Let’s kick the Gundam off with..

Could it be? Yes, it’s time for the first serious Gundam post of the year. Time to get back on that horse. While I should get back on track with the PG 00 Gundam, I’m going to start off with a little something that showed up while I was in the states.

Hmmm?

What could this be?

Yep, something I totally forgot about (I tend to have this happen a lot it seems), the Gundam 30th Anniversary Premium Box, which was only available through Bandai’s Premium Hobby website.

Premium = Limited baby

This Limited Premium set is also numbered, and it looks like I got a fairly low number. Would have been nice to get in within the first 100, but you take what you can get.

#000170

It’s a big box too

Bigger than I thought it would be.

So what exactly does the Premium Box come with? Well, it comes with clear versions of all the main Gundam’s from the television series. Movies, OVAs, and the upcoming Unicorn Gundam aren’t part of it, but all in all you end up with 13 kits. It also comes with a full color booklet which covers each TV series.

Opened up

The kits, in order of TV series

The inner box has a picture of the completed set

The booklet

Another shot

The kits themselves slide out of the cardboard “box” which features the original cover art of the original kit, as well as when the kit was first release. In a way, some of these kits themselves are pretty hard to find now a days, so this is a good way to get them, albeit they are the clear versions.

The original Gundam 1/144 kit, all in one runner!

The more recent 00 Gundam

The Turn A, which I’ve never seen in stores. I’d love to find the 1/144 kapool…

Seeing the original box art is pretty cool too

Overall, this is a really neat set, and the collector value seems to be fairly high. For the time being I’m not planning on building any of the kits, simply because it’ll fall into the if you build one, you gotta build them all. So for the time being I’ll just covet my nice shiny black premium box.

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Completed: Hyaku-Shiki HD Version with team AEUG

Jumped right into the Hyaku-shiki after finishing the Zeta Gundam kit.  As mentioned by Lupes, the Hyaku-shiki is a very fast build.  This makes sense as this kit is several years old, and was released simply with a new coat of paint (literally).  I find the coloring to be excellent on the kit though, that I think pictures really can’t do justice.   Good points about this kit is that about 95% of the gold parts are connected to the runners by undergates, which basically means you can snip them from the runner without fear of sprue nubs.  This is incredibly good because as this is an extra finish version, if you damage gold parts you get the crappy yellow/brown color underneath, that stands out.  Of course there are still 5% of those gold parts that aren’t undergates, but the kit is engineered so that they aren’t visible or hidden by other pieces.

Other than that, the internal frame is basic compared to the MG’s that are released now.  This is noticable especially with the hands, and the fact that some parts have too tight a fit, but in a way, helps to make it a quick build.  The seals/decals were easy to put on, but as I mentioned with the HD version of Zeta Gundam, the HD waterslides are for the most part really shoddy.  This time around though, I picked up some Mr. Mark Setter, which helped out much more than Mr. Mark Softer on the HD waterslides.   I actually screwed up the regular 百 seal on the left shoulder so ended up using the HD 百 seal instead.  Other than that, I used a black Gundam Marker panel line marker in a few areas.  

Overall, while the internal frame is basic, the new shine and quick build makes for a great kit, and you can’t go wrong with it.  Highly worth your while.

Check out below for my pics, but I would suggest checking out Lupes review as he finished building it just recently and took some excellent pictures.  One thing to note in my gallery is that I broke out my Gundam Mk II along with Zeta Gundam to finish up the AEUG “Gundam” lineup.  Take a look below.

Completed: Zeta Gundam HD Version

Without further ado, the review for the MG Zeta Gundam V2.0 HD Version kit. 

 

 

First off, I love the colors on this kit, the brighter “animation” style coloring looks good on the Zeta Gundam. I will admit there is a limit, like I’ve said before, it looks good on a 1/100 kit, but anything bigger in this color would look more like a cheap toy.  However, when building this kit, I realized how muted some of the colors on other kits are in general.

 

Building it was a breeze, and for the most part there were no complaints.  However, upon completing it, there are a few points I have to nitpick.

• The shoulders just suck.  Take a look at the pictures here, and you’ll note that the shoulders connect to the arm, by pushing it into place around the O of the arm/shoulder piece, which you shove into the shoulder joint on the body.  In theory, this should work fine, but the shoulder will simply not stay there, and pops off the little O ring easy.  Pretty much glue is the only way to go, but you lose some movability.           

 

 

• They give you a stand for a reason, the MG simply won’t stand on its own two feet.  Unfortunately, if you set both the front part of the foot and the heel flat on the table, the leg ends up being about tilted back, and with the wings and tail stabilizer attached, Zeta’s going to fall right over.  To adjust for it, you’ll have to bend the knee abnormally forward, which then looks kind of bleh.  The solution then is to use the stand, or leave it in wave rider mode.

