MSiA RX-110 Gabthley

Height: 11cm (Head); 13cm (Overall)

Articulation: 32 points total: 7 points per arm - Triple jointed shoulder, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, ball joint wrist; Double jointed shoulder Mega Particle Cannons; Ball jointed neck; Ball jointed waist; 6 points per leg - Ball joint hip, mid-thigh swivel, triple jointed knee, ball joint ankle. In addition, 22 individually moveable thrusters plus various points of articulation pertaining to Mobile Armor mode.

Colors: Molded chocolate brown, dark green, grey, dark grey, black, clear yellow; Painted dark green, green, brown, red, yellow, grey, pink, black.

Accessories: Feyadeen rifle; Beam sabres x2; Transformed legs x2; Mobile Armor stand; Extra hands x4

Release Data: Released in Japan on October 26th, 2005 at a price of ¥1700. This item is in production as of this review. (10/28/2005)

Gallery: 32 images.

Author: ExVee

The Figure

Zeta Gundam produced some truly unique designs, both in the area of normal single form mobile suits, and especially in transforming mobile suits/mobile armors. Around the mid point of the series after the first Earth story concluded, a new model of Titan transforming mobile weapon appeared to challenge the newly rolled out Zeta Gundam. Two units would appear, piloted by Jerid Messa and his newest sidekick/girlfriend, Mouar Pharaoh.

The Gabthley is one of my personal favorite transforming designs, and ever since the Asshimar came along earlier this year, the Gabthley has been at the top of my anticipation list. But I'm sure we all know the problem with that - the longer and more that you want something, the bigger the eventual letdown. But I'm delighted to say that this is very much not the case here.

The Head

Though a practically perfect recreation of the Gabthley's head, there is some trouble. While the neck joint itself is very wide open, the yellow "collar" structure is fixed to the bottom of the head, which restricts the range that the head can turn. However, to look up or down, this is great. There's an antenna-like structure coming out of either side of the head, which being soft plastic, you'll need to keep an eye on during certain posing.

Arms and Torso

The EMIA Gundam Mk II set a benchmark with the flexibility of its shoulder joints. The Gabthley breaks right past it. The engineering is basically the same, though not identical. Where the Mk II uses a ball joint, and the Gundams Astray use a peg, Gabthley's shoulders have a combination swivel and hinge joint at the base of the shoulders. This is mostly to benefit the Mobile Armor mode, but it also tremendously aids poseability in MS mode.

There's a Mega Particle cannon on each shoulder. The original design has these being amazingly flexible, able to aim at almost any point around the moble suit. While this is of course difficult to reproduce at this scale and with the available materials, the cannons still do well. They're on a combination hinge and swivel like the shoulders, and have a bend range of about 160 degrees, give or take, and can rotate a full 360. Combined with moving the shoulder armor, you can aim the cannons all over the place.

Otherwise, the arms are average. The extra bit of armor above the shoulders doesn't really bother poseability, and it's mounted in such a way as to not fall all over the place. It hinges, but not rotates, so it stays pretty stable. The elbow joints are more mechanically detailed than normal, to reflect the frame, and the wrists are sadly restricted ball joints. I miss the extra flex there used to be in the ball joint wrists.

The torso itself is normal, without much of anything in the way of moving parts. The insectoid "head" of the Mobile Armor pegs into the back, and the waist is a ball joint. But with the unusual construction of the skirt armor, it's a little bit hard to actually use the waist joint. The rear most piece of skirt armor is a hinged thruster piece, meant more for MA mode. It also sadly has a little fin that is quite bent on my figure.

The skirt armor is articulated. The panels are made to slide between closed in back, to closed in front, depending on which mode. The advantage here is that the legs are not restricted in poseability by the skirt. On the other hand, the pieces can get misaligned pretty easily, and there is the previously mentioned problem with the waist joint. But all considered, it works well for its intended purpose.

Legs and Feet

Past the regular hip joints, there's the less than common mid-thigh swivel, whose placement is a bit unusual. Now, this is where it gets interesting. The trademark feature of Gabthley's transformation is that the frame structure in the legs pops out of the armor to form a set of clawed "arms". This can also be done in MS mode for an improvised melee attack. Problem is, it's a bit mechancially involved. And as previous experience has taught me, even simple transformations can be the death of any kind of stability.

So, we instead get two sets of legs. One normal, one with the frames extended. Neither are transformable into the other state. To preserve strength of the knee joint, the lower legs are actually connected by a special extra ball joint above the knee hinge. It is a bit of a trick to switch legs, since the ball joints are themselves hinged, and I've already popped off the tiny, tiny knee armor piece on one leg twice. However, once you figure out where you need to apply pressure at each step, it'll get easier to do the switch. Now, I hate to say it, but even though the socket is soft plastic, you should probably take care not to switch them too often, or at least to allow the sockets time to contract around the ball joint again. Otherwise it's possible the ball joint will irreversably loosen over time.

