Kit Review – MG MSN-06S Sinanju “Ver.Ka” Part 2

First up will be the weapons/equipment and the completed Torso/Head:

The weapons included are 2 beam sabers, 2 beam axes with 2 different blade lengths, a beam rifle with a detachable grenade launcher, and of course its fancy shield. As seen by the second picture, the grenade launcher attaches under the rifles barrel, and when not attached can be placed on the underside of the shield. The Beam axes also attach to the shield, and the blades can be attached to them to form a very cool looking double bladed shield weapon. The axes can also be joined together to form a double bladed axe.

Now on to the Torso/head:

The torso is probably one of the more…shinier parts of this kit, seeing as it makes good use of the gold decals. Its also interesting to note that the head does indeed have a mono-eye, much like every other Zeon MS, however its almost completely unoticable as its so tiny, and the facial structure obscures it considerably.

As you can see from these shots, there is an openable cockpit hatch, though this one has 3 parts that open/lift to expose the cockpit.

Stay tuned for more to come!

Kit Review – MG MSN-06S Sinanju “Ver.Ka”

So this review will be a little different that the others. Instead of just a one shot post, I’m going to stretch it out over a little while as a I build this mighty fancy kit. I plan to spend a good amount of time on this kit, so I’ll be going through this kit part by part, limb by limb, and I’ll post my progress as I go.

First up, some shots of what comes in the box…and the box itself.

As you can see, there’s quite a bit to this kit. Though, its to be expected as its a Master Grade kit.

Stay tuned for more to come.

Kit Review – 1/100 Gundam Avalanche Exia

The last review for a couple of says will be of the 1/100 Avalanche Exia:

Now, this is a kickass kit. For those unaware, the Avalanche Exia didn’t appear in the TV series, but was part of the serialized Gundam OOV series, which is a series of mobile suit variation designs, most of which don’t appear in anyway in the series (though the occasional one does) The Avalanche Exia was the first one, and is the Exia equipped with the Avalanche pack, which increases its mobility and speed  considerably.

This kit is just so good. Its quite nice eye candy, and its sturdy, extremely detailed and has lots of posebility. The interesting thing about this kit is that you can in fact build a base Exia if you wish. It comes with all the parts for a normal Exia, though, if you bought this kit, you’ll likely want to build Avalanche Exia.

The kit uses all of Exia’s standard weapons; its short and long GN Blades, 4 GN Beam Sabers, and its trademark GN Sword. The interesting thing about the Avalanche pack is that it allows the weapons to be mounted on the back, near the GN Drive cone. The Sabers are also mounted differently, and attack to the back and shoulders in a way different to Exia.

The defining parts of this kit are the large shoulder structures. These large thruster units have  part that can be opened up to show the Avalanche pack in its active mode. The also attach to the large units on the forearms when open. Its also nice in that these structures do not hamper the arms in anyway, primarily due to the fact that they attack directly to the shoulders. The arms still have a great degree of freedom of movement.

Even though there are an ample amount of foil stickers, they do not hamper the appearance of the kit in anyway. They are all usually quite small, and apply very well.

All in all, this is a fantastic kit. I can really find nothing wrong with it. It poses well, it stays up excellently, and it just looks great.

Kit Review – HG Gadessa

The next kit up for review is the HG Gadessa:

Now, I personally think this a great kit, though their are a couple of flaws. However, we’ll get to those in a minute. The posebility of this kit is great, especially for HG 1/144 kit. The arms are unique when compared to other HG kits, in that they have 2 shoulder joints, this allows for great stability in the arm, and improved posebility, which this kit makes use of in spades. The legs also feature incredible posability, and you can practically fold the legs right up. Now, the feet of the Gadessa are variable, and can be folded up to a point when in flight poses, or can be brought out like regular feet to allow it to stand on its own. Now, this brings me to the first flaw. In order to switch the feet around, you have to in fact take them apart and reasemble them. It would have been nice if you could just move the parts around without having to take them off.

