War in the Pocket

Here is a few-week-old news item from Gunota Headlines I'd missed... Apparently Bandai has announced the upcoming 3-episode Gundam SEED sequel "Stargazer" will have merchandizing tie ins with, among other things, the Gundam Collection series. The series will debut direct-to-video in June, and MAHQ has some lineart drawings of the mobile suits. Given that NEO 4 is expected in June, perhaps it will feature some Stargazer figures.

At last, the promised review of the 1/400 scale Gundam Collection Musai!

I have decided to start with my complaints, because I have a lot of them. However, I want to note that they are mostly nit-picky complaints and you will find by the end that I do like the model very much. I just think it is important for you to know what I didn't like about it though...

First of all, calling this a “pre-painted model” is a straight-up lie. There is NO paint on this model anywhere. The green parts are molded in green, the gray parts are (mostly) molded in grey, and you put the two together and it mostly looks right. This works fairly well, but there are places where a little paint would have helped... Of course, the White Base model had some unpainted parts (*cough* gun mounts *cough*), but the trim along the wings was painted red... on the Musai, the Komusai’s wheels aren't even painted black. None of it is pre-painted, and there are parts you’ll definitely want to paint. That includes panel lines of course... I guess the quality paint job we saw on the Big Zam, which included panel lines, does not carry over into the larger models.

As I said, I did paint in the panel lines... the model just doesn't look right with them unpainted. There are a lot of them to do, but it was manageable - it just took a long time. I also got some orange and red clear paint and did the windows, which, as I mentioned in my first post, are clear plastic for some reason. Why they didn’t mold them in translucent red I don’t know...

The clear plastic tree also includes six little arm things you can stick in the Musai and then put your figures on the other end so it looks like they’re flying around the Musai... it is a cute gimmick, though several of the holes for the arms are unattractively obvious on the side of the Musai. I’m just saying, if they couldn’t hide them better they should have left them off.

The model was quite easy to build, and I rather enjoyed the building. Panel line painting I hate, building I can do! I do have two complains in this department though... first, sprue placement. Those plastic trees have to attach somewhere, but if a model is not meant to be painted, the places where you removed the sprues will be a little ugly. With White Base, the plastic was usually white and they often connected the trees in places that later got covered... I am very pleased with the invisibility of my sprue leavings on my White Base. With the Musai, we are not so lucky. I have several big ugly trimmed edges right on the side of the Komusai, the sides of the main body and vents, and several other extremely prominent locations. I cleaned some of them up, but others I don’t think I can fix without painting over them... if you really want the Musai to look good, you will want to paint the entire thing. And it is freakin’ big, that will take a while. My second complain is about a mystery screw... there is no screw in the box, yet the instructions have something about screwing a couple pieces together... what gives??

That reminds me, the sliding pieces suck. I mean the hangar pieces that slide out the back and you stick the Zakus in them... they are terrible. Nasty plastic-on-plastic sliding pieces, they move very awkwardly and without that strategically placed screw I am slightly worried they might break or get stuck in there. The other moving bits work nicely, but the sliding hanger pieces are not well designed at all.

So what was good? Well, the quality of the plastic and the detail on the model is excellent. It built easily and without incident (except for that screw thing). Despite having no pre-painted bits, the use of grey and green colored plastic pieces works quite well, so even with a few prominent snip marks where I cut the piece from the tree, I am quite happy with the appearance of my model. The included stickers are very nice - the clear parts fade to nothing if you rub them on real well, so they look as nice as proper decals. The included Zakus are nice, and I like the detachable Komusai with its little wheels... it’s cute. The stand is nicer than the one White Base comes with, and I like that it comes with both versions of the bridge. Besides, it’s huge! Not White Base huge, but it is a very large model and it looks quite impressive with my Gundam Collection figures.

So is it worth it? It was worth it to me, I like the Musai and this is a pretty stunning recreation of one. It is just as expensive as White Base yet has only about half the plastic, and it doesn’t have an exclusive figure like the White Base’s Guntank or Big Zam’s Core Booster, but I think for the serious collector this is worth getting. Just be aware of the work that will be involved if you want it to look good... while it is a great model, it is certainly not “pre-painted” like the figures we’re used to.

With DX4 released, I was beginning to lament the lack of Gundam Collection news... but fear not! The first pre-production shots for NEO 4 have appeared online. The photos are of the Gundam Zeta Plus A1, the ZZ Gundam, the Akatsuki with "Oowashi" sky pack from SEED, the Gundam with G-Hammer (just what I always wanted), and the bizzare MS-13 Gasshia with hammergun, which MAHQ says is "Zeon's answer to the Gundam Hammer." Faithful reader akum6n points us to another posting that claims it will be released in June.

Oh, and in case Mark Simmons and others were wondering, it does appear the Psycho Gundam Mk II from DX4 is as undersized as the Mk I... oh well.

I will get the Musai review up this weekend, I promise!

  

DX4 has been released in Japan, and the usual lists of figures (with pictures!) are online. The secret figures, pictured at the right, include a desert Zaku II and Samson trailer, the G-Fortress with mega launcher, and the usual glow-in-the-dark SEED figures. There is also a previously unknown but not-at-all-rare gold-colored Nu Gundam that's holding Char's escape pod, which is meant to recreate the final scene from the movie Char's Counterattack.

HobbyLink Japan lists DX4 as backordered, but I assume the preorders are shipping now.

In other news, I have finally completed my Musai model and I will post pictures and a full review soon.

Look what finally arrived from HobbyLink Japan... My Musai and Gallop! Of course, here are the customary pictures of the box and its contents. ;-)

       

Unfortunately I don't have much free time this month, so it will take me quite a while to get these built. For now, here are my first impressions.

The Gallop is really nice. I had been worried about the quality of the resin molding, but it is excellent. The model has no air bubbles, which I didn't think was even possible with resin casting. There is a fair amount of flashing, but most of it comes off easily - I did some of the detail work with my fingernail. Most of pieces that are not to be painted yellow - the engine intakes, the main gun, and so on - are separate pieces so I think this will be pretty easy to paint. Oh, and it comes with open and closed versions of the main doors, so you can pose it with figures in the doorway.

As for the Musai... my first reaction was "Wow, this box is not nearly as large or heavy as the White Base's box." Which is to be expected I suppose, for while the Musai is almost as long as White Base, it is considerably thinner and less massive. Anyway, the model looks fairly straightforward to build and the detail on the model is phenomenal. The panel lines are not painted, as I expected, and other details will require paint to look their best... things like the inside of the hanger doors, the door that connects to the Komusai, the Komusai's wheels, and various tiny lights and other hull details. I also noticed the transparent pieces are all molded in clear plastic, not the translucent red the bridge windows are shown as in all the photos I've seen. It should be easy enough to go over them with translucent red paint, but I still wonder why they didn't bother molding them in red. Anyway, those are my first impressions... much more to come!

The official Bandai HobbySite has posted the release schedule for March, which lists the release date for DX4 as March 20th. That day will also see the re-release of all three previous DX collections.

A picture of the list of DX4 alternate figures from Hobby Japan magazine has been posted on the Hong Kong based ToysDaily Forum. Nothing too exciting here, just alternate weapons (mostly beam sabers) for 9 of the 14 figures... see the picture for details. No word yet on secret figures.