MSiA RMS-108 Marasai

Height: 10cm to top of head, 12cm to top of antenna, approx. 14cm to top of shoulder armor.

Articulation: 30 total points of articulation: ball-jointed neck; 7 points in left arm- double jointed shoulder, ball-jointed shoulder armor, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, ball-jointed wrist; 9 points in right arm- double jointed shoulder, triple-jointed shoulder shield, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, ball-jointed wrist; ball-jointed waist; 6 points in each leg- ball jointed hip, triple-jointed knee, double-jointed ankle.

Accessories: Beam Sabers x2, Beam Rifle, Ballute System, Extra Hands x4

Colors: Molded orange, red, medium gray, medium blue-gray, light blue, and clear yellow. Painted orange, red, green, medium gray, and black.

Release Data: Released March 2005 in Japan at a price of ¥1500. This item is still in production as of this review (April 4th, 2005).

Author: RAC

The Figure

There's a series of Zeta Gundam movies coming out in Japan, which you've probably heard about by now. And, as we all know, merchandising is where the real money from the movie is made. So naturally, it's time for Zeta MSiA, and lots of them. This began earlier in the year with the EMiA Gundam Mark II, and is scheduled to continue at least through June with the Asshimar, Galbaldy Beta, Hizack, and EMiA Zeta Gundam. For March, we got the Marasai, a Zaku-influenced Mobile Suit used by the Titans, and only the second mass-produced MS from Zeta to be made into a figure. Possibly the first, considering the limited number of Rick Diases seen in the series.

One odd and disappointing thing about the figure is the quality of the plastic- the orange parts in particular have that waxy, soft-edged appearance that I associate with cheap red and orange plastics. It's a pity, too, because otherwise the figure is top-notch.

The Head

The elongated head actually has a better range of movement than you'd expect. Not the best I've seen, but it has a fair range in all directions. It can swivel 360 degrees, provided you swing the left arm forward to get the shoulder armor out of the way. The very long, very thin antenna is nice and straight.

The Arms

The shoulder joints are about average- there's some front-to-back swivel, cut down substantially by the shoulder armor. The arms raise to the sides a bit less than 90 degrees. The elbows are double-jointed and perform perfectly, allowing the forearm to lay flat against the upper arm, and the joint piece itself is nicely detailed with some conduction cables sculpted into the back. The ball-jointed wrists hold their hands securely and will hold the position you want, especially considering how light the Marasai's weapons are.

The Zaku-inspired shoulder armor features a spiked plate mounted on the left shoulder, and a large shield on the right. Both attach via ball joint. The spiked pauldron interferes with the arm articulation minimally- the ball-joint has enough range to get it out of the way most times. I did have it pop off once, when I was trying to swing the shoulder back while the arm was swung forward. The shield is very nice, with two additional hinges that allow each half to swivel about 45 degrees. The bottom half has a pair of brackets to hold the Marasai's Beam Sabers, and they do their job quite well.

The Torso

The torso is pretty nice overall, though as I mentioned, a bit slimmer than I thought the Marasai would be. Still broader at the shoulder than most anything else I've seen lately, though. There are a couple notches in the red part of the torso for attaching the Ballute pack. The backpack appears to be fixed to the back, which is fine, since there's no reason for it to come off. The two main thrusters are ball-jointed, and have an excellent range.

The waist articulation is superb, every bit the match of the spectacular Destiny ZAKU series. We can only hope that this kind of range has become the norm. The skirt armor is pretty flexible, but I have some reservations about it- the connection points for the front and back plates are attached by a much thinner piece of plastic than usual- they'll be fine as long as you're careful, but be aware that it's probably more fragile than most other MSiAs' skirts. The conduction cables at the waist don't interfere with the articulation much, if at all, but for some reason the rear anchoring point comes loose sometimes. It's easy to reattach, at least.

The Legs and Feet

The hip joints are pretty deep-set, relatively speaking, but shaped well, so they allow for a pretty wide stance. The knees have the Gundam SEED Destiny triple-joint- a double-hinge with a ball-and-socket in the lower leg- and get pretty much the maximum possible range. Combined with the flexible skirt armor, a fine-looking kneel is possible. The backs of the knees have molded-in conduction cables, just like the elbows, and there are more hardpoints on the sides of the calves to mount the Ballute system.

The ankles are double ball-jointed, but due to the shape, don't get the kind of range I'd like. There's minimal front-to-back movement, but side-to-side is pretty good, all told- a tiny bit less than the full range of the hips could accomodate, but enough to get some good poses. The front ankle armor moves, but there's barely enough forward ankle movement to make good use of the feature. I'm glad it's there, though, since the ankles would be just that much worse without them.