Now, the main weapon for this kit is the GN Mega Launcher and its accompyaning power pack. The power pack attaches to the launcher holster on the back, and the kit actually supports the launcher on the back pretty well, considering how large it is. How, the launcher itself has two hand mounts (one trigger hold, and one support handle). The hands hold these pretty well, and the kit itself supports the gun regardless if you have both hands holding it, or simple the right hand holding the gun alone. The 3 parts of the Mega Launcher that open up to show its firing mode also stay open pretty well.

Now, the only other gripe I would have with this kit is that there are a good number of foil stickers for somewhat pointless parts, primarily the fins on the shoulders and the ankes. The ankle stickers aren’t too bad, but I did find the shoulder ones were kind of tricky, and somewhat unnescesary.

Oh, and this kit does come with a display stand, which I thought was a good idea, seeing as there’s no way for this kit to stand without one when its feet are in flight mode.

Overall, this is a great HG kit, in keeping with the tradition of HG OO kits, which have been the best yet (aside from the HGUC series). It poses well, its got a lot of detail, and its just awesome looking. What more could you ask for?

Kit Review – HG GN Archer

So first up in my latest series of Gunpla reviews is the oh-so adorable GN-Archer, which begs the question can a mecha truly be considered cute? Well, read on and decide for yourselves.

Obviously, since the kit is far more simple than regular mechas, there are only 4 runners, including the one for the polycaps.

The transformation process between Mobile Suit mode  and Mobile Armor mode is rather simple, and only involves rotating the arms and hands, folding up the legs and feet, and flipping the nose section up and over the had, and of course the reverse brings it back to MS mode. When in MA mode, a special piece which fits on the front of the chest section allows you to pose it on an action base.
Overall, the kits is incredibly sturdy, and quite poseble as well. It is also rather detailed as well, especially the 2 back thruster units. Overall, this is a simple, yet great kit. Its especially great for those who have the HG Arios, as it can be combined with that, and the back parts can also be used with the HG OO Gundam.

News – A little bit of everything

First up, on the AKB48 front.

Yesterday, research student Tomomi Nakatsuka was promted to Team B!

Of course, I’m already a fan of her. The again, why wouldn’t I be. She’s been put in the best team of them all! She looks like she’ll make a great addition to Team B, and I hope she does well in the upcoming B4!

Speaking of B4, it starts in a few weeks! The title of this new stage is Idol no Yoake. A set list has yet to be revealed (as the stage hasn’t started and the set list isn’t usually revealed until the first show) but I’ll post one up (and my thoughts on the stage, since its likely we’ll get a Live on Demand video of the first show) when the show starts in a few weeks.

Next up are some upcoming Gundam kit releases:
March:
- MG Unicorn Coating Ver. – 8,000 Yen

April:
- MG Sword Impulse Gundam – 4,500 Yen
- HGUC Nu Gundam HWS – 2,800 Yen
- HG 1/144 Ahead Smultron – 1,200 Yen

(info from Ngee Khiong, CyberGundam

I’m not too interested in the MG Unicorn Coating version, considering as I already have the regular release, but it will be interesting to see how this coating looks. I’m guessing something simliar to the recent releases of the Zeta Gundam MG’s.

Mg Sword Impulse is not too much of a suprise for me, but I am still excited. However, I wonder if this means Blast Impulse will be given the MG treatment as well. My thoughts? Not bloody likely. The Blast Impulse didn’t even get a proper Hg 1/144 release back in the days of Gundam Seed Destiny, which I though was odd, since Sword and Force Impulse got Hg kits. I would absolutely love an MG Blast Impulse though…

The HGUC Nu Gundam HWS is a suprise. Its not often that MS from the MSV series get regular kit releases, but this is another kit I am excited about. For reference, this is the Nu Gundam HWS:

And I am pleased to see that the Ahead Smultron will be getting an HG release. I was afraid the only figure of it would be the upcoming Robot Damashii figure. Now they just need to announce an HG Masurao and I’ll be happy.

