Robot Damashii Seravee Gundam

Height: 12cm (Seravee); 11cm (Seraphim)

Articulation: (Seravee) 35 points total - Double ball joint neck; 7 points each arm: Triple jointed shoulder, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow, forearm swivel, ball joint wrist; Ball joint waist; 5 points each leg: Ball joint hips, hinge knee, post-knee swivel, double joint ankle; 4 points each Extra Arm: Ball joint wrist, double joint elbow, hinge "shoulder". (Seraphim) 22 points total - Ball joint neck; 5 points each arm: Double jointed shoulders, upper arm swivel, ball joint wrist; Ball joint waist; 5 points each leg: Ball joint hip, double jointed knee, post-knee swivel, hinge ankle.

Colors: (Seravee) Molded white, black, grey, clear green; Painted slate grey, red, yellow, teal, gold. (Seraphim) Molded black, grey, white; Painted white, red, yellow, teal.

Accessories: GN Bazooka, Beam sabres x2 with removable blades, Extra hands x6, GN Condensers x4, Giant Gundam Face.

Release Data: Originally release in Japan in January of 2009 at a price of ¥4750.

Author: ExVee

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Well, after getting 00 Seven Sword, an 0-Raiser, Cherudim, and the Arios Archer two-pack, what was I supposed to do, just forget Seravee exists? In my own defense, I got it at something approaching a sale price and with half-price EMS shipping, so it was kind of a deal. But still, it's clear that when it comes to grouped toys, I am a danger to myself and all the money around me. Sad thing is that if the Seravee 3G ever actually came out and by some miracle wasn't a Tamashii Web Shop exclusive, I'd probably try to get one of those two. But then, that's not based on any degree of completionist mentality; Just the fact that it is absolutely absurd.


Seravee

Bulkier/heavier Gundam designs have always faced particular problems when it comes to their realization as models and figures. Even in the best of cases, the mass and weight involved tends to be a detriment to poseability, regardless of how well articulated. And in cases where there is a good amount of joints, the weight of the figure may ultimately defeat the friction in the joints and have a perpetually floppy figure. Just go try to find MSiA Dark Gundam Final Mode without a ruined waist joint, for one example.

Seravee actually manages to escape most of these design traps. The joints are not especially different from other figures, though the most load-bearing ones in the legs are bigger than their counterparts in other Robot Damashiis. The movement is smooth and just firm enough to hold everything up. Despite the great mass of the legs, the articulation is not really hindered. The knee can find a tight bend and the lack of normal skirt armor leaves little restriction on the hip joint. The most limiting influence on the hip is the large side skirt panels, but those are jointed as well and allow the legs clearance enough to spread wider than the ankle jointing will support. The weakest link at least on my figure is the ankles, which may have loosened some over time, but not enough to make it hard to keep the thing standing. The cannons on the legs are remarkably unobstructive in storage position. The armature has tighter joints than the legs, so opening the cannons or extending them to use as arms will probably overpower the knee and maybe hip joints. As arms, they're a little limited in comparison to the main pair, but of the two sets of extra arms these are the better.

Seravee's regular arms are also jointed pretty tightly. But Seravee's main weapons are on the heavy side, so I don't expect this was an accident. Perhaps also related is that Seravee's shoulders take a very welcome step back toward later MSiA development, using a hinge for added shoulder articulation rather than multiple ball joints. The arms feel more solid on the body and there's certainly less visible empty space between torso and arm with this construction. On the other hand, we're still left with single hinged elbows, so it's not all perfect. It's basically an optical illusion, but because Seravee is wide-set and bulky, the arms look disproportionately short relative to the body.

Against all expectations, the head is probably the most hindered by the issues of body size on the entire figure. It sits very tight against the body, and the neck joint is very stiff. The bottom edges of the "helmet" drag along the outer collar, and so turning the head more than the tiniest degree is very difficult. In terms of design, I like how the head came out. It carries on the theme of Virtue before it with a basically normal size Gundam faceplate in what looks like a large, thick helmet. The appearance is distinct since there's not actually meant to be a smaller Mobile Suit buried underneath extra armor, but it's good in a sense of keeping proportions with the rest of the body.


Seraphim

In its role as Seravee's backpack, while it holds tight to the body thanks to a very thick, solid peg, it's not as stable or solid in backpack mode as I'd like. The main joints still in effect are on the stiff side to minimize unintended movement of the folded limbs, but it's far from perfect. Especially at fault is the means of hiding the actual Gundam head, largely a matter of keeping a loose-fitting mohawk-camera cap on top of the real Gundam head. Alignment on this is poor, it falls out of place very easily, and it hasn't ever felt like it fit together the way it was intended to despite my best efforts. For interaction with Seravee, the shoulder cannons manage to act like Seravee's leg cannons and not outright obstruct anything. As extra arms these are the most limited of the group, generally not good for anything other than holding an extra set of beam sabres in a defensive position. At their best they can barely reach past the front of the torso and are of little use for any other kind of posing.