Paint and Decoration

This is the main area where the Marasai could use some work. The soft-edged appearance of the orange plastic and the closeness of the shade of red conspire to make the Marasai look washed out and cheap. This is one of those instances where panel inking is sorely missed. Not helping this effect is the fact that all the verniers and thrusters on the body are the same base color as the part they're attached to- the thrusters on the backpack are all red, the verniers on the legs are all orange. The color applications match the original animation just fine, but it still looks severely underpainted.

Or rather, painted in all the wrong places. The orange lines on the red part of the forearms are painted, and as always matte plastic and gloss paint don't quite match. Even worse, the hands are inexplicably painted- the hands are molded in the same color as the joints, but then painted with orange backs, which is understandable- and a subtly lighter color of gray for the fingers, which isn't. For one, painted hands are stupid- it puts paint, which can flake and crack, on the part of the body which is most likely to experience bending and friction. For the next thing, if some of that paint had been applied to the Marasai's backpack, or leg verniers, I probably wouldn't feel compelled to split up the ratings for sculpt and decoration.

And lastly, my Marasai has a little sloppiness in the black paint around the monoeye, and two inexplicable white spots on the the front center of the torso. It has to be a paint error, so I'm not gonna deduct further for either of these.

Articulation gets 9/10

Sculpt gets 8/10

Materials, Paint and Deco get 6/10

Accessories

-Beam Sabers

The Beam Sabers are very long- easily two-handed weapons with room to spare. They are a bit soft, though, so be careful of your posing so as not to warp them. The blades are the hard plastic used on recent figures, and are a pretty bright shade of yellow. They fit into the grips firmly, and the grips in turn fit the hands and storage brackets well.

-Beam Rifle

A fairly compact Beam Rifle with an angled magazine. It has a fixed secondary handgrip, and both grips fit rather tightly into the Marasai's hands. The only problem with it is the magazine- it's not as secure as I'd like, and the nature of the design makes it pop off far too easily due to leverage. Still, it's an attractive piece, and will also likely be included with the Hizack in June.

-Ballute System

This is another common accessory which will be reused on the upcoming Galbaldy Beta. The Ballute system is designed to help Mobile Suits survive entry into the Earth's atmosphere, by means of a large "Ballute" (BALLoon/parachUTE- Thanks to GundamOfficial for finally making that word make sense!) and added thrusters to help slow descent.

The accessory consists of a large backpack, with matching thruster packs for the chest and legs. The front and back torso pieces are connected by a pair of cables, which fit well and actually do seem to help the pieces stay in place somewhat. The leg pieces are fairly secure, though they don't fit as close to the leg as I'd probably like for purposes of stability. It looks nice, though naturally the massive backpack does interfere with the Marasai's balance somewhat. Not enough to keep it from standing up at all, but don't expect to pull off much in the way of dynamic poses with this thing attached.

The Ballute system was used once early on in Zeta Gundam- though at a fairly critical juncture, I'll admit- and never seen again. There are two ways to look at this: one is that this is being included so that the Marasai has every piece of equipment it ever used, and a respectable accessories loadout. One is that it's been added to pad out what would otherwise be a ¥1200 figure, a price point that seems to now be extinct. I like the Ballute System, and think it's a neat accessory, so I'm inclined to accept the former explanation- though I invite everyone to draw their own conclusions.

-Extra Hands

Standard. Six hands in the modern ball-joint wrist/socket hand style: fists, attached in-package, along with "Gun" hands and more general open hands for the Rifle's secondary grip and the Beam Sabers. All do their jobs pretty well, stay on their wrists nicely, and are nicely sculpted. I still wish they weren't painted, though, especially since there's no real reason for it.

Accessories get 8/10

Closing Remarks:

The Marasai is, technically speaking, spectacular. Nearly an equal to the recent ZAKU figures, fairly nicely sculpted, if a bit thinner than I expected, and outside of the ankles, just about flawless in terms of articulation. Which makes it all the worse that it's saddled with a washed-out looking paint and deco job and substandard, soft looking orange plastic. Panel lines would have helped immensely, I think, and I may see about adding some myself at a later date.

I paid about $18 for mine, and despite the issues with the appearance, I don't regret it. On the merits of its engineering, I would like to call it Excellent, but given its aesthetic flaws, I have to knock that down to Very Good. If the rest of the upcoming Zeta line is this well-made, and lack this problem, we have a lot to look forward to this year.

-RAC 4/4/2005