MSiA PMX-003 The-O

Height: 15.5cm to top of head, 18.5cm to top of thruster boom.

Articulation: 40 total points of articulation: Ball jointed neck; 7 points in arms- hinged shoulder armor, ball-jointed shoulders, pre-elbow swivels x2, double-jointed elbow, ball-jointed wrists; double-jointed waist; 2 ball-jointed front skirt panels containing arms featuring 2 hinge and 2 swivel joints each; hinged thruster arm on back; 6 points in each leg - ball jointed hip, double-jointed knee, triple-jointed ankle.

Accessories: Beam Rifle, Beam Sabers x4, Extra Hands x4.

Colors: Molded pale yellow, reddish-black, red, and clear yellow. Painted pale yellow, black, dark blue, red, green, gunmetal, pink(monoeye) and rust brown ink(panel lines).

Release Data: Released March 27th, 2003 in Japan at a price of ¥2800. This item is no longer in production as of this review (August 21st, 2005).

Gallery: 11 images.

Author: RAC.

The Figure

2800 Yen. Not a typographical error, I assure you. And please note: the most common price for an MSiA is ¥1500.

That's about the best way I can think of to illustrate The-O's sheer mass. Not only tall but broad, The-O is the the final Mobile Suit in a series of four machines handmade by the brilliant, flawed, and not at all likable Newtype Paptimus Scirocco. Huge, heavily armored, covered in thrusters, and possessed of an impressively sneaky special feature, The-O is an imposing MS, and this carries over into plastic very well.

The Head

The head is tall, conical, and sports a pink Zeon-style monoeye camera. Because of the shape, it has good tilt and swivel, with the shape of the torso offering no obstructions whatsoever.

The Arms

The arms are almost overarticulated. The shoulder armor is similar to that of the Rick Dias, mounted on a hinge that gives it plenty of range. The shoulders themselves lack the hinges of the newer MSiA, but that doesn't hinder the figure much, since the arms are set fairly far out from the torso and The-O has no two-handed weapons. The excessive articulation stems mainly from the upper arm, the yellow part of which is braced by a pair of swivels, one above and one below. Because of this, the arms sometimes need, well, realigned is probably the best way to put it.

The elbows are great, because The-O is among the first figures to augment its hinge joint with a ball-joint, which helps the already decent hinges immensely. There are a pair of red cables running from under the ball-jointed armor plate on the upper arm to the inside of the elbow, and they will occasionally pop out of place on the bottom. Aside from being oddly small compared to the MS they're attached to, the hands and wrists work fine and hold together well.

The Torso

After the slender head and reasonable arms, this is where The-O's mass begins to come into play. The upper torso is broad and deep, with an understandably large backpack- the main thrusters are wider than the entire torsos of other MSiA. At the top is a hinged thruster boom with a 90-degree arc, though it seems small enough that I have my doubts as to how much manuverability it could actually add. The waist has two joints, one for tilt and one for swivel. The tilt is good, though the figure's own weight works against its ability to hold a pose, and the swivel is limited by the shape of the waist to a 90-degree arc in the front.

The lower torso has a long rear skirt covered in thrusters, and the side panels have storage for The-O's four Beam Sabers. The front panels house the design's most distinctive feature, as well as the reason for the extra Sabers: the long, ball-jointed skirt plates hide a pair of extra arms, each of which features a claw which grips the Beam Sabers securely. The hidden arms don't have the range of The-O's primary arms, lacking a swivel at the base, but the "wrist" and "elbow" swivels allow for a fair number of angles for Beam Saber posing. Unfortunately, they also allow for a bit of drooping due to the Sabers' weight.

When not in use, these arms tuck under the skirt plates and are not noticeable much, if at all. It's a neat gimmick and it's executed fairly well.

The Legs and Feet

The-O's thighs are short- a good deal shorter than those of a more standard-sized MSiA. The hips do fairly well and the knees get a solid 90 degrees of flex, but the shortness of the upper leg negates a lot of possibilities for posing.

Even so, the lower legs make up for it. Another example of the Movable Frame concept- which, oddly enough, always seems to manifest itself most in an MS' lower legs- The-O's lower leg armor is completely removeable, revealing a wealth of detail in the form of framework, pistons (sheerly decorative- not articulated like the EMiA Mk.II's), and cables. The construction makes for an interesting ankle as well- the main support connects to the ankle in front, a small articulated strut connects in back, all of which connects to a ball-jointed platform which then connects to the foot. In the end, a lot of The-O's leg articulation comes from the unique construction here- the foot can turn fairly well (in fact, the entire lower leg can actually turn, to some degree) and very wide stances are possible. It's very impressive.

Paint and Decoration

It looks really good too. The-O's brown panel inking is executed cleanly, and is extremely compatible with the base yellow color. There are dozens of small blue and green paint applications for the dozens of thrusters, and all of these are pretty clean with only the occasional bit of overlap. The only place I wish it had more detailing is around the cables molded in the forearm- with so many molded cables on the MS, it's easier to pick out the sculpted and painted-on variety there. Still, that's a small gripe at best.

Articulation gets 8/10

Sculpt and Deco get 8/10

Accessories

-Beam Rifle

It's large, imposing, and angular- it fits in quite well with The-O, even if the MS design is a bit more rounded for the most part. It fits in the appropriate hands a bit looser than I'd prefer, but once there it should stay in the hand, and the hand should stay on the wrist.

-Beam Sabers

Square and tapered, a most unique grip that fits both pairs of gripping hands well. The hilts also fit in the side skirt plates- I didn't even know about that until I examined the photographs on the back of the box closely. Like the Rick Dias, we have another example here of older soft-plastic blades that work well due to their bulk. There is one vulnerable point here- the long tab that holds the blade to the hilt, and does so quite securely at that. But I recommend installing and removing these very slowly and carefully- if they bend, you could have a big problem.

-Extra Hands

The standard set of 6 in all, they all hold to the arms and hold their various weapons quite nicely. I wish the grip on the Beam Rifle was tighter, but that's my only complaint here.

Accessories get 8/10

Closing Remarks:

The-O is unique. I keep using that word, but what else is there? It's a design that's hard to mistake for anything else, and it's represented well here. The biggest flaw it can be said to have is that the secondary arms need to be a bit stronger in the wrist.

I got lucky on my figure- I forget the exact price, but it was under $30. A price that low is unusual in my observation- after shipping, expect to be somewhere above $30 and quite possibly heading towards $40. As to whether or not it's worth that kind of money? In my opinion, if you like The-O's design, the figure is worth owning. It's Very Good.

-RAC, The Zeta Project