Aquarius Camus

Camus Aquarius is the Guardian of the penultimate House of Sanctuary; one of the last strongholds before reaching the Pope’s chamber and Athena’s quarters. 

Although he is a character whose actions are sometimes misunderstood for being of an evil nature, this is often further from the truth. The duality between the perception and reality of his actions makes Camus one of the more fleshed out Gold Saints in the series. While his actions may be seen harsh, Camus is actually a man that values the relationships of those he is close with and those he has sworn to protect.

Camus has a very strong bond with his pupil… well the one that he didn’t presume was dead. In the manga, Camus is directly responsible for training Hyoga and Isaac. This makes his fated battle with Hyoga at Sanctuary that much more meaningful. In the anime, Camus is the master of Crystal Saint, who is Hyoga’s master. This changes makes Crystal Saint  an unnecessary link in the master-disciple relationship between the Hyoga and Camus. So seeing Hyoga and Camus push each other to the limit in order to surpass the other’s ability to create the coldest attack is a diluted experience in the anime.

Aurora Execushion!

In the manga, it feels as if Hyoga takes the life of a father figure . In the anime, Camus is more like that dead-beat stepfather that barely spends any time with his stepchild. So much of the emotion is removed from the conclusion of this battle.

Although he is defeated, Camus later returns in the Hades Chapter, alongside Gemini Saga and Capricorn Shura in order to infiltrate the very Sanctuary that they once protected.

Besides being a fairly important Gold Saint and also my very own astrological sign, Camus is also an important character in the EX Saint Cloth Myth line, as he marks the release of the last Gold Saint in the line. So does this release put the cherry on top of what has been a fairly good line? Let’s find out!

The Object Mode of the Aquarius Cloth is that of a water-bearer holding a pitcher above his (or her) head.

The EX representation of this Cloth is quite honestly disappointing for a couple of reasons. First of all, the Aquarius Cloth looks very skinny and out of proportion to the Aquarius Cloth of the anime. In reality, the original SCM Aquarius was much more faithful to the source material.

The second reason that this Cloth disappointed me was because of its inability to stay together. The shoulder connectors, the “wrist” connectors and the waist connector do a piss-poor job at maintaining the structural integrity of this rather simple Object Mode. So because of the design and crappy connections, I have to say this is THE worst EX Object Mode.

Moving onto the armored Saint, let us see he Camus fares after he has donned the Aquarius Cloth.

Fully armored, Camus looks good in the Aquarius Cloth for the most part.

The thing that stands out the most, due to their size, are the large shoulder pads. The length seems consistent with the source material. However, they are much fatter than how they appear in the anime. The golden semi-spherical part in the middle is enormous.

The orange parts of the armor remind me of the orange which dominated the Scales of Poseidon and his Sea Generals.  Which is fitting because Aquarius’ Cloth has a water-related theme, as do the Scales.

Besides the shoulder pads, Aquarius also has a very slim waistline, which a hallmark of the EX SCM line.

Here is what the back of the armor looks like without that longer piece of hair to obstruct the view of the armor.

Those two inaccuracies aside, the EX version of Camus Aquarius is definitely more faithful to the source material than the first release. The face of the original Aquarius is so fugly, that a few years back I actually paid the crazy secondary market prices to pick up an appendix for the original release.

Look at that nicely-detailed hair on the EX version. The original has more of a clump of plastic for hair.

The colors, shape of the armors, accents and details of the EX Camus Aquarius are the closest SCM representation we have to how the character appears in the show.

There is very little plastic used for the armor of this release. You can see the plastic highlighted in the picture below.

The rest of the armor is nice shiny metal.

Articulation for the figure and its armor is on par with the EX line. The body used for Camus is an Saint Cloth Myth EX body. The armor is engineered for a great amount of movement.

Taking a knee is no challenge for Camus. The sideskirts use multi-jointed arms, which allows them to move out of the way of the legs.

The shoulder pads also feature multi-joint arms, which allow the shoulder pads to move in various ways.

This allows the toy to perform a very nice Aurora Execution or a Freezing Coffin.

Aurora Execushion! 

Furishingu Kofin!

Even the hair is articulated, the side piece of the hair are on ball joints, like the setup we got with Mermaid Thetis and the EX Hyoga releases.

On the downside, the joints on the shoulder pads were a bit loose on my toy and this resulted in the shoulder pads that drooped unnecessarily. At times, it was a pain in the butt trying to get the shoulder pads, particularly the left one, to stay up correctly.

The shoulder pads were not the only annoying part of the armor. The armguards did not fit very well over the forearms. Due to the loose fit, the armguards have a tendency of rotating out of place all the time. Getting the armguards to stay in their place was a time-consuming endeavor that became very tedious.  

While this release has its share of shortcomings, it is still a decent release otherwise.

Camus Aquarius comes with a bunch of hands and 5 faceplates, which aid you in getting just about any cool pose you could want with this toy.

My favorite combo: the smug Camus.

Camus also feature the standard three-piece cape that is included with all of the EX Gold Saints.

Camus rocks the cape well, as he should since he is one of the Gold Saints that would wear it on the regular.

Missing in the extras, like with several other EX Gold Saints, is an extra head so that the Gold Cloth can be shown as being worn by its corresponding Bronze Saint.You can, however, use the EX Hyoga head with the EX Camus body to see the Bronze Saint donning the armor of his deceased master.

Diamondo Dusto!!

The hole in Hyoga’s hair is inverted from the peg that is used in the Aquarius headpiece, so Hyoga cannot put on this piece of the armor.

But he can hold it and look cool.

All in all, the EX Camus Aquarius is definitely an EX release, albeit the worst one to date. Im not saying its a horrible toy, it just doesn’t manage to be as good as its 11 Golden comrades. That being said, the worst EX release still beats out its predecessor in the original SCM line, so this would be the one to get if you want the best version of Camus Aquarius.

At this point, I was planning on including a picture of all the EX Gold Saints together. However, due to several reasons, I am not able to get all the Gold Saints out and ready for a group pic without delaying this review much more than I already have. So my appologies for the lack of a group photo.