original lineart, with the exception of a slightly thicker set of antennae. If you've owned MSiA before, that's nothing new to you, most likely. The neck is double ball-jointed, and can tilt back and forth pretty nicely. The back of the helmet is pretty low, though, and it's easier for Nu to look at its feet than to look up. The collar impedes swivel ever so slightly too, but not enough to lock the head into a forward arc, thankfully. You just have to readjust the neck slightly to turn it further.

The Arms

The shoulders are in the current EMIA style, with triple-jointed shoulders of unsurpassed range. Different figures deal differently with the alterations to the original designs these require: Hyaku Shiki integrated them seamlessly; Justice Gundam lets them just be there as though they were meant to be. Unfortunately, Nu Gundam reverts to the EMIA RX-78 style, which is to slap small black plates on the top of the shoulders and hope they make the joints look less obtrusive. They don't. To my way of thinking, the bonus articulation trumps the minor hit to the appearance of the shoulders and armpits. Beyond which, Nu Gundam is equipped with a Movable Frame like pretty much all late-UC designs, so exposed jointing isn't something that will look out of place.

The rest of the arms are mostly EMIA-standard as well, with a pre-elbow swivel and double-jointed elbows that allow the arm to fold into a tight V (or Nu, maybe?). The ball-jointed wrists are strong enough to deal with the appropriate accessories, and all but clear the slanted shape of the forearm. There is some chance of paint-rubbing on the corners of both hand and forearm, though.

The left arm is significantly different from the right, featuring a black attachment that serves as both the mounting point for Nu Gundam's shield, and a storage rack for the tiny auxiliary Beam Saber. Like the rest of the figure, this is a major upgrade from the original, now being hinged and easy to retrieve.

The Torso

There's a painting error here, a minor one but it's common to all photos I see of EMIA Nu Gundam. There's a small panel on either side of the cockpit hatch and underneath each of the chest vents that should be white. Instead, it's painted black the same as the rest of the upper torso. It's minor but I will have to deduct a point for it since it's a universal error.

Even so, I'm glad they made that blackened white section part of the upper half of the torso, because if it were part of the lower part it would kill the mid-torso joint. As it is, the joint works very well, offering a great range of front-to-back tilt and some mild tilt side-to-side. The shape of the backpack and midsection were very conscientiously designed to offer a full 360 degrees of swivel even when the Nu Hyper Bazooka is stored there. The front skirt plates are slightly restrictive, but not too terribly bad, though the danger of warping is present as always. The side skirt panels are ball-jointed, even though they impede the range of the hips in no way whatsoever, and perversely enough the rear skirt moves more easily than the front.

The backpack has a lot to do and does it all pretty well. The storage rack for Nu's Long Beam Saber rotates, though you may need to pry it loose initially. Likewise the Fin Funnel mounting clamp, which rotates freely once loosened- maybe a little too freely, considering as much as it has to hold up. The simple slide-mount for the Nu Hyper Bazooka holds it in place well, and as I mentioned before doesn't impede the waist at all. And as always, the thruster cones on the backpack are ball-jointed and have a pretty nice range of their own.

The Legs and Feet

While they don't quite match the EMIA Gundam or Hyaku Shiki for sheer range of movement, Nu's legs do pretty well. The hip joint is probably the most restricted compared to those figures, but the legs can still be pulled apart to roughly a 90-degree angle. Plenty enough for wide, dramatic stances, particularly with the upper-thigh swivels. The knees are the standard triple-joint, with the ball-joint providing a little extra kick of articulation as it always does. Because of the faux-pistons on the front of the knee joint, you can also use the ball to wedge them into the hollow kneecap for a little extra bracing, should you ever need it.

The ankles have excellent range as usual, able to place the sole of the foot nearly parallel to the leg itself- more than enough to match the other leg joints. The foot itself looks great, a far cry from the Gundam Second version's slipper-feet, and nicely detailed on the bottom as well. An added feature also seen on the MG Nu Gundam, the yellow spot on the toe and a matching spot on the heel swivel down to form a pair of claws. Not sure what they'd be used for- a more secure connection to the Ra Cailum's catapult, maybe. Who knows?

Paint and Decoration

Bandai-Namco has elected to go with a clean look this time, forgoing the weathering of most of the earlier EMIAs. Paint is sharp overall, with the slightest bit of yellow bleed around the chest vents being the only rough spot. Silver seems to be the new default color for thruster cones, which I really like the look of, and the red panel inking against the white background looks good as well. As mentioned before, though, I'm deducting a point for the torso issue, a rare outright error in Nu Gundam's paint job.

Articulation gets 9/10

Sculpt and Deco get 8/10
 

Accessories

-Beam Rifle

Yutaka Izubuchi can design some pretty elegantly utilitarian weaponry. The Beam Rifle is one such weapon, taking cues from previous Beam Rifle styling while remaining simple and straightforward. If it has a targeting sensor and E-Pack, neither is immediately obvious from the design. The Rifle fits very nicely into the figure's hand, and will be in no danger of falling out, one benefit of the friction derived from paint-to-paint contact.

