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MEGA SIZE kits are 1/48, so the Unicorn Gundam (Destroy Mode) at 21,7 meters translates to a whopping 45cm tall.
There's no reason for a full scale review, what this is, is a High Grade kit in a larger size, in fact it's even more primitive than most high grades, as it only has 90 degree arm and leg bends, with ratcheted polycap joints so it can hold its pose with its rifle and shield - However, due to the length and leverage of the beam magnum, not even the ratcheted Mega Size polycaps can carry the weight and so the shoulder sags.
Aesthetically it looks great, since the Unicorn itself is just a white exterior with a transparent red psychoframe, with plenty of surface detail to use a panel liner on. The head has room for an LED so the eyes and camera are transparent, however you have the choice to use foil stickers on either or both.
Note that while it is a Mega Size build not all of the gates are snap-off, so you need to use nippers and sand down the nubs, ESPECIALLY on the navy blue plastics, which stress and mark easily!!
As a build experience it's a pretty fun afternoon build!
Due to its absolutely massive size, it will stand out in any collection and dwarf almost anything else, unless you have a Neo Zeong of some kind.
Picture is of the RX-78-2, Zaku II and Unicorn Mega Size models. In front of them are the HG Dagger L and MG GM Command for scale.
The MS-15/H Gyan (Xavier Olivette's Custom) is a custom alternate Qwux (GQuuuuuuX) version of the classic Gyan, a 'knight' themed mobile suit, which has further been expanded on with a gigantic lance, whereas before it only relied on its rapier beam sabers and missile shield.
Aesthetics:
The kit seems to follow the same height scale as the old Gyan at 20 (19,9) meters tall or 14cm as a 1/144 model.
Xavier's Custom is a 'white knight' themed mobile suit with green-gold trim in a qwux style design with a tall collar, smaller head and wide hips, blending a more semi-realistic style with sphere fuel tanks (on the lance), fuel cables on the thighs leading to the rear thrusters and likely other considerations that I'm not seeing.
Personally, to me qwux designs looks less realistic and less believable, even if they're designed to look light weight and maneuverable - They're a little too creative for my taste, even if they lean into the old designs (like the same backpack from 1979 - arguable the Gyan's weakest design point).
The kit does not have color correction as such, instead it has a sticker sheet with 25 individual green-gold trim stickers, 1 symbol decal and 1 pink mono-eye sticker. Despite looking difficult, they're mostly easy to put on. The worst are the shield ones that have to bend around corners, which makes them prone to peeling.
You can simply opt not to use them, though I'd say they look pretty cool and unobtrusive.
Mechanics:
Articulation is 5/10, though it might have been built with consideration for the heavy equipment - Single elbow bends and barely any internal shoulder movement make for limited movement, but they're also stiff and capable of lifting up the lance and shield without sagging.
The legs have a better range, but the side skirts, rear thigh thrusters get in the way of each other. Old mobile suit designs might be blocky, but they're well considered - This one, not so much.
The mono-eye does turn and tilt, but it's so tiny inside the head that it's hard to manipulate. It's most impressive feature (besides being able to hold the lance) is a backwards 75 degree ab-crunch, but next to no forwards movement (again, probably due to the heavy equipment).
Equipment:
1 "Hakuji" Lance - The rear thrusters move a little but look like they shouldn't. It comes with a stand so the model doesn't tip over holding it.
1 Weapon Stand with extra alternate adapter pieces
1 Missile Shield - Sits on a gigantic arm brace and can pose quite well - There are 6 hatches that open to reveal missile launchers
2 Rapier Beam Saber Hilts - These sit on the thighs and they come with short and long handles, short for storage and long for holding them. The problem is that the short ones are so difficult to take out, that unless you never take them out, might as well put the long ones in
2 short yellow Beam Effect parts from 2005 - Perfectly adequate and fit the rapier style beam saber well, proportionally
2 holding hands - Nice details, but they suffer under the weight and often split open
Conclusion:
This kit lives and breathes on its intricate surface details. It doesn't have a ton, but it does have a lot of shape detail, breaking up the surface everywhere. I find the antenna makes it look like an RC toy, which is silly and the top of the head tends to fall off.
