But we're not here to talk about the G-Self. I've always loved the G-Arcane due to her feminine design and how it was executed. She looked really good to me, and seeing the suit in action in the anime just increased my love for it. Sure, it has bad moments, but I still love the suit as a whole. So recently a new Gunpla shop had opened up in Mong Kok and had this kit in an opening sale for $8.4, which I had just enough for, so I picked her up, and began building once I got home.
Box:
The boxart to the kit is a simple but effective one. You get a picture of the G-Arcane about to shoot her giant rifle in space with the transformed mode behind it.
Parts:
You get 2 light-grey runners...
...2 red runners...
...and 2 orange runners. If you can tell by this, there are a lot of #1 and #2 runners in this kit meaning there are a lot of shared or mirrored parts here.
Not all parts are mirrored though, you also get a white and dark grey runner with the kit.
As well as clear green runners for effect parts...
...and a red polycap sheet.
You also get foils and clear marking sheets. You get two extra for each marking, which Bandai should do a lot more as it's easy too lose these tiny stickers, and I like to get my sticker placement as perfect as possible, meaning sometimes I like to redo placement until I find it acceptable.
Manual:
The manual is your average manual. It's got instructions, the part count, and the color guide.
HGRIG manuals are also quite interesting compared to your average manual. Like how the different parts are cut into sections, and on this kit, how it makes you assemble the left parts before the right as opposed to the opposite.
Completed Product:
On first glance, she looks good. Her hands are a bit bigger than they should be, but it's not horrible. Although, there is one problem I have with straightbuild visuals. You see those black areas in the white parts? In the anime and pictures, they are supposed to be black, however Bandai doesn't give you any parts or stickers to fill them in, meaning you need to paint the kit a bit to get it anime accurate. Almost every white part on the base suit needs some black paint, but since I didn't have any, I had to fill them in with Gundam Marker. It was a horrible time, and took me about two hours to get them perfect. This was one instance where I wish we had stickers for these black parts. But besides that, a straightbuild will serve for a decent representation of the suit seen in the anime. You'll want black paint for painting and black panel washes for lining, there are a lot of areas on this kit where doing stuff with gundam markers will take quite a bit of your time.
She's cute though.
Articulation:
Her head is on a ball joint, so pretty unlimited articulation there. She has 6 safety tabs that you should shave down on her fins though.
Due to her transformation gimmick, she can look up...quite a bit.
Her shoulder is on a polycap, and goes out that much.
Her arms can swivel, and elbows are on a single joint. The" frame" goes about 160˚, but her armor design restricts it to 90˚.
Her hands are actually on two joints, one on the armguards, and the actual hand ball joint for the arm. This gives her a bit more hand movement, which is quite cool.
Her upper waist does have a bit of side articulation.
Although the bottom half does not have any movement besides a 360 turn. It's also worthy to note that the upper body fall off the torso polycap...a lot. It's unbelievably loose and it's a real annoyance, i've dropped the lower half of the kit many times because of it. This and the missing black areas on the white parts are my two main complaints of the kit.
Her side skirts don't go very far, you're only going to get this much stretch, although it should be enough. Thighs are also on a swivel.
You'd think her back skirt would move at least a little, sadly this is not the case. Her giant back skirt is completely static, and because of this, you can only bend the leg using one joint, giving about a 90˚ bend, which is enough to say the least.
Her legs are double jointed with floating knee armor, allowing her to have a nice 180˚ bend for the legs.
She does have a toe joint due to transformation, so that's neat but sorta useless.
Accessories:
She comes with quite a large amount of accessories.
She's got open hands. They are also a bit bigger than they should be, but I must say, the fingers are quite detailed. The problem is you'll notice that these hands have hollow holes in them similar to really old kits and Ex-Standard kits. Why? I don't know, but I don't think it was a good idea on Bandai's part. We shouldn't have any more hollow parts on HG's at this point, so I definitely question Bandai's thinking on this. Thankfully, the ones on the handguards are blocked by the large armguard on the forarms, but the holes in the palm are really blatant and can't be covered. Even worse the handguard isn't even the same size as the one on the fist. What's with this Bandai?
Besides those complaints, they work like how they should.
She's also got a pair of clear green beam sabers. The hilts don't store anywhere on the MS, but they still look cool. You'll also notice that they are more thin than your average beam saber, similar to the Turn A Gundam. I personally love these types of beam sabers, and they are anime accurate
She also comes with a pair of beam wires, a weapon more unique to this line. They come when cut off the runner, they come straight, however the manual says you can bend them. Word of advice: don't make the same mistake as me and bend them too much though, they will snap eventually, so only bend them a bit. I managed to fix mine with some cement/superglue.