 

• Speaking of wave rider mode, they don’t give you landing gear! (unless I missed them and accidently threw them out with the sprue sheets.  On top of that, unless I’m a moron, the pictures showing the Zeta in Wave Rider mode with the Hyper Mega Launcher attached on the bottom, attached to the stand is a liar, because it’s not possible.

 

 

Anyways, overall, these are minor points, and probably stand out to me more because I built the PG version first, before this one.  Comparing the MG with the PG though made me realize how good these models have been designed, and the difference between MG and PG become more apparent to me as well.  Especially since I was pretty rough getting my PG back from WR mode to MS, took me a while to remember how to do it.   Also, you’ll note by the gallery, that, yes, the PG is HUGE, and even I was surprised after comparing the two.  Also, as an aside, I built and completed the PG, but still technically need to do seals and cleanup, but don’t mind that so much!

 

Anyways, pictures speak a thousand words, so check out the gallery below.  I do apologize for not being able to take better pictures, but I’ll hopefully improve on that, and try to avoid using the living room kotatsu as my photography studio (when it warms up that is!)   

Zeta Gundam

Just a quick post, as I finally finished up the HD Version of Zeta, seals and all.  Overall the seals were pretty balanced out and easy to put on.  Unfortunately, the special waterslide decals that come wtih the HD version are fairly shoddy.  While you’ll notice the one on the right leg in the picture below, the left leg decal simply fell apart…  Still, over all, the regular waterslides and seals were no problem. 

Anyways, just a couple of teasers, and hopefully I’ll be able to take some pictures (and compare them to the PG Zeta as well) in the next couple of days.

The State of the Gunpla Union – 022309

So here we are again, another week. Actually a fairly busy weekend for me, from hitting Akiba on Friday night (and PG Astray!) to driving to and from Hamamatsu over the weekend.

Over the weekend I drove to Hamamatsu (about 270 KM away from where I live in Yokohama) with wife and friends for a college club reunion. While I drove when I lived in Tohoku, it was the first time to actually drive west. It was pretty cool getting behind the wheel again, and using something other than the bullet train allowed me to see some new scenery.

Mount Fuji from the Toumei Highway

The reunion getaway was held at Lake Hamanako, where we pretty much crashed for Saturday, while everyone caught up with everyone else.  I have to say, I was hesitant to go simply because of the fact that of 9 people, I was the only guy.  (^^;)  But I guess you could also call me lucky…

Lake Hamanako

 Sunday was cave spelunking and temple visits before the drive back.

Spelunking in the Ryugashi Cave

Visiting Ryotanji Temple 

 

 Overall, it was a fun time, and the ease of being to rent a car and just drop it off suprised me.  Wife and friends are already planning day trips..

 

Anyways, on to the Gundam related stuff.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get started on seals/decals on my Shin Musha last week due to lack of time.  While I can come home from work and spend maybe 30 minutes or so on building a kit, when it comes to seals/decals, it’s a hassle to start and stop.  You really want a good couple of hours to sit there and work at it.  When it comes to Gunpla, I would say that, while the end product looks great, the hassle of doing it tends to be a big hurdle.  So, at this point, Shin Musha is finished, just to need to find the time to actually do the seals.  On the other hand, since it’s easy to do 30 minutes of constructing before bed, I’ve started on the HD version of Zeta Gundam.  While Zeta Gundam is my favorite gundam, I am a little displeased with the shoulders, and will blog on that when I get a little further. 

 

 I did pick up the HD version of the Hyaku-shiki as well on Friday while I was in Akiba, figured I might as well finish up my AEUG Set (Although technically I would need to pick up a Rick Dias too then I guess).  With a month till the Astray drops, hopefully I can cut through the backlog, but we’ll see how this goes.   It seems that things are slowing down as people prepare for the March Bandai goods rush…  I was rather hoping to see the test model of the GFFMC Zeta Plus at Akiba but it was already gone.  I’m still debating on it, but budget is budget….  Anyways, this week should see a slew of new news as most Hobby mags drop on around the 25th.  I will also be putting up a quick shopping feature of specifically Yodobashi Akiba, as I can’t seem to get over to Akiba except on a weekday night lately so I don’t have much time to walk around the Electric Town.

One good thing is you may have noticed the links slowly but surely increasing.  In a way, I didn’t realize how many fellow Gundam bloggers there are out there, in various countries.  Even more suprising is to find fellow foreigners in Japan as well Gunblogging (I just made that word up!)   Anyways, a shorter note this week, but will get back up to speed hopefully as there are no plans for cross-country trips anytime soon!

New Zeta Gundam release this week

The Master Grade kit for Zeta Gundam V2.0 HD Color version is scheduled to be released this Thursday.  Images from Gundam Base shows the new colors to be a lot more brighter than the original model.  Supposedly these colors are based off the actual anime colors.  While Zeta Gundam is my favorite gundam, I’m not quite sure I’ll pick this up yet or not.  I’ve still got two Zeta’s on my back log as it is.   

The box art

The completed Zeta Gundam

News via Ngee Khiong, with images courtesy of Gundam Base.