I find that a fun pose to put it in is to hold the lance upwards, making the whole thing 30cm tall.
Mechanically it's competent and dedicated to what it does (carry a huge lance) while also letting you throw it into some poses.
It's a 'hit and miss' sort of kit for me since I like some of the appearance, but not all of it and it doesn't do much else than being immobilized by its own big weapons, depending mostly on its stand.
The 2018 Gundam Build Divers Red Beret is based entirely on the 2014 HG Grimoire from Reconguista in G.
Aesthetics:
Like the name infers, the mobile suit has a militaristic style (The guy's name is Rommel) and instead of 'green beret' it's a red helmet on a green suit with white star stickers ala WW2 America. Most of the green plastic is soft and matte.
The major differences between the two kits is that the Red Beret comes with two alternate heads, so if you want a blue or a matching green head, those are included.
The other differences are the side skirts being much larger, the feet are rollerblades and the shins have a claw function. The shoulders are also different with 3mm holes and comes with 2 red shoulder plates. Kit includes the old shoulders, shins and feet.
There are no color correction stickers, only a foil sheet, however all the knives and the claw parts need metallic paint (marker)
The eye lens effect is pretty good once you 'unsee' how the sticker is applied inside.
Mechanics:
It's a pretty stocky model, so the polycap build only has 90 degree elbow/knee bends, but the ankels are pretty good. 6/10 articulation.
The back wheels on the feet do spin, but you can't roll it across surfaces.
The front wheels turn the spikes in the feet upwards and the shins have fold-out claws. The rest is really mostly about equipment.
Equipment:
1 Shield mountable on either arm and either on the side or the back of the forearm
3 Knives in red, green and blue (recommend painting the blades...)
2 extra heads with mini-bot chassis under them that can equip knives for cute stabbing action
1 Four-Component-Rifle composed of an SMG with a scope, an underslung grenade launcher with grip, a pistol butt-stock and a barrel, which all combines into a US style assault rifle
1 Backpack (ala MS08th Ground Gundam) which holds the two heads and two of the knives - The third knife is stored under/inside the backskirt
Conclusion:
While the kit is relatively simple in articulation and content, it's pretty good fun. It's an interesting looking model with a fun design and an instantly recognizable army theme. If you don't like the red helmet, there is a green one and you can take the red shoulders off, so it's mostly just green and grey. The cost is good too, so I recommend getting one. Or three. Why not?
Fantastisk sæt med mange fede detaljer måske ikke det bedste begynder sæt da der er mange dele og detaljer og være opmærksom på som nybegynder, men et fedt og tilfredsstillende kit og få samlet, og så er det et mega fedt display piece.
The build experience is phenomenal, I loved every second of building this kit. The thigh thrusters were a bit finicky but the end result speaks for itself.
Rigtig godt pakket ind ig kom hurtigt frem god service
Rigtig godt pakket ind og kom hurtigt frem god service
Det var fantastisk hvordan de kom så hurtigt frem med pakken og den var rigtig godt pakket ind super god service 😄
The Jesta was developed as an escort unit for the Unicorn Gundam to create circumstances for it to fulfill its anti-newtype purpose and to protect it after its five minute Destroy Mode limit. It is developed from the mint green Jegan, going back to looking more like an upscaled GM.
Aesthetics:
The theme is pretty obvious, it's meant to look like a spec-ops tactical mobile suit that operates in the dark, hence its dark colors, grenades, servo-arm mounted shield and tacti-cool beam rifle with a red dot sight, silencer, front grip and straight magazine.
There are an absolute TON of nub marks and while most of them are hidden under other panels, some of them are quite obvious and they mark the dark plastics easily.
The kit comes with a foil sticker for the head camera, a dry-transfer decal sheet and a sticker decal sheet that I recommend you don't use, since the borders show up clearly on the dark plastic - No color correction stickers.
