Box:
The boxart is a really good looking one. You get two Serpent Customs with different weapons, harshly weathered and dented like a grunt suit would. There is also a picture or Mariemaia in the background.
Parts:
You first get a tan colored runner and a dark beige runner all molded in polystyrene,
...as well as another polystyrene runner molded in really, really dark brown. I will tell you that the nubmarks are downright horrible on this guy, and gate placement isn't the best. Also the polystyrene is the really hard type of polystyrene found in older kits.
You also get a polycap runner, which is quite different from your average one. Also, you'll notice that the hands come on this runner, which is different to say the least, but quite normal for older kits.
I also just realised I forgot the picture for the sticker sheet. Sorry, i'll remember to do better next time! >.<
Manual:
Inside the manual you get your average instruction booklet, because it's an older kit, the instructions are more simple and aren't as detailed as modern instructions. You also get a color guide and some poses of the completed and painted product.
Completed Product:
The completed kit is honestly not the best HG's i've ever seen, but it's still quite decent. It does indeed show it's age and dated engineering through things like missing paint apps, hollow parts, mold flash on certain parts, extremely simple build and absolutely god awful unrealistic seamlines. However, for the time, this was quite average, and it's honestly not that bad when compared to other HGEW kits like the Wing Zero Custom, Heavyarms Kai EW and the Altron EW. He doesn't miss close to as many colors as the other EW kits do and doesn't need many stickers as well. In fact, only 7 are used on the kit. That's quite decent!
Articulation:
His head is on a peg, so you may not expect any up or down movement. However, the peg does insert itself into a polycap, which allows slight movement up and down, no sideways tilting whatsoever though. It can also pull a 360° degree spin with no issues whatsoever.
The shoulders are quite large, and hinder a huge amount of movement sideways for the arms. To make it worse, the arm attaches to the torso on a simple static peg, so there isn't any forwards polycap movement on modern HG's here. You're only going to get very little shoulder articulation, but on the bright side, the shoulders can go a full 360° spin, so it's not too bad. They don't have any missiles in them if you wanted to display them open, so that's a slight disappointment.
These parts of the shoulderpads though, are very loose, and always fall off. These will get annoying, and if you don't mind it, I would recommend that you glue them in.
The arm has a single jointed elbow, so you're going to get about a 90° bend for it, they also swivel at the elbow joint instead of the bicep, The hands though are on your typical ball joint, so those are fine.
You may have noticed though, that the arm uses a sticker which is the same color as the tan that wraps around the arm between the beige armor parts. If this were a modern kit, this would've been written off as Bandai being lazy and bad design engineering. However, due to this kit's age, it's excusable, and the sticker itself isn't actually that bad if you put one area correctly.
The waist connects to the torso on a large peg. So all you're getting is a 360° turn for the waist. No other movement whatsoever. It's also extremely loose and turns around a lot. Hip articulation really isn't the best though, and is literally just a ball joint stuck into a polycap, and the end result is quite meh.
Now this is what impressed me the most, double jointed leg. For the time, this would've been amazing and revolutionary, and even in modern standards, it's still a good bend considering the shape of the armor. However...
...the ankle joint for the foot is a joke. Even though the leg has great articulation, you won't be able to use it very well due to the ankle articulation. It's quite limiting, and combined with the bad hip movement, it honestly wastes the great knee movement...oh well.
The thrusters on the back are attached onto pegs, so the can move up and down no problem. They also pivot a tiny bit to the side, but it's nothing really too noticeable.
Accessories:
He doesn't come with many weapons, however what he does have is really nice. He's got closed fists, open palm hands and trigger finger hands. Note that the trigger finger hands are not your classic fist hand despite it looking so, it's solely meant to hold the weapons of this kit as, putting a trigger finger out when you have no gun isn't exactly normal.
The other two hands are purely for display purposes. The open palm hands are quite detailed, but the closed fist hands lacks any "finger" detail whatsoever.
First of the two weapons is the Beam Cannon. It comes completely molded in that dark brown and is essentially putting two giant pieces together, before sticking in a polycap with a handle. It's simple and will require some paint, however most HG's don't have color on their weapons anyways, and the fact that it's a dark, dull color makes it more generic, like your average grey HG weapon.
The other is the Double Gatling Gun, which is simply my preferred weapon of the two for obvious reasons (dakka!). But to put the handle in the hand, you actually need to take out the handle and put it inside the hand first before putting the hand inside.
It may look lazy as it only comes in beige. But a lot of other HG kits do that as well, it's just their weapon comes in a more dull color like grey so it stands out less. Of course, painting will help the gun look a lot better, but I think it's okay OOB. Dakka is love, dakka is life.
Verdict:
Overall, I was quite pleasantly surprised with this kit. I didn't expect anything from this kit when I bought it as it is an HGEW kit, but it's actually really decent for it's age. I would even argue that this is the best HGEW kit out there. Sure it has it's flaws, like missing color apps, terrible seamlines, simple build and bad articulation, but you also have to consider how old this kit is. Sure it's only been released one year before the HGUC Guncannon, which was the first HGUC, but its still quite decent for it's price, I would say it's about the quality of the old 1/144 NG Victory Gundam kits. So in the end, I can recommend this to people who like quick, simple builds, grunt suits, dakka, EW fans, fans of the Serpent and as a practice kit for learning how to get rid of seamlines or handpainting practice.
Pros:
-Quite Cheap (800 Yen). (!)
-Decent looking kit for it's time.
Cons:
-Really obvious and unslightly seamlines. (!)
-Limited articulation overall.
-Small amounts of paint needed for the feet, shoulderpads, head, torso and weapons for complete anime accuracy.
-Large arm stickers.
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