It seems like Bandai is switching to landscape view for their “medium” size Gunpla since Deathscythe Hell. I like it! Though the boxart is still not enough to convince me to pick the 00 Raiser up. According to Gundam Guy, China gets the MG 00 Raiser with 4 LEDs while the rest of the world gets one. Is this a case of the “Chinese Ver.” finally being better than the original? Haha well we don’t know if they have to pay more though (that would suck actually).
Yes! Finally I get to have a good look at the beam of Epyon’s beam sword! I am a happy gunplar now. Lovin’ the flair all over the edges. Wonder how many beam effects it will come with? The original HG 1/100 came with two and “wind” effect parts for the wings that looked really tacky.Speaking of the wings- anyone thinks the wings look like they are custom made? Like someone just cut them out of pla-plates?
… that twin dragon or whatever it is supposed to be is still not fooling anyone. Still looks like a mobile suit with its legs over its head. Nothing else.
More landscape art. So apparently this Epyon is from Frozen Teardrop (per the box)? and I heard it is piloted by Wufei now of all people? Watch him start calling Epyon “Nataku”…
MG Delta Plus. HA! I saw this day coming hence why I never bothered with the HGUC. I just love its gray scale color scheme. Gonna have to add it to my get-later list.
I really do not like transformable models… here’s hoping that all structural integrity are kept solid and poseability is not compromised. Can’t say I was pleased with the ReZEL…
I think I might just pick this up for fun too. It looks pretty awesome and it seems like they finally brought back joints for the elbows; for some odd reason, Bandai decided to take a technological step backward in the SD line-up and gave the recent models fixed arms which kinda pissed me off. Now they are marketing the joints as if it is a new development…
Yea… a lot of painting that needs to be done…
SD LOTO = CUTE :D
FUUNSAIKI!! A horse that is able to operate a mobile suit… that is one of the many things that made G Gundam so awesome. Another reason is Master Asia. Nice to see more HGFC kits coming out and maybe the other Shuffle gang members will eventually get some love too. Something from Gundam X would be nice too…
All the above images are from Gundam Guy.
My manager went to Sakura-Con in Seattle, WA back in April and picked up this Exia key cap for me as a souvenir (she also watches Gundam). Yes, I have an awesome manager ^^;. Oh, and that beam sword belongs to her gunpla as well. I’m borrowing it so I can finally review a very old model of mine.
One Gunpla Get. Oh how I couldn’t stop grinning when it finally arrived… More details later.
MG ReZEL photoshoot done and in the process of typing up the review… so review coming soon. It’ll be relatively small though (no omake) so don’t expect much out of it… ^^;. One review a month… I can do it!
ガンプラ命 
Well, not surprising that I’m as late as the white rabbit again in discovering this new blog entry… Anyway, here’s another comment post that even makes users of forums squirm at it’s length! (Apologies for being unable to help myself, Z. More likely than not, any replies to a question or two of yours might’ve been already answered, too. *shrug*)
MG 00R cover: Okay, I’ll cop to still being an MG virgin; I’ve yet to build mine.** But I thought the wider boxes was actually more a necessary need for space. Wider/longer boxes were used for previous MGs like ExS, after all. (Yes, I looked up Dalong’s website to find out.) But if it’s more of a default change simply for a different look of sorts, then I don’t disagree with you. The box art for these MGs are pretty great, after all.
** In fact, I still have yet to do shave off the rest of my TAG 1/144 backlog (excluding my SUMO backups), touch up my FLAT again (since stickers are falling off), photograph it, start a blog up to review it, review it, and go on to the rest of them in lather/rinse/repeat fashion so I can get to my only modern HG, then finally my MG… But I don’t have much for excuses other than my own laziness. :P Ah, hell, I can get around to starting it all on Sunday. More likely, it’ll be around when my newest additions to the backlog arrive. (Yes, at least one more NG.)
Z: I could be wrong on this but the DSH’s box size seems to be the same size as that of the other “medium” MG so it’s just a matter of the image being landscape instead of upright. Now that I think about it… Exia IM’s box is also landscape but I didn’t notice until now.
MG Epyon: If I want to think about it a bit too much, maybe the blade’s length seems a bit out of proportion, or the hilt is oversized. I initially chalked this up as possible complaints from those who just complain for the sake of it, but it’s just a small part of me gnawing on my brain as the negative side of the coin. Eyeballing things in a slightly-different way, it seems like a similar length to WGZ’s beam saber (hilt and blade), and the energetic patterns of the blade looks pretty awesome, not unlike the ones for Deathscythe EW’s shield and scythe.
Given the pattern of only including blades necessary for the melee beam weaponry of the EW Gundams, I would most likely guess it’ll be the only beam blade. I wouldn’t chalk it up as necessarily bad, and I didn’t give any thought to Shenlong having only one for the beam trident.
I don’t quite get what you mean by custom-made wings, unless you mean maybe the wings came fresh out of the factory… Or do you mean how parts of the wings can extend outward a bit. That’s been a reported feature of the MG for a while, as was the beam saber everyone was wondering and overly worried about. I know it wasn’t a feature for the previous Epyon models (and MSiA figure) by default.
First and foremost, I think the boxart for MG Epyon is pretty damn awesome. It’s the proverbial icing on the cake for me to get this MG sooner or later. Perhaps even before Wing ver. Ka/EW. *shrug* But from what I know, it appears in the new EW manga as a blueprint alongside TG II’s and III’s around the time Trowa and Quatre meet up. Yes, it appears in FT too, but the pilot of this resurfacing Epyon is “Zechs Marquise”. Maybe I should bold the quotation marks as emphasis to make you think about it as an “if” than a certainty.
Wufei pilots “Epyon II”, and the best I know about “Epyon II” comes from a couple of forums quoting the same translation of a blog reporting that “Epyon II” is described to sport a dragon fang on the right arm reminiscent of Shenlong Gundam’s. *shrug*
Z: So… this MG Epyon is NOT the Epyon that Wufei pilots but it is, in fact, a “Ver. Ka” of the TV Epyon?
MG Delta Plus: If I bother with Delta Plus, I might get the HGUC version. I think I concluded similarly about ReZEL.
SD/BB Wing ver. EW: I never bothered with SD Gunpla before, but I might make an exception here. The painting won’t be a problem, but part of me had the line of thought along the lines of kitbashing with a 1/144 Wing Zero ver. EW. After going back to one of your Nu Gundam-related blog posts from last december, I’m a bit iffy on that, though maybe not so much on using the wings on my EMSiA, if possible.
Oh, you mean actually build and use the SD? Maybe. Still a nice project to pursue, but I find greater appeal in this straight-forward approach for the MG counterparts, or if the B-Club conversion parts somehow arrived on my doorstep. Looks like a buster rifle the GFF and my WGZ EMSiA can hold! (Y’know, my HGUC Gundam Mk-II can actually hold my HGUC GP02a’s beam bazooka and GFF Wing’s buster rifle at the same time…)
HGFC Master/Fuunsaiki: I’m personally more interested about Master than I am Fuunsaiki, and I might, might pick up Shining before this. Especially if Master/Fuunsaiki is actually a two-pack HG. But I think it’ll take quite a while before I even touch HGFC models (even if I come back to HGs today). When I do, Nobel Gundam will be first on my list.
I look foward to your 1/100 Epyon review. And before you ask, neither of my newest backlog additions are either-scaled Epyon models to review as something before the MG’s arrival. And even if it is, you think I’d be on time? :P
Z: Given your track record… haha.
Just letting you that I replied.
And just making the obligatory reply that won’t be replied to. :)
Just to make this easy so you can stop reading after I give out the obvious answer to your Epyon question: Yes. There you go, now you can move onto something else without reading my two cents on the term “ver. Ka”. :P
So, on that… Despite the convenience of abbreviation, I’m using “ver. Ka” less and less in comparison to “Katoki’s [Fill-in-the-Blank]. And it’s simply because of the way Katoki himself handles “Ver. Ka” and how–as of late–how add-on terms of alternate versions of the same Gundam are being used. Katoki tended to use “ver. Ka” selectively in the GFF and MG lineups; Wing Gundam was “Early Type” in GFF and the “EW” version of Katoki’s MG Wing has minor-yet-noticeable decal differences. He also tends to use “ver. Ka” on MGs like Victory Gundam; an MS he originally designed. Minor differences between that and TV in color scheme, at least.
“EW” or “ver. EW” seems more accurate nowadays to describe Katoki’s GW Gundam designs sans his personal touch on minor details. I remember seeing minor differences of Katoki’s Wing Zero lineart in the Wing ver. Ka manual in comparison to how Wing Zero looked in EW and related products. I have a feeling that if Katoki came out with an MG “Wing Gundam Zero ver. Ka” or “MG Gundam Epyon ver. Ka”, at least the decals would change. Probably standing out more like Wing ver. Ka’s decals. *shrug*
So, in the end, making that overly-long nitpick and point of view may be putting too much thought and effort into something that’s really nothing, but it somehow gnaws at me now. I know before I used “ver. Ka” like crazy as I did “ver. Okawara” or “ver. YourNameHere” with the same logic everyone else uses when using that add-on description to the name.
Well, as long as everyone else knows what context you are using the “Ver. x” in then it shouldn’t be much of an issue. You clearly seem to know what I meant when I asked :P
If the MG Epyon came with everything we’ve seen so far in promos and nothing else, I’d be happy enough. My only concern will be how stable the legs will be since they’re segmented to allow the Dragon’s ‘necks’ to bend. It’d be cool if we could get the legs to canter in a forward sway like the MG Turn A’s ^_^
HGFC Fuunsaiki + Master Gundam is welcome news! I really wasn’t expecting him anytime soon (the horse, not the Gundam) in kit form, but making him a two-for-one set with all the added goodies Master comes with, as well as the ability to close his mantle which even the MG couldn’t do, make for a must-buy for G Gundam fans.
I also like the upcoming MG Shining Gundam as well – mostly for the effect part for the Shining Finger Sword which again, the MG doesn’t have.
I suppose we may be seeing a HGFC Speigel after this?
But the biggest issue in this topic appears to be if the MG 00 Raiser is worth getting? Hm. Not barring that there are so many different iterations of it available at this point, and ignoring that I love MGs in general, the simple awesome fact that it’s a MASTER GRADE 00 RAISER, why should we buy this kit?
I’m gonna go with the data we have so far based on the promos and first looks:
– First off, it uses a slight variation of the 00 Quan[T]’s GN Frame – which is of course, to be expected. This is an inner frame that’s been proven to be stable, impressively articulated, and corrects just about all the flaws its predecessor, the MG Exia had.
– The GN Drive’s binders have locking mechanisms that may help hold poses and prevent sagging.
– The 0 Raiser has a opening cockpit and 2 figures (seated & standing) of Saji Crossroad – something even the Perfect Grade doesn’t have.
– AT LONG LAST, the clear parts for the GN Rifles are molded in CLEAR BLUE! Once again, even the Perfect Grade didn’t have these.
– The kit gives you a choice between using a plain clear part or an orange clear part for the top of the fuselage of the 0 Raiser.
– It would have been easy for Bandai to re-use the clear parts runner mold used in the 1/100 No-Grade for the beam effect parts of the Master Grade. But they made a completely new mold for them.
