EMIA MSN-04 Sazabi

EMIA MSN-04 Sazabi

Height: 14 cm to top of head, 15.5cm to top of Funnel Racks.

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 Shot Rifle, Beam Tomahawk/Saber with fixed Tomahawk blade, Beam Tomahawk/Saber w/removable Saber blade, Beam Sabers x2 with removable blades, Storage Funnels x6, Open Funnels x6, Shield, Extra Head, Extra Hands x6.

Colors: Molded gray and transparent green. Painted red, maroon, black, yellow, gray, silver, green, and black ink (panel lining).

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 27th, 2007)

Gallery: 26 pictures.

Author: RAC

The Figure

Hey, it's a Char Suit that's actually red! While the original figure didn't have as glaring a flaw as Nu Gundam's Fin Funnel problems, EMIA Sazabi is still much improved over its (relatively) prehistoric MSiA counterpart, and color is just the beginning.

The Head

The head is kind of tiny compared to the rest of the body, especially if you discount the large fin and the antennae. The head is mounted on a ball-jointed piece which itself rests on a ball-joint in the torso. The neck piece sits up kind of high and looks a little awkward when you look closely, but you have to be looking for it to see the problem, mostly. The shape of the head prevents much tilting to the rear, but it can look almost straight down. You get 360 degress of swivel, too, but you may want to remove the head assembly and turn the top joint around a few times to loosen it up. There's a pair of cables connected to the neck piece that are supposed to fit down into the front of Sazabi's torso- they may need some realignment sometimes.

The Arms

The shoulder joints are of the current EMIA standard type. Unlike Nu Gundam with its black masking pieces, the designers opted to go with bare jointing here. Oddly enough, I like it less here than I would've on the Nu Gundam. I think that's probably due to their size- they're awfully small-looking next to that shoulder armor, even though they don't have any trouble supporting the arms. The shoulder armor is pretty massive, and prevents the arms from swinging straight up the way they often do on the 2006 EMIAs. Not that it's a great tragedy, since that's not a practical piece of articulation anyway. The small bank of thrusters attached to each shoulder armor now has some nice detailing- fuel lines presumably- instead of just being there with no visible propellant source as they were on the older Sazabi figure.

The nifty details continue just past the pre-elbow swivel with a pair of moving pistons on the upper arm. These move whenever you move the top elbow joint, and that's a feature I've always liked. I've never been a fan of Yutaka Izubuchi's penchant for curved forearms though, particularly since they've never rendered any of them with a post-elbow swivel as would be ideal. Unfortunately, Sazabi continues this trend. The shape of the red pieces is bound to interfere with the use of the hands somewhat, though so far the effect is thankfully minimal. In yet another incredibly nice touch, the reserve Beam Sabers that Sazabi stores in its wrists are actually removable! Unexpected, and really neat.

The Torso

As with Nu Gundam, the torso is carefully shaped so as not to prevent the waist from swiveling. Interestingly, while Nu Gundam's mid-torso joint was better with front-to-back movement, Sazabi's Beam Gun belt buckle prevents most of that here. However, it's got the best side-to-side movement I've ever seen. There's a small gray block holding the upper and lower torsos together, and when turning the waist you should probably be careful that it doesn't get misaligned.

While the front skirt plates are the standard and prone to warping as always, the side plates and even the massive rear armor are hinged, a feature I always like to see. The rear skirt is made of the lighter, harder plastic we're seeing more and more of on MSiAs, so it doesn't weigh the figure down much at all. It's a great skirt, and the hinged plates don't seem to be in any danger of falling off at all.

The backpack is pretty much unchanged, except for being made of lighter materials. The Funnel racks are on a swiveling hinge and can be posed to a certain degree. The racks themselves open for deployment of the Funnels, though there's nothing really stopping you from pulling them out while the rack is closed. The propellent tanks are also ball-jointed, and have as much range as they ever need.

The Legs and Feet

The hip joints aren't quite as wide in range as Nu Gundam's, but they're extremely stiff, ensuring solid posing. Matter of fact, all the leg joints are pretty stiff, enough so that it takes some getting used to. The thigh swivels are stiffer than the knee ball-joint, in fact, so you're likely to twist Sazabi's knee getting it's leg posed. The flared lower leg lessens the range of the triple-jointed knees to quite a degree- you're not going to be able to double it over, and you're in fact likely to pop the lower leg off if you try. Once again, however, the joint tolerances are such that the pieces tend to stay connected even if the two halves of the hinge become disconnected. As always, there's some nice detailing inside the leg housing, with four ball-jointed thrusters on each side.

The foot is triple-jointed, and leans back very well. While a ball-joint helps, the front plate of the leg armor does prevent front-leaning to a degree. But the side-to-side lean is spectacular, allowing for a much wider stance than the hips could ever support. Like the Nu Gundam, the Sazabi has foot claws, but like most everything else on Sazabi, they're bulkier and more ostentatious.

