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MSIA Gundam Exia
General and Technical Data:
Series: Gundam 00
Title: MSIA Gundam Exia
Release Date: November 2007
Suggested Price: ¥2000
No. of Parts: 23
Plastic Colors: White, Yellow, Light-Purple, Black, Green, Red, Dark Gray, Light Gray, Clear Pink, Blue.
Gimmicks: None.
Introduction:
Ah, the Exia. The RX-78-2 of Gundam 00. Let's hope it meets a better fate than the Impulse Gundam. The figure itself is very decent. I cannot stress that enough—it's decency. What I mean, precisely, is that the figure has no great flaws to it, but neither does it excel in any one attribute. It's good enough to act as a benchmark for the line that the MSIA should never dip under, but that's about it. When you first get a good look at the Exia, the first thing you'll notice is how big it is—or, rather, how big it isn't. It's small! The figure itself is roughly the same size as the latter Gundam Seed: Destiny action figures, but because of it's design (everything is much slimmer than the old Seed mecha designs) it seems smaller. There are a few problems in terms of posability, molding and inaccurate molding, but for the most part this MSIA is a solid rendition of its animated counterpart, and well-worth a buy if you're a fan of the show.
Head:
The head is small, and well painted. Not all the details are inked in, so if you want to use this figure for display, you'll want to do some panel lining. Since the lines are present, however, we might expect to see a second release from Bandai with the lines inked in. I can only remember this happening with the Wing Zero figure, but it is a possibility. The head can move up and down about ten degrees, and to each side roughly twenty degrees. Horizontal movement is hard because the Exia's chin will hit the base of the gold v-fins on the chest. Despite that, however, the head can move around enough to establish most poses. Now, if you've paid attention to the animation or own either the HG or MG Exia, you know that it has a very distinctive shape. Unfortunately, the head on the MSIA figure of the Exia does not retain it's proper shape. To put it bluntly, it's too fat. It's about 35% wider than it ought to be, and loses a lot of it's design in the process. Instead of the sleek, predatory head the Exia is supposed to have, instead we get a ball. I'm thinking that the inaccurate molding may be a case of Bandai reusing molds from their previous Destiny line of figures.
Torso:
The torso is a solid hunk of plastic. The GN drive in the front is solid black, but it doesn't look too bad. The shoulder and breast parts are fairly simple, establishing the joints needed for double-jointed shoulder and allowing the shoulders to swing forward and backward with ease. The torso can move a full 360 degree circle on the pelvic mount, but cannot move from side to side—even though the molding of the lower stomach seems to indicate the possibility. An extra joint there would have done wonders for posability. Everything is well-painted and looks rather nice. The large yellow v-fins stemming from the top of the torso were a nice surprise: I'd expected them to be frail and delicate because of their small size, but they're actually molded out of a very tough, very thick plastic. The v-fins do not fold down, but given how unexpectedly strong they are, I say it's a fair omission.
Arms:
The arms are small. Very, very small. The shoulder armor, too, is pretty small and pretty dull—just slabs of blue plastic, actually. Because the arms and shoulders are not connected, the "fiber" running from near the elbow up to the shoulder armor simply re-attaches to the top of the shoulder instead. This makes the shoulder armor look empty and dull from the side. The ends of the shoulder do have small notched for the GN beam sabers to slide into, and the pegs are big enough that once in place you will not have to worry about the sabers ever falling out. The Sabers on the shoulders by the way are set at the exact same angle as the sabers on the buttocks. The shoulder and elbows are both double jointed, which is very nice, but because the arms themselves are so thin and light the Exia cannot hold it's heavy GN Sword too high up without falling down. The Exia comes with three different sets of hands—clenched fists, open fists and trigger-pulling fists—and plenty of accessories to fill them with. The hard points on the arm (for the shields) are actually located on the top of the forearm rather than the bottom, which allows the Exia to support its accessories far better than other figures.
