Souske Sagara is an elite member of Mithril, a secret military organization in the world of Full Metal Panic!. Souske was assigned to protect Chidori Kaname, a teenage girl with an ability even she doesn’t know of. During the course of Full Metal Panic first season, Souske was handed AS (Arm Slave, a mecha in FMP series) with advance technology called ‘Black Technology’. Souske’s new Arm Slave, ARX-7 Arbalest, is far more advanced than the average AS with Lambda Driver (more on that later). With Arbalest. Souske Sagara has fought against other advanced AS units. Robot Damashii line was nice enough to include Arbalest in their line, which was a huge news for FMP fans.
SH Figuart’s cousin, indeed. The packaging has similar feeling to SHF lines, with its no-tie packaging and the overall layout of the box. However, unlike SHF boxes, the Robot Damashii box looks more vibrant with its red-stripe label and slightly more colors being involved.
Arbalest comes with lot of accessories. Arbalest comes with two heads, one with knife on its mouth and one without. Below the knife-mouthed face are 4 parts to turn Arbalest into Lambda Drive Mode. One complaint I have about accessories is that there are no trigger hands and knife-grabbing hands for left hand. So, no deal if you want to have Arbalest hold weapons on left hand.
UPDATE: Arbalest’s shotgun has three point of articulations. The shoulder stocks are on two hinge joint, and the shotgun pump slides front and back. Also the combat knife can slide into the sheath that comes with Arbalest. All these are such a nice detail that makes Arbalest more interesting.
Design-wise, Arbalest is spot-on. The ankle guards and the white piece between dark gray and navy blue on torso area are separate pieces, which really makes Arbalest look mechanical. Proportional body design, reinforced by hard plastic, also helps out the Arbalest‘s appearance.
Color-wise….
Notice the neon-yellow accents around vents and holes. I have no idea why Bandai would opt for this color. If they used cadmium yellow, it may have been easier on the eyes. Instead, the bright yellow distracts the color chemistry on Arbalest. As if the color isn’t bad enough, the paint job on the vents leave something to be desired. Half, if not more, of vent coloring has inconsistency such as bleeding. Hell, I don’t think the blue piece on top of thighs and side hip panels aren’t supposed to have yellow on them (REFER TO HERE). Does the color and paint job kill the aesthetical value of Arbalest? Not quite. But it’s something that I feel has to be mentioned since it’s a bit of eyesore.
Other than neon-yellow, Arbalest has navy blue, gray, dark gray and white. Solid presentation of Arbalest.
Arbalest has good amount of articulations. The elbows are double jointed, as well as the knees. Torso has three joints, including the white piece between dark gray and navy blue. Shoulder can rotate and spread open-wide, but because of shoulder pads the arm spread is heavily limited. Same goes for toe-joint, where there barely is any articulation. The hip joint articulation is slightly limited, as the blue pieces on top of thighs doesn’t allow 90 degrees leg lift straight-up. You may have to pivot the leg sideways a bit for that to happens. Head’s on double-neck joints, and ankles are on ball-peg joints. Overall, every articulations SH Figuarts have, Arbalest has them too. They just don’t exactly work well.
To swap the faces, pluck off the face pegged in the middle of head and replace. Sometimes the face without knife doesn’t want to come out, so might want to really dig your nail into it.
So what is Lambda Driver you ask?
Lambda Driver is one of the Black Technology device where an AS pilot’s emotional thought pattern can transform into a raw energy that can be used offensively and defensively (think AT Field from Evangelion).
To put Lambda Driver accessories onto Arbalest, replace the shoulder pads and two back pieces with yellow holes on them with proper Lambda Driver pieces (above shown are default pieces taken out in order to place in Lambda Driver pieces).
The Lambda Driver accessories look decent enough. The flaps between shoulder pads could’ve been tiny bit longer and colored gray. Other than that it’s decent enough.
Side-to-side with Revoltech Levatein. Surprisingly, Arbalest is almost in-scale with Levatein. Levatein is still short by about ¼ inch at most, but still looks great standing next to Arbalest.
Knife Fight!!
And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, that our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be.
In nomine Patri
Et Fili
Spiritus Sancti
VERDICT: 3.5 Chidori’s paper fans out of 5
What could’ve been a excellent toy is marred by bad choice of paint and slightly limited articulations. Still, the play-ability with large amount of accessories (which are missing few things) should interest enough people. It’s a good toy, just fell a bit short of my expectation seeing as how I’m quite a fan of Full Metal Panic series. Recommended to Full Metal Panic fans mostly, although I won’t stop you if you want to wait till Revoltech version of Arbalest comes out.
Tags: Arbalest, Full Metal Panic, Robot Damashii
December 16, 2009 at 6:39 pm |
Oh really? Cool Also BTW HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPY BIRTHDAY DaO!!!!!!On your 26th Birthday!