In this review, I take a look at Bandai’s Robot Spirits Damashii line Epyon, from the ever-popular Gundam Wing anime series! This toy features a strong aesthetic and nice transformation thrown in, but the poseability can be a bit stifling.
Video Segments:
Out of The Box: Beginning
Figure Overview: 2:38
Accessories: 7:18
Transformed Mode: 16:43
Final Thoughts: 24:00
The robot mode is pretty accurate, and I love that they gave the option of having his sword hanging off of his skirt unpowered as well as his whip weapon being able to rest on his forearm unextended. It’s little touches like that that give this toy some points in my book. Aeshtetically, I do wish that this Damashii version was a bit more “thickly” molded, rather than this more sleek and slender body type, but I do like it a lot.
Where the robot mode falters is it’s poseability. It’s not from lack of articulation, but moreso the fact that he doesn’t have things like diecasting in the legs to help give him stablity: especially when his wing pack is attached.
Much like the show, his wing pack is just beautiful! Full poseable in itself, and it looks equally as good with the wings up or down. I technically consider it an accessory because it’s removeable, but it’s such a crucial part of this mecha’s aesthetic, that I don’t see anyone ever removing it.
The accessories come with the standard variety of hands, including a double handed one for holding the more extended version of his energy blade. The blade does have two extensions: One normal, and a very large one. His whip also comes with the ability for every, poseable piece to be removed to adjust the length to it as you like. I love the options of his weapons.
On top of that, he comes with a nice attachment for his wing pack to peg into a stand for flight posing. The piece is very solid and provides great balance on a stand.
He also comes with some slightly-modified limbs to swap out during his transformation. I’ll delve more into those in that section of this review.
Just like in-show, the Transformation on this is very basic. You fold his elbows up, swing his legs around back, pop on his whip to represent the tail, and you’re pretty much done.
What I do like is that Bandai threw in additional forearm and leg pieces to swap out when transformed that have a more cohesive look for the Transformed mode. For Example, his hands come off, so they have a pair of forearms with vents where the normal forearms would have the ball joints that the hands attached to exposed.
Even in the series, his alternate mode as a dual-headed dragon plane doesn’t leave much to be desired, but I still find it impressive. The red coloring and spikes give it a nice and intimidating presence.
Also to note: I love the placement of the peg attachment piece on the bottom side of the plane. It’s in the perfect position for great balance when pegged into a stand.
A fantastic looking toy, but the balancing issues really make it hard to recommend, because even for display purposes, it’s pretty hard to keep balanced without posing it in a pretty boring fashion. I’ll still give it the nod though, but say to be weary if you’re someone intent on wanting that balance.
Overall Score: 7.5/10
Enjoy a few more pictures of this figure below! Remember to click the pictures to view larger resolutions:
