Model Specifications

Capsule
Took the longest time to complete this kit - one of the main reasons being this is my first attempt at using a primer before painting. That said, the high part count and the full internal skeleton also took a lot of time to paint and detail.

This is another one of Bandai's high end kits retailing at over S$100. It's the last MS piloted by the famous Amuro Ray in his last battle against arch-rival Char Aznable's cool Sazabi.

Very well designed kit with excellent fit and quality. Die-cast parts a definite *PLUS*.

Highly recommended, but it's best if you can get it at discount prices as it can be rather pricey.

Kit Details
In General
This model figures a complete internal skeleton.

Head Unit
Standard MG Gundam head features... transparent piece for eyes, seperate lower face plate, 2 piece outer shell. What's nice is that the antennae for this gundam is very sharp! No sharpening necessary for this one (I can't see why this can't be done for other Gundams... the NT-1 Alex's antennae is *awful*)!

Of interest is that the head attaches to a next piece which is connected to the main body via a pivot point - this allows the head to look upwards - presumably for a flying pose... but the way the whole thing fits together it looks plain freaky when positioned that way.

Body Unit
Nice internal details. Upper body armor can be easily removed to reveal the innards. The cockpit hatch pivots on a point near the next so the whole centre portion opens to reveal the cockpit.

When assemblying the joints in the upper body where the shoulders will attach, I found that they were on the loose side even though they were polycapped. My suspicions were proven right when after assemblying the whole model the shoulders would *slouch* under the weight of the arms. A tip to fix this later below.

Lower body is attached to upper via a huge ball joint. It also features a die-cast crotch piece to which the hips will attach. This adds nice weight to the model in general and adds to the great balance that this kit has.

All 6 armor flaps on the lower body are poseable which makes for vey good hip mobility.

A nice touch is the vents on the front and back flaps which reveal more internal parts inside. The parts are all molded in colour so even if you don't want to paint them, they'll look decent.

Backpack features full removeable armor - a departure from the normal one/two piece affairs with 5 seperate pieces of armor. The bazooka, fin-funnels and one beam-saber attach to this backpack.

Arm Units
Screws in the shoulder and lower elbow joint ensure that they remain tight. Elbow is double-jointed but each of the individual parts seem to be made up of more parts than necessary - meaning extra work and seam filling... Both forearms feature a sliding tab which - on the left arm - allows the saber storage mechanism to work... on the right arm it is non-functional.

All armor is attached via polycaps.

Hands are standard MG-type affairs with poseable thumbs and fingers (lower three are molded together and index finger is seperated). One interesting addition is a joint at the base of the palm... this allows the RX-93 to do push-ups if he wanted.

Leg Units
Left and right legs are made of identical parts which means monotonous assembly. The ankle joint is die-cast which moves the figure's centre of gravity down so it is very stable. The knee joint is pretty nifty: not only is it a double-joint, it also features 2 nice working pistons on the front. 3 screws hold the parts together and these babies are *TIGHT* which is good for a figure this big and heavy.

All armor is attached via polycaps and the rear of each leg features a booster that is poseable.

Weapons & Accessories
Each of the six fin funnels has 2 'joints' which pivot out to join them all together. They are flexible and feature a nice mechanism inside so the funnels 'click' into place when they are moved.

The bazooka and beam weapon are nicely molded and rather than make them 2-piece affairs Bandai has put in a little more effort so that some of the seam-lines are covered up by additional pieces. I spent less time sanding these weapons than normal as a result.

The Good
Before I say anything else, I must stress that I like this kit very much. I think it's one of Bandai's best jobs yet as far as design is concerned. The parts fit is excellent and the plastic used is of a higher standard than in older kits - this to me translates to being less brittle and feeling somewhat more durable.

The die-cast parts in the groin and ankles give this model a very solid feel with the weight they bring. If you don't paint this one, you'd be assembling an almost toy-standard figure that you can play with. I say "almost" because the intricate fin-funnel is on the more fragile side. The strategically placed die-cast parts allow the figure to be bottom-heavy - thus it can achieve several poses even with all the accessories loaded onto it's back without falling.

And what a list of accessories it carries. Although we aren't talking Kampfer level accessorizing here, I have always liked kits that carry a whole barrage of weapons. Nu-Gundam carries a backback that houses a beam saber, bazooka and 6 fin funnels (these are supposed to be cool high-tech weapons that have both defensive and offensive capabilities). All these weapons give the figure a very commanding presence.

In addition, some nifty bits have been added to the accessories: the beam saber that stores in the backpack has a little moveable piece that flips out (can't see what functionality it offers but it looks cool), bazooka has 4 shells visible in the non-removeable magazine, fin-funnels are fully-poseable.

This model features a full - and I mean *FULL* internal skeleton. All the armor can be removed to show cool details inside. You will find details in the backpack as well which features about 5 pieces of armour alone! If you are concerned about the insides looking good, you will be looking at quite a but of filling and sanding to remove seam-lines - especially in the arms. This translates to a lot of work if you care about the insides like I do... although it's a pity that a lot of it is covered with the rather simple looking armour.

Simple? Yes. This suit - in the story - was designe by Amuro Ray himself and I think he went for a purely functional design. This results in a very clean mecha which - in contrast to flambouyant designs found in Gundam Wing - is very appealing to me... very *mecha*!

Oh! In addition to the accessories on the backpack, the model has another beam-saber stored in it's left fore-arm. Part of the arm slides back to release the saber - nifty! Both left and right forearm designs are essentially identical except for this mechanism so if you wanted to you may choose to build the saber and it's storage into the right arm instead (or you could buy mod both arms to store sabers!).

This MG kit has more screws than any other that I've built - 3 in each arm and leg - which makes for a very sturdy model that won't become loose anytime soon. On the legs, Bandai even provides little pieces to cover the screw-heads so they won't be visible - nice to see they didn't go cheap here.

Last bit of praise - this thing is HUGE compared to the other MGs. Without the fin-funnels it already stands at 22.5cm (about 9") tall. If you want something to take up shelf space, this is it.

The Bad
Not too many bad points to mention on this kit... but one in particular I *have* to mention.

I have never understood why designers locate the shield on the outer side of forearms! Inspect the pic above and you'll see what I mean. What happens when the shield is located there is that essentially the MS can't really bend it's elbow in any nice pose while the shield is attached. Another MS that suffers from this syndrome is the gouf (pic). In these cases, the arm has to be posed straight when it's by the side of the robot - the elbow joint is positioned only to allow it to bend inwards towards the hip like an ape... not cool.

What I wish they would do is to place the shield on the side of the forearm so that the elbow can still bend nicely even with the shield in place (one nice example of this would be the gouf-custom (pic).

Let's do some nitpicking next...

Although this kit has a fll internal skeleton, one might find that the details on the internals isn't quite as involved as some other kits. In other words, some of the detailing might border on the simple side. Not a big problem with me though..

And talking about "simple", the clean and simple design of this suit might not be everyone's cup of tea. Some might feel that it's a lot of money to pay for a simple looking kit... but like I said... it works for me. :)

I mentioned a loose joint in the body assembly where the shoulder joint attaches to earlier. Here's a simple fix that is applicable to most loose joints (including that awful hatch on the Gelgoog). Take a set of long-nose pliers and apply pressure on the plastic 'ring' that will be holding the 'polycap'. Just apply enough pressure to slightly deform the ring. This will make the joint tighter and I've found it to be quite a permanent solution.

Other than that, I don't really have anything else negative to say about this kit - it *IS* that good. I did hate taking forever to paint it but that's just me. The price tag is a little high, but I would recommend picking it up at the 20% discount sales that come by every now and then...

In Closing
I guess one bad thing I didn't mention in the previous section is that I will now be tempted to get the Sazabi as well just to match this big guy... that's bad because the Sazabi is expensive and I've heard that Bandai did a poor job on that kit. Oh well... back to the Nu-Gundam...

In short, very nice kit. Will look good even if you decide not to paint it. I love the weight of the die-cast parts and it's commanding presence because of it's size and clean look. Can't go wrong with this one!

Check out the gallery for more pics.

Send questions or comments to gunbase@hotmail.com.