Sentinel gives Martian Hunter Nadesico series a nice bit of love with the Black Sarena from the Prince of Darkness movie.
Producer: Sentinel
Price: Approx. $360
Release Date: Jul. 2018
Item Height: Approx. 5″ unarmored and 6.5″ armored (only measuring to top of head; the shoulders and exhaust pieces are approx. 1 more inch high.)
Item Weight: N/A
WHERE TO BUY: D4Toys
Sentinel gave a lesser-known series a nice homage that I don’t think anyone would have seen coming with their Metamor-Force line’s Black Sarena. In the series “Martian Hunter Nadesico” pilots use mechs the equivalent to Mobile Suits in “Gundam” called Aestivalis and this particular one is a custom build for the pilot Akito Tenkawa. On top of the Aestivalis, it does come with an armor add-on that turns it into the more beefed up, dark-schemed Black Sarena that is more notable to the name. Please read this article giving the breakdown as well as checking out my gallery below and let me know what you think.
Presentation: Black Sarena comes in a thick, cardboard box with a really nice, dark color scheme and graphics throughout. The artwork is beautiful and the box itself feels very good. The Aestivalis and its accessories are all well packed into two plastic clamshells as well.
Build: The aestivalis contains a diecast frame as well as diecast throughout the crotch and leg areas while the Black Sarena armor is plastic minus the crotch plate. I think that the Aestivalis is fantastic while the armor just really doesn’t hold together as well as it should.
Accessories: Aestivalis comes with a variety of hands, its rifle, and the blasters that replace the hands for the armored Black Sarena mode. The armor itself comes split into multiple pieces but I consider it a singular accessory.
Everything works well besides the crotch and hips of the armor as shown in the video. They are so hard to get and keep in place that it goes beyond annoying and became outright frustrating in my opinion.
Note: There is a separately-sold (and sold out) add-on set that lets the armored mode emulate the high-mobility (jet) mode. It’s definitely a situation to where you would really have to like that particular mode because at over $200 MSRP it’s not a cheap entry to play with this one.
Articulation: The articulation on the Aestivalis is damned good. Minus ab crunch I really don’t see much that it just can’t do in this area. However, Black Sarena’s armored mode is relatively unarticulated by design (even though there are parts of the armor like the head, fins, and tail which do move.) I do wish that particularly for this price that Sentinel had dont something to add articulation to the armored mode simply because of their knack for making things be dynamic.
Overall Score: 5.5/10 – Black Sarena is definitely a mixed bag. You have this amazing Aestivalis with a great look and all of the articulation in the world but then the Black Sarena specific armor that by design restricts the articulation to nearly statuesque levels and is pretty frustrating in both application and play with pieces that just don’t lock well enough on the lower half. I love the Aestivalis to the point where I’d love Sentinel to do more of them from the show but with the Armor making up the majority of the product’s price at nearly $400 I can’t recommend this piece.
Check out a few pictures of these in the gallery, and if you like what you see don’t forget to order your Sentinel Metamor-Force Black Sarena at D4Toys!