Paint and Decoration

Like Nu Gundam, Sazabi has a clean paint job, with nice shades of red and darker red. Detailing and panel-inking are very nicely done, with all the yellow verniers and cables well-painted, and all of the thruster cones and related fuel lines a crisp silver. It looks great.

Articulation gets 9/10

Sculpt and Deco get 9/10
 

Accessories

-Beam Shot Rifle

As the name and appearance suggest, the Sazabi's Rifle can also function similarly to a shotgun, firing a dispersal Beam shot presumably similar to that used by the Psyco Gundam. Because of the shape of the stock and the angled forearms, the Rifle is sort of angled in Sazabi's grip, but still holds firmly despite looking kind of awkward. It's a shame too, because otherwise- that is, when the hand isn't attached to the arm- it's a perfect fit.

There's an inexplicable color change here: the Rifle is supposed to be dark gray or black, with a red cable visible at various points along the top. Instead, it's uniformly medium gray. While this does keep it from blending in with the Sazabi somewhat, it's not accurate to the film, and it's pretty drab looking besides. So, why?

-Beam Tomahawk/Sabers

In exactly the same configuration as the original Sazabi figure, we get one fixed-blade Tomahawk version, and the full Saber with removable blade. I don't know why that's still necessary- surely they could make a single weapon now that does it all? However, both versions work well and fit Sazabi's Saber hand nicely. All pieces involved are hard plastic, so be very careful of those thin shafts. The Saber version can also store in the Shield, and fits snugly with no danger of detachment.

-Beam Sabers

Like the Qubeley before it, Sazabi has a pair of Beam Sabers mounted in the wrists as a last-ditch defense. Much simpler than the Tomahawk Saber, these are pretty much standard Sabers you'd find with any MSiA, except square. Wisely, the hilts were made of softer plastic so you run no risk of breaking them when you pry them back out of the forearms. Sazabi holds them just fine, and I'm really happy they decided to include this feature on the EMIA.

-Funnels

The six Funnels stored on the backpack are simple red cylinders with a decent level of detailing. The six active Funnels in the package have better detail, better paint, and longer, better looking Beam guns than their old MSiA counterparts. Unfortunately, Funnels are kind of a waste of an accessory since our souls and toys are still held down by gravity. But they're part of the design and I'm glad they're included, plus they'll surely come in handy for diorama builders. I'd have liked to see transforming Funnels, but even though Bandai Namco is capable of wonders at this point I'm afraid that doing something that tiny with any degree of success is still beyond them.

-Shield

Now made of a much lighter plastic, Sazabi's shield plugs into a hardpoint on the forearm. It's a simple plug on a sliding track- always a nice touch- and is wedge-shaped with nothing to keep it attached but the depth of the connection. Unfortunately, if you tilt the shield back leverage can work against it and pop the shield off. It doesn't happen often enough to be a serious annoyance, just enough to remind you that it might've been done the slightest bit better. Aside from that small quirk though, it works well. The underside is nicely detailed, and like Nu Gundam's shield features a cluster of non-removable missiles at the tip.

-Extra Head

The latest in EMIA scene-recreation accessories, the extra head has an open cockpit hatch so that you can see the monoeye track and the escape pod. Worth noting: the little gray lump you see behind the monoeye (which should have been painted red) is the same pod as seen in Nu Gundam's extra hand, where it is softball-sized, relatively speaking. Also, compare that pod to the size of the Atmospheric Re-entry set's Tiny Amuro, or even the tiny Amuro visible in the Gundam Second Version. Practically speaking, the Sazabi is to a much smaller scale than most other MSiA if you just go by cockpit size. But Gundam height statistics are sort of arbitrary, and the animation will do whatever the scene requires.

Outside of the questions of scale it raises, it's a good bonus, and functions the same as the primary head. Detail is necessarily not as sharp as when the Sazabi's head occupies the entire TV or movie screen, but is pretty nice anyway. The raised parts are soft plastic, so they're not going to snap off, but it's probably for the best if you're a mite careful with it.

-Extra Hands

Eight in all- Rifle, Saber, Fist, and Open. The open hands are nice, though there's not much for Sazabi to do with them except maybe brace its Shot Rifle. Otherwise, there's not much to say- they all function well, and fit firmly to the wrist, though the shape of the forearm and the Beam Saber just below them may restrict swivel just slightly.

Accessories get 8/10

Closing Remarks

Sazabi's accessories, with the exception of the extra head, haven't changed much outside of an upgrade to the materials. Which is fine, because they really didn't need to. The figure, on the other hand, shows all the same advances that made the Nu Gundam such a great EMIA. On top of which, the paint job is really great, with the exception of a tiny red spot on an optional part and a strange choice for the Beam Shot Rifle.

With Zeta as the sole exception, the older the original MSiA is the better you can expect the eventual EMIA to be. Sazabi, like Nu Gundam, is Excellent, and now I'm really looking forward to the update of the even older MSiA Gelgoog...

-RAC, 01/27/2007