Gunpla

Oooo, is it the MG kit? The Barbatos MG is still, in my opinion, one of the best kits ever.

It's the HG kit. I'm not confident enough to splurge that much money on my first try. Maybe I'll get the MG Aerial down the line.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Oct 10th 2022 at 3:32:40 AM

Speaking of MG, anybody seen this yet?

Master Grade SD Gundam is coming really soon! The first MS to kick this line off? Freedom Gundam!

Look for it on January 2023! For 3,900 yen (which is roughly $26.77 USD)!

Barbatos arrived today. It is way smaller than I expected (which is roughly Deluxe-sized Transformers). This makes applying stickers quite a hassle, especially since the eyes are all sticker.

Sticker eyes are the bane of my existence.

That's why I prefer to get G Ms instead.

And that's HG Barbaros done with. His longer limbs and narrow waist do look weird at first, but they give him a vicious lycan-like appearance. The giant feet are also very well-articulated so they easily level with the surface, giving the mech much-needed stability.

My biggest problem with Barbatos is the waist. The connection is noticeably flimsier than other joints, and the waist armor just falls off so easily. The wraparound stickers are so terrible that I just skip them altogether. I'll just paint the claws and the thruster once I have my pens.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Oct 12th 2022 at 2:34:06 AM

Welp, it was bound to happen at some point after having built over a dozen MG kits: I finally dropped and lost a tiny c-clip piece for the front skirt of my Lightning Strike. I could probably jury-rig a thin bit of wire, or wait for PlaPartsJapan to come out of hiatus, but man it sucks having to lose a part now.

Freaking nice.

I've finished building Gundam Exia, which was my first RG.

The build itself is great. The inner frame doesn't take as much building as, say, an HG IBO inner frame, but it is still very detailed and holds up pretty fine. I know the reputation of the early RG kits, but so far it's holding itself very solidly, and there is no loose part. Color separation is exquisite just as I've heard. The stickers are just there to make some parts shinier, and I skipped most of them.

The Gunblade is just awesome. I just love weapons with multiple modes that can switch by a simple flip, though for some reason the handle isn't attached into the blue base, making the switch action slightly awkward. Exia itself can wield the weapon just fine, with none of that Barbatos mace problem.

The biggest problem of the kit in the front skirt. Not only is it a pain to assemble, it also hinders leg articulation. Exia can't even kneel down, which is inexcusable for an HG kit, let alone RG. I also wonder why it needs two extra beam sabers attached to its butt.

Okay, go. Got back from Japan/Vietnam and feel like documenting the Gunpla/Gundam that I got on my trip with some annotations:

• G-Frame Gundam RX-78F00: Went with the G-Frame over the 1/144 due partially to bag space, partially because it actually has a more accurate G-Dock, partially because it has some of the F00's unique paint apps already done to it. Love the little guy. Plus, I have 1/144 and 1/100 hangers. No 1/200-ish hangers.
• Yokohama Base free F00: Simple snap-build F00. My three-year-old daughter helped build it. It's neat.
• Eco-Pla HGUC GM: I wanted a GM, I wanted an Eco-Pla. Seemed to make sense. The figure is just as flawed as everyone makes it out to be, but as a display grunt, it's fine.
• Gundam Base Exclusive White Base Hanger set: Three MS racks designed to resemble the White Base's hanger. Had to leave it in Vietnam for now due to space. But I like that kind of diorama.
• Gundam Base Exclusive Vinyl Dummy Balloon Re-GZ and Nu Gundam. Dumbest things I own. I love them. My daughter accidentally stole the Nu Gundam one for me. Proud of her.
• MP G3 Core Fighter: One of those exclusive Core Fighters. Just like the G3 color version. Will prolly shove it into my clear MG 3.0 RX-78 when I actually build that.
• Daban KO P-Bandai Jesta Cannon: Only about $30 and even if the quality isn't perfect, I wanted it. Also left in Vietnam.
• 1/1200 Salamis: I just like getting some ships, and it comes with 3 G Ms and 3 Balls. It's so simple that painting shouldn't take more than a minute.
• SD Gashapon Devil Gundam and Bigro: What's to say? A tiny Devil Gundam and a tiny Bigro with two tinier Z'Goks it can carry. Just thought they were the coolest of the individual used Gashapon I found.

Regrets:

• More Gashapon.
  • There was a set at a used anime store that had an SD Wing Zero Custom, Devil Gundam, God Gundam, Gaw, RX-78 with Javelin, ZZ, and Mega-Rider for $10◊ I meant to buy but forgot. I wanted that damn set. They're the little one-inch SD figures with like, no articulation but still would be nice to have.
  • As for actual capsules, I wish I bought a Unicorn at Gundam Base, but I hadn't seen the statue yet and had no connection to it. I don't care for the Unicorn but having a souvenir of that would've been nice in hindsight.
  • I passed by a single MS Ensemble Machine from the set with the MP Nu, Hazel, GP 01, Ball, and Primrose. I wish I dumped in $500 yen as I would've been happy with any of those.
• I have some FOMO about not getting more F00 merch. But thinking about it, eh. The 1/144 version would've been good, but I do think the G-Frame is better. The F00 High Mobility Type looks objectively amazing, but lacks a lot of the memories.
  • I also regret leaving the Gundam's tower before the second performance, but I had to pee and my phone was dead and had to find my family. Laaaaaaame.