Mechanics:
This is a totally original model kit that uses a handful of polycaps, which means its limbs and inner frame are totally unique to it, unlike something like the various MG GMs that are amalgamations of kits since 2008.
Unfortunately it is unstable on its feet, as the entire model rests on polycaps inside of its toes, so it wobbles just from blowing on it. That being said, the articulation range is pretty good, with the head being a bit limited, while the ankles have a large range of movement.
The legs can both drop down at the hip and also extend from the calf which makes it significantly taller, but the purpose is to give it a more dynamic range of movement and knee bends.
It has a chest cavity for an LED (NOT included) and light-piping through the neck and out of its visor and head cameras. Left arm has a beam saber slot and right arm has a tray for three extra magazines.
Equipment:
1 Beam rifle with detachable magazine and 3 extra magazines (4 total) - Rifle is storable on the back of the waist
1 Beam Saber Hilt - stored on left forearm
2 Pink Beam Saber Beam Effects
1 Servo-arm mounted Shield
2 fully articulated Hands - Nu Gundam style hands with individually articulated fingers and fingerjoints, no other hands.
1 1/100 pilot mini-fig
Conclusion:
It's okay. It can pose well, but it doesn't feel natural, you're always adjusting for the spongy and wobbly feet and the rifle-butt gets in the way of proper gun poses.
Visually it's a little LEGO-like, full of edges and angles with a bobble head, versus the much rounder and smoother GMs and Jegan. It's cool, but in a kid's idea of cool. Anyway, considering it's a mobile suit from the Unicorn show, it's surprisingly solid, whereas the other kits from the same range often have something wrong with them.
The GM Command type is known from 0080: War in the Pocket. Developed at the end of the One Year War, it had a Space variant and a Ground/Colony variant, with gravity in mind and armed with less powerful weapons in order not to breach colony walls. While easily a match for the latest Zaku II mobile suits, a number of these were destroyed by the Zeon Kämpfer.
Bandai released the red Space version as a P-Bandai exclusive a little before this version came out.
Aesthetics:
While not entirely color accurate, most of the color separation is here. It is a largely anime accurate version, though I do wish they had made yellow Federation symbols for the shield and chest - These are available on the included sticker decal sheet.
The kit also has a foil sticker sheet with camera stickers, though I found them to be somewhat small and ill fitting.
The inside of the face is highly detailed and I used a metal gundam marker to paint it all as well as the inside of the top head camera, so the details show through the transparent green visor, to good effect.
I like the cream/off white plastic and the chocolate brown fits well on top. The interior of the verniers are all grey and should've been red. Bit of a cheap move, considering there are red parts included.
The sticker decals are okay to use on the white plastic, but the borders will be obvious on the darker colors.
Mechanics:
This is a 2.0 kit through and through, most likely based on the GM Sniper II earlier that year (which is likely a development on the original GM 2.0), since it does not have a core block, which means that it can bend over quite well and also tilt side to side.
Besides an opening cockpit hatch it has pistons on the arms, legs and feet.
The shoulders feel weak/fragile due to the old internal piston design. While it does give it a HUGE and impressive range of shoulder movement, it also makes it feel somewhat sketchy. The hands are finger-swap style, so the thumb and palm stay on the arm permanently.
Equipment:
1 Bullpup Machine Gun - One color with a green foil camera sticker, has a detachable magazine and two extra magazines stored on the...
1 Shield - Has a handle and attaches on either lower arm, it can also equip the back skirt beam saber holder
2 "flashlight" Beam Saber Hilts + 2 light pink Beam Saber Effect Parts
9 swap-style fingers - 1 right hand trigger finger for the bullpup, 2 fists, 2 holding fingers for shield and beam sabers, 2 expressive spread open fingers and 2 unused R/L trigger fingers for other weapons
1 Base adapter
That's all there is, however there are 50 individual spare parts, most of which are tiny components.
Conclusion:
The GM is a classic mobile suit with a ton of variations and so Bandai can keep pumping them out without having to redesign them from the bottom. That being said, there are other internal parts than the (more intricate) Sniper II that this is based on. It spans nearly a decade worth of model kits and is an amalgamation of many other suits made before it, plus its own runner, which makes it feel old-fashioned for a 2017 model kit (same year the ZZ Ver.Ka was released).