-Nu Hyper Bazooka

The question must be asked: how wise is it, really, to store a rocket-launching weapon directly between your main thrusters? (Probably about as smart as storing it directly under the thrusters in the style of the earlier Gundams, I guess.) The updated Hyper Bazooka is large and detailed, with bright red ammunition and bright green sensors livening up the black-and-white color scheme. It fits neatly in the backpack and manages to stay out of the way of everything, and the handgrip folds flat against the barrel for storage. It's also a great help in lining up the over-the-shoulder firing position.

-Long Beam Saber

After remaining pretty much unchanged for a long time, Beam Sabers are becoming more elaborate by UC 0093. While Neo Zeon tends to favor axe/sword combinations to evoke the memory of the old Zeon Heat Hawk, EFSF MS are experimenting with new sword configurations. The Nu Gundam's Long Beam Saber is more elaborate than the Re-GZ's longsword-styled weapon, though, with a small beam spike sticking out of the pommel complementing the long, curved primary blade. The entire Beam Saber is actually taller than the figure!

It fits very tightly in the saber-hand, and in fact is kind of difficult to work into place the first time. Be careful with that little spike on two fronts: first, it's tiny and easy to lose, and second, it's pretty pointy and made of hard plastic. The grip fits securely in the storage rack on the backpack, and though the grip doesn't collapse as the design shows, the guard does fold flat, and it looks just fine as is.

-Beam Saber

And this is why the Long Saber's grip is such a tight fit- the mini-Saber's grip fits snugly and securely in the Saber-hand. It's a basic Beam Saber, and you get an extra hilt for arm-storage in addition to the ignited weapon in the package. It's also a bit poky, being smaller than your average Beam Saber. I have to say, though: Bandai-Namco picked a really vivid translucent pink plastic this time. Some MSiA and EMIA have blades so washed out they barely look pink.

-Fin Funnels

Nu Gundam's unique remote weapon/beam barrier system, the Fin Funnels have historically presented some challenges in toy form. The initial US release had a set of stable dummy Funnels that attached to Nu Gundam's back, with one separatable Funnel. This was stable, but the colors weren't correct, and it meant any Fin-Funnel diorama work the MSiA enthusiast might want to do would cost $60 and five left over Nu Gundams. The Japanese release took the mold for the individual Funnel and modified it to use a series of small connectors to hold the lot together. They didn't hold together, and were barely inclined to stay on the back at all. This is the route the EMIA takes, but the difference of five years means everything for the execution.

There's now a specific order that the Fin Funnels need to be connected in, and they're numbered 1-6 on the black side so that you can tell them apart- very nice! The Funnels are made of the hard plastic introduced with the Impulse Gundams a few years ago, and have no trouble staying on the back, or staying together. The biggest problem you're likely to encounter is a connector coming off with the loose Funnels as opposed to staying with the ones on the back. I seriously just picked up the figure and shook it to see what would happen, and all I heard or saw was the clicking of the hinged Funnels swinging back and forth. That's hard to beat. The grouping is curved, and the hinged mounting latch helps minimize the interference with the left arm.

-Shield

Another piece of engineering subtly improved from the original figure, the shield still clamps over the black part of the left forearm. It's now ball-jointed and sits closer to the arm- the original shield always did sit out too far for me. It's also now broader and longer, and seems more in scale with the Suit it's meant to protect. As before, Amuro's personal emblem can be seen on the front, and a small Beam Gun and set of four missiles can be seen on the back.

-Extra Hand with Sazabi Escape Pod

From one of the final scenes in Char's Counterattack, we get Nu Gundam's one and only scene-recreating accessory. Take a second and take a look at the size of this pod compared to EMIA Sazabi's head- there's no way you could fit that in there! Worst part is that it's actually scaled down compared to the screenshot shown on the figure's box- the Sazabi's head would need to be about the size of Nu's entire torso for that to be in scale!

But, let's set aside questions of accurate and consistent scale versus the dramatic needs of the scene. It looks good, though the glossy red paint dulls the detailing on the pod the slightest bit. It's not the most impressive bonus part we've gotten, but it's pretty important to the end of Char's Counterattack, and a nice piece to have.

-Extra Hands

The Big 6 are here as always, along with a pair of open hands for dramatic flourish and holding the escape pod two-handed. All the accessory-holding hands do well, though as mentioned above the Long Beam Saber is a distressingly tight fit.

Accessories get 9/10

Closing Remarks

The Nu Gundam, like Hyaku Shiki before it, is a splendid example of Bandai-Namco's "A" game. All the joints and accessories function as intended, and it corrects problems that were seemingly insurmountable on the previous version of the figure. There is a minor deco error, but unless that really, really bothers you I wouldn't let it dissuade you from buying.

Nu Gundam is a bit pricier than most EMIA, but then again it's also bigger by a good margin. If you like the design, it's worth the extra money, no question. It's Excellent.

-RAC, 01/13/2007