OO Raiser Part 2

So here’s everything that makes up the main kit of this set, the OO Gundam:

And here’s the final product:

As you can see, the kit is quite poseble. All the joints allow for a great degree of mobility. The only thing wrong would be that for some reason there is no waist joint. This means you cannot move the body at the waist, and does somewhat the poses you can do. Also, the connector that connects the figure to the action base is one of the best I’ve seen. It clips on to the lower back part of the “groin” area, and its quite sturdy. Even with the heavy O-Raiser parts on it, the kit still stays upright with great ease.

And after all that, here is the true final product:

One thing to be wary of with this kit is that the O-Raiser parts are quite heavy on the shoulders, and it is somewhat hard to pose them in upper positions. However, they stay on quite well, along with the main body which connects to the back quite well. Overall, this is one fantastic kit, and I enjoyed building it a lot. If your looking for a great Gundam OO kit, I’d greatly recomment this one.

OO Raiser – Part 1

So first, lets take a look at the included Action base stand:

This is quite the unique stand, as this clear green version of the Celestial Being stand only comes with the OO Raiser set. Its quite an awesome stand, but that’s to be expected of an action base stand. They are high quality stands, and hold up quite well.

Next, lets take a look at the first of the two kits in this set, the O-Raiser:

The O-Raiser consists of 3 main parts; the main body and its two side sponsons. The side sponsons connect rather easily to the main body I found, and here’s the full unit:

Now, of course, the main feature of the O-Raiser is the ability to connect to the OO Gundam itself. The sponsons attack to the shoulder GN Drives, while the O-Raiser body connects to the back of the OO. To do this, an incredibly simple “transformation” is required of the O-Raiser. All that is needed is to simply fold the rear half of the O-Raiser down, then to move the rear thruster unit down as well. This exposes the connector unit that attaches to the back of the OO Gundam. Very simple indeed:

Now, lets take a look at the OO’s weapons:

The weapons include 2 GN Sword II’s, the two halves of the GN Shield and 2 beam sabers. The swords can be switched between gun and sword mode, but the blades must be removed and repositioned to do this. Its a similar situation with the shields, as the white blade part must be removed and repositioned to increase the length of the blade. The swords can also be connected to each other at the hilts to form a double bladed sword. This requires the use of a small additional part. Also, the shields can be connected to the O-Raisers sponsons for storage:

So thats all for today. Next up will be the OO Gundam itself, then after that will come the final product, the OO Raiser!

1/100 OO Raiser kit – Mine finally arrived!

So the Gundam OO kits I’ve been waiting forever for has finally arrived, the 1/100 OO Raiser!

Here’s a quick look at whats included:

The box:

What’s inside:

More of what’s inside:

And finally the manual:

I’m going to be trying something new here, whereas I’ll be posting throughout the building process, showing off the kits at various stages, so there’s defenitly more to come. Stay tuned!

New pics of Upcoming Master Grade Kits

Found some interesting magazine scans of 3 upcoming Gundam Master Grade Kits. Credit for the pics goes to oilman from Seed-Forums.

Master Grade Shin Musha Gundam:

Master Grade Zaku II Cannon

Master Grade RX-78 Gundam Ver. 2.0

MG Musha is looking as awesome as always. I defenitly like the weapon loadout. Very cool indeed. The musket is a nice touch, and the weapons really help give it that samurai feel. No fancy beam weapons for this Gundam.

The Zaku II Cannon is looking to be one of the nicest MG Zaku’s yet. The color scheme is superb, and the head style really gives this Zaku a flair of originality over other Zaku kits. This might be one to look into when its released in August.

And though I’ve heard alot of negative comments about the new MG Gundam, I think it looks superb. It doesn’t have the more realistic, refined look of the Katoki versions, but I like the fact that it has the style of the original anime version. The whole core-fighter gimmick defenitly gives this kit an edge over its predecessors, and it also seems to have a few other new weapon parts compared to previous versions. The posablity of this kit also looks superb.