Its simplicity is its greatest feature, making it a relatively cheap base model for customization, painting and scribing and without that limiting core block feature that the 2.0 GM has.
The Skygrasper was always a bit of a side-character to the Strike Gundam, a jet plane in a world ruled by mobile suits.
It is a pseudo mobile armor in the sense that the jet can use the different packs that the Strike Gundam can, albeit to a reduced degree, while also sporting machine guns, two cannons on either side and a powerful beam cannon turret, as well as anti-ship missiles. Quick, heavily armed and versatile, but predictable. Its primary role is to deliver the different packs to the Strike Gundam and provide support.
Notably, this kit includes the Sword Striker and Launcher Striker packs.
Aesthetics:
Jet - The Skygrasper is primarily white and has plenty of panel lines. It also has its own RG decal sheet, which add a lot of detail to the otherwise plain plane.
The scale seems pretty bad however. The official length is 10 meters, while the RG model is 10cm and scales up to 14,4 meters. In reality, it should probably be as big as the Strike Gundam, if not larger, in order to carry the Striker Packs.
Sword Striker Pack- The light blue looks nice, while the dark blue is very saturated and more cartoonish. The details are good and the decals for the Striker Packs break up the large surfaces.
Launcher Striker Pack - Personally the deep green feels too saturated and the yellow has a lot of contrast. Overall it looks clunky and too monotone green, although the decals help a lot.
There is an additional Real Grade decal sheet for the Striker Packs.
Mechanics:
The Skygrasper can shift its wings back and forth like a fighter jet, but only a little. Its side cannons can tilt a little bit and its turret cannon can turn and pivot. The canopy opens. The landing wheels are separate parts and the panel lids are also individual parts - Big loss risk. The front wheel has two version, one lower and one long. The wings can carry the Striker Packs.
The Sword Striker Pack is essentially a holder for the sword and the shoulder holds a boomerang blade.
The Launcher Striker Pack is a backpack with a stabilizing robot arm for the cannon, while the wings on the shoulder attachment can fold.
Equipment:
1 Skygrasper
4 Panels to close landing gear slots and base adapter slot
4 Landing Gear wheels, two of which are for the front, either long or short
1 Sword Striker Pack with back holster, sword (plus beam effect and pommel beam effect), shoulder attachment, Beam Boomerang blade (plus boomerang beam effect), a shield and grappling claw + 17cm long wire
1 Launcher Striker Pack with backpack w. support arm, Agni Impulse Cannon and shoulder armor w. gatling gun/rocket pod
2 Hands for the Strike Gundam, enabling it to hold the large weapons (my tab broke on the left hand from holding the gun, almost immediately)
1 Dummy - A fake chest and shoulder to hold one of the packs.
1 Base Adapter
+multiple parts and adapters to hold the packs and also equip the shield/rifle from the Aile Strike pack.
Conclusion:
The kit costs the same as the Strike (MSRP - Bandai's price, not the shop), which is ludicrous in my opinion. This is not a mobile suit, nor is the amount of equipment equivalent to a mobile suit kit. It is basically a glorified expansion pack for full price.
Note that you CANNOT make the Perfect Strike version with this kit. There is a separate P-Bandai Perfect Strike kit with overhauled parts, but you can make a "fake" version by equipping the Aile backpack and then just holding the sword and cannon in either hand. There may be a way to customize the Aile pack and the Launcher arm, but it requires cutting and gluing, at the least. It's not necessary, but it helps carry the weight.
Full score, because it has what it advertises, it doesn't do anything wrong. The Skygrasper is a good enough model to display and you can put it on a base, so it all works. Note that the RG Build Strike and Akatsuki are partially compatible with the Strike and Skygrasper, and vice versa, by which I mean that they have the same back-slot. The shoulder pieces are unlikely to fit, but you can put the Oowashi on the Strike Gundam, if you want to for some reason.