The normal lower legs are goos and solid, with tight joints - tighter than the upper ball joint in order that it'll give first. The knee is, in a retro move, a single hinge. This is okay, though, since the skirt armor does not give enough clearance for the legs to double up, and the knee joint has range enough on its own to still fold farther than the skirt will generally allow. Still never thought I'd see another single knee joint again...

The ankles are more restricted than I'd really like, but they retain enough mobility to support normal posing. Just not the extreme stuff some others can do. At least it can stand up straight!

The transformed legs have pretty well detailed frame structures. One thing I'd been worried about was the strength of the joints in this set of legs, but at least for my figure, the joints are good and stiff, with no sagging at all. Each frame is jointed in two places past the knee, allowing the clawed "arm" to bend all the way down and backward. The claws are on ball joints, which give them a little room to open and close, and rotate, but they can't open enough to, say, wrap around some other mobile suit. The support arms connecting the frame to the knee joint, as well as the claws are hard plastic, so warping isn't a concern. Good news, especially in regards to those claws.

In the transformed state, the stand can't be used, so unless you have another kind of stand that will fit, it'll have to sit directly on your table or shelf if you decide to use the semi-transformed mode.

Mobile Armor Mode

The transformation is mostly simple. The worst part is really switching the legs, though the skirt armor is also a little difficult to get lined up at first. But it's actually a lot more intuitive than you would think.

While it's a little more fiddly than I'd like, I'm pleased, and actually a little surprised, to find that it comes together quite well. You'll probably spend a few minutes following transformation adjusting parts to get everything right where you want it, but it holds together with satisfying strength.

There's not especially much to be moved here, though the legs and claws can be moved a bit, plus the Mega Particle Cannons are still perfectly free to pose. And I really can't help but think of how well the Gabthley would fit in with the Insecticons.

Paint and Detailing

The paint work is some of the best I've seen on any normal MSiA. There is of course the little bad edge here and there, but the paint coverage is remarkably even and clean for the majority of the paint applications.

The sculpting is fantastic, even as far as the visible joints being given mechanical detailing. The details come through very nicely, and this is one of the few cases where I think it's better without the panel lines.

Sculpt and Articulation: 9/10

Engineering: 9/10

Paint and Detailing: 9/10

Accessories

-Feyadeen Rifle

This weapon is shared with the Hambrabi, due to be released next month. At just over 14cm long, this isn't a long rifle for nothing. The only moving parts are a claw-like stock on each side of the rifle, and a little folding handle looking deal under the barrel.

The entire rifle is made of hard plastic, thankfully. Dealing with enough long pieces of soft plastic in my time, nothing is better than finding an unwarpable weapon on the figure I've been most looking forward to this year. And in keeping with the animation, the back end of the rifle can accept one of the beam sabre blades for use as an emergency melee weapon.

In Mobile Armor mode, the rifle clips onto the bottom of the figure and acts as the adapter that allows the figure to be mounted on the stand.

-Beam Sabres

Typical. Now-standard hard blades that fit securely into the grips. The grips however have no place to be stored, so it's in good company with the Zeta, Shiki, Galbaldy, and arguably the two Hi-Zacks. And the specs call for four beam sabres, but only two are included. But without a storage option, I'm fine with that.

-Extra Hands

Standard two pair. The sabre hands are oddly closed where you can only slide the grips in, but not use these for anything else. So any two handed poses you want with the rifle will have to be done using the trigger hands. The palms of the hands are painted, which means a serious potential of paint wear over time, so keep an eye on that. Bandai, will you never learn?

-Stand

Same basic stand that has come with the Asshimar and Zeta so far, and is set to be included with the Hambrabi. And just like each prior release, it has a new connector piece on top specific to the Gabthley. It holds up the figure well, and has the most satisfying connection with the figure so far.

Closing Remarks

So, has anticipation killed my enjoyment of what I actually got? Not at all, I even plan to buy a second as soon as I can manage in order to have the Jerid and Mouar units.

The Gabthley really doesn't act like a transforming figure. Granted, that's because the most complex part is done with a swap, but if you never saw it transformed, you'd never be able to tell it was made to do it. What's more is that there's a solid MA mode even though there's a bare minimum of pieces snapping into place. It seems like Bandai's finally getting the hang of doing good transforming toys.

I'm giving the Gabthley an overall score of State of The Art. You wish you were this good.

-ExVeeBrawn, 10/28/2005