They look quite good, and I really like this unique weapon. It doesn't make much sense to have a beam whip, but I think it's a cool concept.
She also comes with two forms of her beam rifle, one in the regular rifle mode, and the other has the blade active and handle extended for melee use. Also, trying to paint the hole at the end of the barrel black with a panel lining marker was a real pain, you'll want a small tiny brush to help here.
Unfortunately, the handle also shares hollow hole flaw that the hands have. Oh well.
She holds the rifle decently well, but with the elbow/shoulder movement, it's a bit hard to get her left hand to hold the rifle. I found it easier to do single handed poses.
She also gets a pair of adaptors, note that they only insert into the arm one way due to that small tab.
You just line the tab with the hole, and put them in.
Then you get the hole in the rifle and plug it into the adaptor.
The official reason for this is just storage.
But if you want to, you can flip it and use it as an arm cannon. Note that the hole is only on one side, so unless you don't mind having upside down guns, you can only put it on the right arm right side up.
The sword version of the rifle looks really good, however she doesn't hold it very well. Firstly It doesn't fit tightly into the hand and is loose, similar to the Guison hammer. Another thing is that the armguard gets in the way of the sword hilt, making it even harder to hole the sword. It's a bit disappointing, because I really like how the weapon looks, oh well.
You can also store it using the same adaptors as well as make it an arm blade just like the rifle mode. Also like the rifle mode, the hole is only one one side, so you'll need to put it in the right hand to have it right side up.
She also comes with a shield, like other Gundam shields, the bottom is very detailed and lining will be your friend.
It attaches via the same adaptor, although I find that it sits a bit far away from the arm for a shield due to using said adaptor.
It still works fine however, and looks just as good.
You can even take the white parts out and place them in further out to reveal it's Sensor Burner gimmick, it's neat.
Her final accessory is a transformation block for her transformation! Or should I say partsformation. I actually don't mind partsforming very much, especially if it's not too bad like on this kit. But I know a lot of people hate it. This is also my first transforming kit, and let me just say, I love transforming MS.
Transformation:
First you take the upper body off, which won't be hard at all due to that loose torso. You also take the legs and back skirt off of the waist.
The waist is excluded from the rest of the entire transformation, but keep it safe! You'll need it for the MS mode.
You then turn the head 180˚ and raise her head up as shown.
Then you unfold her backpack and slot it over her face, it does align but doesn't peg in or anything, you should be able to tell when it's aligned though.
You then get the legs, and make them bend a full 180 and close up the toe. After that, get the thigh polycap to face upward.
Repeat with other leg.
While knowing which leg is right and left, plug them into the transformation block.
Then slot the upper body onto the block as well.
Then get the back skirt and fold a top panel outwards.
After that, flip out the little wing endings.
Now you put it on the top of the block.
There you go! Transformation into Mobile Armor (?) mode is complete.
There is a hole on the bottom to peg it on your average HG stand. It's a bit big, so it won't plug in securely, but it's good enough.
You can also use the adaptors to attach the rifle and shield. Officially, the rifle goes into the right side, while the shield goes to the left.
Ta da! Now she's armed and ready to hunt down stuff.
Verdict:
It's overall quite a good kit, admittedly a bit of why I like this kit it's a bit due to bias of how much I love the show and design, but it's still got it's strongpoints anyways. It's got parts of it that are cool like it's unique design and colorscheme, you don't see many orange or feminine Gundam Mobile Suits very often. Her weapons are very sweet and while some of her weapons aren't as unique, the design and execution is what wins it. Sure she's got her flaws, like her loose torso and lack of black stickers/parts for areas that need it, but overall, I think it's a kit that is definitely different from your average MS, and a worthy pick up for those who are interested. I'll recommend it to fans of G-Reco, The G-Arcane itself, feminine MS, and people who want a unique MS or a different kit from your average Gundam. Personally though, I think this is one of my favorite kits, a lot due to my bias, my love for the show and the MS.
Pros:
- Feminine Gundam design, makes it more unique.
- Articulation is quite good.
- Cool, unique weapons that differentiate themselves from other versions.
- Transformation into MA (?) mode is quick, easy and straightforward.
- Color separation is pretty good, just not good enough for the design.
- Color separation is pretty good, just not good enough for the design.
Cons:
- Torso pops very, very easily [!]
- Missing a lot of black coloring on white parts, and has no parts or stickers to fix this. [!]
- Can't hold the rifle in sword mode very well
- Small amounts of hollow holes.
- Small amounts of hollow holes.
- Hands aren't to scale.
No comments:
Post a Comment