No-Grade: http://dalong.net/review/00/0117/p/0117_r_j.jpg
Master Grade: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RA3U-sfNZIw/TdUSIi_axAI/AAAAAAAAwSI/IjOXGvU8wGY/s1600/14.jpg
– The next-best kit of the 00 Raiser available in terms of price & quality is the No-Grade 1/100 00 Raiser Designer’s Color Version, which is the only other kit other than the HG 00 Raiser + GN Sword III that has the complete 00 Raiser equipment (the earlier version of the No-Grade did not come with the GN Sword III equipment set). The Master Grade is only 1500 Yen (about US$18) more expensive than this kit – quite a bargain when you consider how much difference in quality the Master Grade has from the No-Grade.
All that said, I’m expecting my pre-order to arrive in 6-7 days. I just wish I had the time in the coming weeks to build it. Real-life work can be a drag sometimes… :P
I just finished reading Siroh’s essay and now yours followed… xD
Hmm.. I never realized that the clear parts from PG 00’s spatulas were not blue until you mentioned it. Strange.
Well, guess I have to give the MG 00 more credit if it is seemingly the best iteration of the Gundam, barring the Metal Build (which seems to be discontinued now).
I’m curious to know the final price of the MG 00R after shipping and price conversion is taken into account. Wonder if it’ll break 3 digits…
*gasp* I have competition?! I better re-read your MG ReZEL (CT) review and scramble on making full use of two lousy cents (that will likely contain minor errors and parenthesis digressions abound)!
im really sure that SD Loto is just bonus for SD Kshatriya just like old SD Z’gok(with GM as bonus)..
by the way, the oversize antenna for SD Kshatriya is fugly :c
SDs got large head, and Triya’s antenna goes to its head. so do the math XD
oversized? mod a smaller one then
hehehehe XDD
MG Delta Plus is a “must buy” for me. Frankly, I was 100% sure that Bandai will release a MG ver. of this kit and my premonition wasn’t wrong ^^
Ohmygod ohmygod OH MY GOD!!
The MG 00 Raiser just got even cooler in my eyes! Check out the promo, box pics and manual:
http://www.1999.co.jp/image/10140958z4/70/4
Features of note:
– New, more secure neck joint housing for the head. Looks even more secure than the Quan[T]’s and gives the neck a double-joint.
– The stickers under the clear lens parts of the 00’s GN condensers are different based on a 00 Gundam or 00 Raiser look. The sticker on the red forehead sensor can read either “00 Gundam” or “00 Raiser” (a la the end of the anime combination sequence).
– TWO KINDS OF HANDS! We get the usual MG 2.0-esque hands with the wrist articulation & split fingers, PLUS a pair of hands similar to the ones on the MG Wing kits that have closed fists and gripping fingers. Both hands have pegs to hold the various weapons in.
– Some of the joints literally LOCK into place (similar to the MG Exia’s knee joints), especially the ankles and the GN Drive binder joints.
– The shoulder binders have locks that allow the 0 Raiser’s binders, GN drives, and all to stay in place above the shoulders, making them look spread-out like wings. This also allows the shoulders more leeway to swing up (which they do!)
Dammit, I can’t wait! My order should be arriving tomorrow or over the weekend! :)
darn…..
just what is behind the box??
it really looks like the MG boxes of the exia and 00 raiser and the PG 00 raiser….(yes, i judged from the crotch)
just what the heck is it!!!!?
i really want this mystery solved…(although it might really be unrelated to the topic, please reply, ohh please… i really need a reply to sleep(lol
Not sure if you’re still awake but that’s the PG 00R. I had trouble figuring out what you were referring to xD.
lol…thanks for filling up my curiosity..
i was on a plane back to my very home land and did not get any sleep at all XD
thanks anyways..
Z, what can you say about the next MG, MG Gundam 00 SEVEN SWORD? quite expected from Bandai, but it’s a bit fast eigh..
Did you already saw the decal sheme of MG epyon? the rub-on decals are gray !?
what is bandai thinking ? the white looks awesome on the epyon! what do we get: gray !!!!
this is unbelievable.