... honestly I found this kinda cathartic as those mild regrets sorta niggled on me but writing it out, they're really minor and petty. Thanks for being my unpaid therapists.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 13th 2023 at 12:15:38 PM

Speaking of minor and petty: I'm just annoyed that the Shenlong got two pretty major 2022 releases and both of them have serious color accuracy flaws.

The higher-profile is the HGAC which somehow, despite having a translucent green runner, decided that it was a good idea to have the Search Eyes on the shoulders be stickers over round bulbs. The original 1/100 even got that right. That is baffling. It would be one thing if the figure didn't already have a dedicated runner in the correct color, or if said runner could be used with literally any other figure, but... nope. Hell, I would've rather they made the Search Eyes flat rather than round so that stickers could be used.

The second is the Gundam Universe, which left the eyes of the Dragon Fang completely unpainted. And then hid that fact in the box by putting the Fang behind the packaging (hilariously enough, behind the beautiful artwork showing the Shenlong with the fully colored eyes) and the only image of the toy showing the fang's eyes was the size of a postage stamp.

I've built Pharact and it's really cool that the mook suit Zoworts have the same inner frame and jointing. The G-Witch mobile suits really have parts commonality in-brand, so all the Peil/Jeturk/Grassley suits have shared runners that way, and even Aerial and the Lfriths have shared structure and runners.

Lfrith and Aerial don't share a lot of parts. Their upper arms, shoulders, and calves are the same, but torso, thighs, hips, and forearms are different.

Requiem for Vengence is getting figures

Gundam EX High Grade

Zaku II Sorari

and a Gundam Universe figure for the EX as well.

EX looks pretty cool, love how militant it is, even though it'll probably be a villain Gundam.

Huh. Interesting designs. I might get the Zaku, it looks different enough from the ones I already have, and that's a good thing.

People are complaining about the head of Gundam EX, but I'm totally fine with it, probably because the EZ 8 is one of my favorites.

RG RX-78-2 Gundam announced. Looks really good, glad the RG got an update, my coworker has the original and says it's not great.

HG Psycho Gundam MK II

HG HI Zack Custom based on the AOZ version. Likely a retool of the Hobby Hizack AOZ.

HG Bolinoak Sammahn

MG Re GZ looks to be a color swap of the 2019 Unicorn Re-Gz now in CCA colors.

Not that I'm complaining since we haven't gotten an HGUC in... three years, but seriously? The Bolinoak Sammahn isn't P-Bandai?

The RG RX-78 2.0 looks very F00 to me. Kinda wish it had the F00's thrusters so I could actually make it an F00 in my collection, but alas.

MG Re-GZ 1.5! Prolly gonna get this! LOVE ME SOME RE-GZ! EDIT: Wait... this thing is more exclusive than the Unicorn Re-GZ? Wow...

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 22nd 2024 at 10:06:03 AM

My Benerit trio has been decal'd and ready to negotiate with protesters. Took me the whole week to apply decals to them all.

Not quite Gunpla, but I picked up the 00 QAN[T] on a lark at a Target and I love it.

I have no familiarity with the suit outside of Super Robot Wars V, so if it's missing accessories then I don't know about it. But the GN Bit gimmick is fun, and it's pretty posable. The wrist is sadly too weak to support even the basic GN Sword, let alone the combined one so that's... a shame, but given how inexplicably bad this line was, I really wanted to be positive about a figure I really like.

Even with a strong wrist it's inevitable that they'd give way to that massive fuck-off sword. There's a reason that most models that have massive, bulky weapons like the Astray Red Frame automatically come with their own action bases: it's physically impossible to hold up their weapons on their own. Same with my MG Testament and its huge claws; I bought a bunch of the clear Action Base 7s specifically to help my models hold their weapons up.

I think there's a design flaw, the figure can't hold up just the regular sword properly and I've owned two of them (I returned the first one for this reason).

I think the socket is too big or something because the wrist isn't secure even if nothing is in the hand. It's a damn shame. Coating the balljoints in floor polish didn't help any.

As you say, there aren't a lot of poses he can really DO with the full size sword, anyway. I'm just happy he has it, you know.

I just stick the Qan[T] sword bits on the shield. Still can't find a good action base to display the floating bits.

I find the RG Qan[T] to hold the basic sword just fine.

Edited by RAlexa21th on May 3rd 2024 at 1:11:02 AM