Legs:
What can I say about the legs? They are set into the pelvic armor by a very widely-placed axel and fit onto large ball joints, and with both the knees and ankles double-jointed they can move around quite a bit. In a null-gravity environment, I'm sure that the Exia would be an insanely posable figure—but here on Earth it's top heavy, so you'll have to be careful standing it up so that it does not fall over. Now, the legs look pretty good in terms of molding and painting. There are even a few inked panel lines in the calf and upper knee (though not as many as there could be). The feet can be bent at nearly any angle, making the figure seem even more human-esque. The tail-end of the pelvic armor can flip up or down (the whole thing, not just the beam saber hilts) and has two more pegs for the GN beam sabers to fit in. The saber mounts on the legs are just as snug as the ones on the arms, and are set at the exact same angle. The circular plates on the outsides of the upper thigh can snap off for the GN blade mounts to be attached, though doing so can be quite difficult at times, and the Blades themselves do not fit onto their mounts perfectly.
Weapons and Accessories:
The Exia has seven swords. And one shield. The shield, surprisingly, is superior to the version found in the high-grade model kit. It's just a solid triangular slab of plastic, but it's extremely well painted and detailed and clamps onto the Exia's arm with a nice, snug feeling. Very nice. The Shield is mounted on a ball joint, so it can spin in circles and tilt from side to side. Very nice.
Four of the seven swords are GN beam sabers, which I've discussed already. Each hilt is identical, and the figure comes with four different removable blades molded in clear-pink plastic. Two of the blades are long (sabers) while the other two are short (knives). Each blade fits into the hilt snugly, as it should be.
Next are the GN blades. The long blade and the short blade. The blades themselves are well-detailed and colored, and are made of a very rigid plastic—I'd almost say it's the exact same plastic and molding as in the high-grade model. And indeed, even though the MSIA Exia is quite a bit smaller than the HG model, the GN blades are identical in size! I'm of half a mind to use the MSIA's blades on my HG model, they look so much better. The only real problem with the GN blades is that they fit onto the Exia's thighs by way of single pegs attached to cylindrical extension pieces. It's easy enough to pop the cylindrical extensions onto the Exia figure, but it's quite another matter to pop the blades onto the extension. In my own case, I could only get one of the cylindrical connectors to attach to a GN blade—the other one seemed to have a molding problem, as the peg was nearly two times too large to fit into its hole.
Last and most-certainly-not least is the massive, extraordinary GN Sword. I have a feeling no one at all would care for the Exia, if not for this monster of a weapon. The GN sword fits into the Exia's hand like a pistol (which it kind of is) and is supported by a small shield that attaches to the top of the Exia's forearm. (Note that the GN sword can ONLY be placed on the Exia's right arm, although the Shield can be placed on either arm). The Giant blade and guard can swivel up to meet the pistol, and even further up into a giant sword. Very cool. The plastic molding of the blade in particular is very strong and sturdy, and has some cool silver paint along the edge of the blade, making it look all the more menacing.
Conclusion:
The Exia is a nice MSIA, but it's nothing groundbreaking. It's a solid, durable design that is mostly well-painted and molded, but there are just enough problems with it to avoid buying it. Although the legs and arms are very posable, the heavy shield, sword and torso weigh the figure down, making the more elaborate poses impossible. Well, rather let me say that you can pull off pretty elaborate poses thanks to the figure's posability, but balancing the thing and getting it to stand on its own is a whole different story, entirely. Because of some of the ill-proportioned areas (the head and shoulders, and rear hip-armor) I cannot recommend this figure to a fan of the Exia's design—to them I say "buy the high-grade model, instead." For a fan of the MSIA figures, in general, too, I cannot recommend this design. It's a bit better than some of the uglier Seed figures, but not much better. I can only really recommend this figure to people who are absolutely in love with the Gundam 00 anime—otherwise, just grab a model kit instead. You'll be paying just about the same amount, and though there may be some assembly required, you'll end up with a better final product in the end.
Rating: 3.5/5