The Seraphim Gundam itself is very small and skinny. Still generally more substantial than GN Archer minus the backpack, but it's certainly the intended contrast to Seravee. The required contortions to become a backpack means the legs have an extreme range of articulation, though some is hampered by close-fitting edges, the knees in particular. Space constraints omit a heel, again calling back to GN Archer in a way. Alas there is no Mobile Armor to act as a third leg. Seraphim may be helped by being small and light, but balance is an overall issue because of the abrupt end to the feet.

The part that really suffers is the arms. The space left to work with is pretty tight because of how they have to compress into the cannons and just the generally small sizes required by the design. The shoulders are very articulated and free moving, but that's the lone positive side effect here. The shoulder armor is comparatively huge and will easily interfere with the forearms if everything isn't lined up just right, and the forearm armor doesn't play well with the elbow joints. While these arms may move pretty well at the shoulders, they feel very restricted and static from that point down.

The head moves more freely than Seravee's, but in terms of sculpt and paint somehow reminds me of the lower end of MSiA, such as the Endless Waltz and 0083 figures. Details are soft, shapes distorted, and in general it seems out of proportion with itself.



Accessories

-GN Bazookas

The main weapon and biggest accessory, unless you count Seraphim as an accessory piece. The two bazookas are nearly identical and don't differentiate right to left.

These are pretty cool looking and have a fair number of moving parts. They can individually be held solidly by the hands on any arm, but are best suited to the main arms since the bazookas have a stabilizing peg that fits into Seravee's forearms. There are sockets at the back end of both bazookas, allowing them to plug into the wrist ball joint pieces for any of the four extra arms, to recreate the instances when Seravee chained the GN Bazookas into the in-board GN Cannons for completely ridiculous powered bursts. Using the leg cannons you have to rely on their ability to bear the weight since any handle is well outside the reach of the other arms. Connecting over the shoulders is an easier reach in case extra support is needed.

The bazookas also can combine into an even bigger bazooka. The biggest problem I have with this is that the actual "cannon" parts inside are pretty loose fitting and the whole thing has a way of falling apart under its own weight. There's no real reason the emitter blocks can't be glued in place, but parts fit that removes such a necessity would be more appreciated. Based on the extra weight, I'd suggest sticking with the regular forearms to hold this. You'll likely need the forearm tab to stabilize the dumb thing.


-Hands and replacements

Okay, so there's a set of open hands for every pair of arms, plus "at rest" hands to be used on Seraphim. In addition there are clear green GN Condenser pieces to fit over both sets of extra arms when they're not being Helping Hands. And to credit them, they actually look pretty good, and sit well in the wrist sockets. Incidentally, the hands for the extra arms have the Condenser details simulated on the backs of the hands with paint. Which makes me very curious just how these cannons work. Y'know, besides the ever-present explanation of Magic Particles.

All the hands work via ball joints, but oddly the ball joints are on posts, which slide out of the arms very easily. You're probably better off just planning to pull the whole post out and swap hands  that way instead of fighting to keep everything in the arm the whole time.


-Beam sabres

There's two of these, which match the ones used by 00, Arios, and GN Archer. Of course, one of the more memorable moments in the series was Seravee pulling out beam sabres from every arm and using six at once. So naturally the figure only comes with two of these obviously mass-produced beam sabres. But since they are just the same as the other Celestial Being affiliated sabres you can borrow from other figures to fill out the missing numbers. But still, how much more could two extra pair of beam sabres really add on to what is already a really expensive figure?


-Gundam Face

Seraphim's giant chest-face is implemented by parts-swapping, which I'm really not against in this case. Seraphim is delicate enough as is without throwing an extra load of moving parts into the mix. It's a simple replacement, switching from a closed face to fully open. Much like Seraphim's own face, I find something to be lacking in the chest face, but I can't exactly pin down what. Suffice to say it's not a gimmick I feel the need to use very often.


Closing Remarks

Seravee is one of the more expensive regular release figures in this series of Robot Damashii. Naturally most of the Tamashii Web exclusive things like Mobile Armors and special 00-Raiser sets easily top it, but for something available at normal retail it's pretty up there. The substantial mass of the figure and of course having a complete second figure at the same time does balance the costs. Remember, the model kits initially sold Seravee and Seraphim as separate kits, partly to preserve the surprise of Seravee's backpack, and partly to drive kit sales. That both suits are fully represented here is a big plus.

I'm well impressed that Seravee escapes many of the normal problems that befall large Mobile Suits once rendered into plastic. It still may not be as readily poseable as a slimmer design, but the potential definitely exists, and for engineering concerns I'd say this is a definite victory for Robot Damashii.

At the same time, I'm still irritated that they cheaped out to the tune of four beam sabres - maybe a dime's worth of plastic? For something on the order of $50 already, who's going to notice a little bit more if it means as complete an accessory load as possible? I suppose I'd have to put that mostly aside though. It's true you can source matching sabres from other Gundams if it's very important to you, so you're not entirely in the cold over it.

The sticker price is a hard one to swallow for sure. I was fortunate and turned up a heck of a deal, relatively speaking. If you're debating making a full set of CB Gundams, I'd recommend waiting to find one for under Japanese retail. If you're just looking to get a random representative, this wouldn't be at the top of my recommendations even leaving aside how much it costs. Seravee works out to be Very Good, but I don't think it's well suited for a casual collector.

-ExVee