Figure Review: Robot Damashii – Briheight Muga
I do not have a conviction, but I will still fight to protect everyone
Back Arrow was a pretty expectant series in 2021, with a pretty stellar staff list – with Goro Taniguchi, Kohei Tanaka, Kazuki Nakashima and of course, our mecha designer – the legendary Hidetaka Tenjin himself. The man has been illustrating mecha for DECADES and Back Arrow is essentially his second gig at designing original mechas (the first was Super Robot Wars T). So of course, there’s something to look forward to with the BriHeight designs. And boy they are sorta unique alright. So unique that Bandai only release RoDa of the first two: Muga and Gigan because their sales were abysmal. But are they…bad figure or just simply…unlucky? Let’s take a look at the Muga and find out.
+ Design: The Muga is…quite unique. He’s sorta a combination of Tekkaman Blade (but blue) and Vandread Dita. Also Master Tenjin has learnt from Eiichi Shimizu to remove all the feet. I don’t know why the hate against feet but eh. At a glance, he looks like a henshin hero with clear parts all over the body. On closer inspection you can see his head is quite…alien – sorta like Frieza 1st or 2nd form with the elongated head. The back ring and “wings” actually looks pretty good. Well the “wings” coming from the back of his head is pretty unusual but you’ll never notice from the front. Otherwise, the blue clear parts are really nice-looking. He’s a bit on the tall side with some very long legs and quite slim arms, especially the biceps. Overall, he looks quite uncanny yet good nonetheless.
+ Articulation: Muga is fighter. Therefore he moves his arms and legs a lot onscreen. Regrettably, only his upper-half can do this on the Robot spirit. Shoulders, torso, arms, elbows joints are all excellent with great range and quite solid. The head is quite limited but looking at how he’s designed, I’m not surprised. The wings coming out from the backside of the head also got in the way a bit, but you can move them out of the way with some patient.
The legs however is quite a challenge. The thigh joints can be moved well, with the clear parts on it able to flip out for some extra range, but at most you’re getting about 45-degree straight split before having to move it forward or backward. The knee doesn’t fold very far and the feet makes it really really hard to balance the figure without a stand. And the way they implement a stand is, frankly, pretty dumb. However, Muga nail the cross-legged pose as the hip joints can be swing up or down to create a lot of space to “close” his legs.
+ Gimmicks: Not a lot really.. it’s quite a basic figure that all of its playability lies in the posability itself.
The legs however is quite a challenge. The thigh joints can be moved well, with the clear parts on it able to flip out for some extra range, but at most you’re getting about 45-degree straight split before having to move it forward or backward. The knee doesn’t fold very far and the feet makes it really really hard to balance the figure without a stand. And the way they implement a stand is, frankly, pretty dumb. However, Muga nail the cross-legged pose as the hip joints can be swing up or down to create a lot of space to “close” his legs.
+ Gimmicks: Not a lot really.. it’s quite a basic figure that all of its playability lies in the posability itself.
+ Accessories: Also very simple and minimalistic. He comes with a back ring, a replacement head with the wings, 2 extra pairs of hands and 2 effect parts for kicking and punching. The effect parts are pretty gorgeous and they are definitely one of the saving graces of the figure. The painting and sculpt on them is quite awesome. They are also fairly easy to attach. I really recommend a stand for the figure, but try to find a clamp type that can go around the waist since the stand connector that comes with the figure is quite…useless and looks pretty bad.
+ Conclusion: The Robot Damashii Muga is a decent figure and fun to play with. It doesn’t have huge value but it looks good and is simple to enjoy. I guess Bandai intended for this to be sorta an “early” version of the Muga as he got more good stuff as the show goes on. The figure also experience the same issue with the show: looks good but bad execution at the start. The RD Muga and Gigan couldn’t generate enough profit for the rest of the Briheights to be made. As of now, their prices have fallen quite significantly (I got the Muga for more than half-off its retail price). So, it is quite sad for the series, but I do recommend the figure if you can get it cheap because if you pay 2k-3k yen for it, it’s quite bang for the bucks. A fun and simple figure to play with.
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