Best kit I've built in a long time. Very impressed with the level of detail on the individual parts as well as how detail is achieved with the parts layering. Fun and smooth build experience.
The RG Aile Strike is the third real grade kit and second RG Gundam to be released, 2011, with the MS Joint 3 inner frame (grandpa and zaku being 1 and 2). This is also the inner frame controversially used for the 2024 Akatsuki Oowashi.
Aesthetics:
The kit is pretty typical according to the Real Grade philosophy, that being that it should look like something that could be real and has a relatively high multi-color separation. I say relatively, because this kit has not aged well visually.
For some reason the head has gigantic V fins and looks more cartoonish than the 2014 HG version and even the Entry Grade, both of which look more serious. All the early RG Gundams have this compromised proportion look to their limbs that are built up around the pre-molded inner frame, which make them look very separate from the body due to the simple hip and shoulder joints.
The kit comes with a large sticker decal sheet full of foils, something Bandai moved away from, since the tiny strips tend to peel off, though you can top-coat the kit and increase the durability of them. I actually recommend using sticker decals on most old RGs, since the kits rely on not just the foils but also the intricate stickers for the full experience.
Mechanics:
The Strike is known for modularity and being able to swap out packs, but apart from the RG#06 Skygrasper, there aren't any kits to swap with and it's not compatible with HG packs.
The articulation is limited, notably the feet can't even angle themselves, as they're on a peg and not a ball-joint (baffling). The arms, however, are strong enough to hold up not just the shield and rifle, but the very large sword and launcher from the Skygrasper kit, without any issues.
This kit is specifically known for being an Early Real Grade Syndrome victim due to how sloppy the inner frame was, but reprints seem to be better than the 'red label' bandai kits. Whether from age or a difference in quality, we don't know, but my kit is pretty solid, though with that spongy feel that MS Joint limbs have.
It has sliding panels on the arms and legs and the cockpit hatch opens. The Aile Pack has some movement on the wings but nothing special, while the thrusters have a wide range on the ball joints they're equipped on.
Equipment:
1 Beam Rifle without storage
1 Shield equipped on either arm
2 Beam Saber hilts with an option between two with pegs or two without pegs for plugging into the MS Joint hands - You have to pick, because there are only two top-halves of the hilts
2 Beam Saber effect parts
1 Aile Strike Pack (you don't *have* to use it)
1 Kira "Gundam Jesus" Yamato mini figurine
4 hands - 2 MS Joint fists and 2 MS Joint articulated hands
NOTE - The *NOT INCLUDED* RG#06 Skygrasper comes with two sandwich style holding hands that are rock solid
Conclusion:
I bought this along with the Skygrasper and I've equipped the other packs to make a fake Perfect Strike - Note that there is a P-Bandai Perfect Strike kit with the full equippable set of everything, while the RG#03 and RG#06 are only really meant to give you the option of swapping between the packs, but the result is okay anyway.
The tilt on the Aile pack is super annoying and should probably be glued into place. I drilled a 3mm hole in the grey fin on the Aile pack to use it with an action base, instead of the crotch base adapter which is pretty bad. It's an easy modification and works quite well, but you really should glue the C-clip tilt so it stays mounted in a flush position on the Strike Gundam.
The combined price for the Skygrasper and Strike is exorbitant and not worth it. The P-Bandai Perfect Strike without the Skygrasper is cheaper and better, if you can find it.
The kit has also aged a lot and is limited in bad ways. Not being able to angle the feet is very odd and it just doesn't look particularly good. It's not bad, but it's certainly not good and you still have to baby it since things tend to come off and the weight distribution is bad, especially if you put more stuff on it.
Unless you love the Strike or collect RG kits, I can't really recommend it. RG has come along so far and the new kits are so phenomenal that they leave stuff like this in the dust. Other old RG kits just have more going for them and look better.
I had a great time building this kit.
Do pay attention when making the hands that you sand all the internall parts properly otherwise the moving gimmick will be thight.
Otherwise it was a very nice and unique build. The tracks snapped thougether easely and don't breake loose easely.
I highly recommend this kit.
