Mg God Gundam

Been a long while since my last post, i was busy with many things, one of which was playing gundam extreme vs on my ps3. Anyway, i have built my oldest kit yet, Mg God gundam, which was made all the way back in 2001. For those unfamiliar with it, it comes from the series G gundam, a somewhat wacky series gundam series that has kung fu elements. The series itself is actually pretty good despite its radical departure from the usual gundam series, but i digress. Anyway the god gundam ( or burning gundam in the english dub) is the lead gundam in the show.

1. Intro:
Model: Mg God Gundam
Size: Mg 1 100
Pilot: Domon Kasshu

Very small box for a MG, about the size of the real grades. And i bought the kit when the gunpla info campaign is going on, which i did not win. Seriously i hope Bandai stop putting the sticker on the front of the box.

Sideshots:

A look around the small box show some dynamic poses for a 2001 kit and its action frame, which is probably considered revolutionary in its time.

There is also a cardboard insert inside the box, like my first MG the Mg freedom.


Manual:

 Front of manual

Older manuals show the back of the kit at the back of the manual

A nice looking colour splashed page in the manual showing us the action poses. Very useful for people like me with limited imagination.



Price: 2500yen. Very low price for a MG. Which is reasonable considering the number of plates.

2. Parts

The head and the arms with shoulders attached. The head is about newer high grade quality, the vulcans, the grey underneath are all done with my panel lining marker. The twin camera lens are foil stickers. I accidentally over-shave the nub mark on the white piece covering the camera lens and now there is a tiny gap between the part and the head. Arms wise, The black strips are painted black instead of using the stickers provided. The blue piece can swivel out as seen and the yellow claws can reach out. Nothing amazing but the articulation is pretty good though. seeing that the hand can touch the shoulders easily.

The torso and the waist are attached as one piece in the construction. I painted the shoulders in chrome silver, and i guess silver vulcans look cooler than yellow ones. The back is hollow for the core lander to dock into. The torso can wiggle slightly above the waist but otherwise not much articulation is present. The black strips on the waist were painted, like that of the shoulders.

Plain looking legs, and the yellow triangle on the knee is a small sticker, which is disappointing but quite expected from a older kit. The black strips on the ankle armour were also stickers. I tried to paint them out with black but hand painting did not work too well with such a big surface area, and that i am a complete novice when it comes to painting. So i had to apply the stickers, and luckily they look ok. The legs are attached to waist with just a polycap-ball joint so the legs are going to be restricted when the kit is put together. The bending is pretty good fortunately, almost a full 180 degrees.

Another plus for the legs is the rubber soles. The soles of the feet are rubber parts, which can potentially prevent god gundam from slipping on wet toilet floors.

The core lander can bend as shown to plug into the back of the torso. The clear piece is supposed to be painted clear green but i have ran out of paint. I decided to leave it clear since it is not going to be seen in MS mode anyway. Probably nobody is going to display this by itself, and there is no straight forward method to display this. Action bases were not available in 2001, so there is no attachment mechanism for the core lander or the gundam itself.

The kit also comes with a large domon figure. Which is just going to stay in a ziplock bag for me.

A total of 4 pairs of hands: 2 shining finger hands, 2 closed fists, 2 kung fu palm pose hands, and 2 weapon holding hands. The grey hands are in rubber, and they are horrible. 2 beam sabers which come with green beam parts.

                                      


The cut marks are horribly obvious on the rubber hands, as there is no way to sand them down or shave them off properly. The weapon holding ones tend to crack open when holding the beam sabers.  I am guessing that even painters do not like them as well, as rubber hands disappear shortly after in gundam kits...

                                       

The green beam parts look really good, and they bend slightly for a more dynamic look. Only problem is that they are anime inaccurate. In the anime God gundam uses pink beam sabers. I cannot comprehend why in the world can this happen? Did Bandai have many leftover clear green plastic? Since apparently another kit in that era, the Mg Sazabi, has similar problems.  Luckily i had leftover pink saber parts which i have no idea were from which kit, and they fit well enough.

                                        

The leftover decals and stickers. I only used a few of the clear sticker decals, and the manual did not state the location for some of the decals. I personally prefer the dry transfer decals to the clear sticker kind, so i just pick a few i liked and applied them to the kit. Many of the black strip stickers are leftover since i painted those parts.

The kit also comes with a second v-fin that seems to be made of rubber. While i have no idea why this is included, i must say that this could come in handy if i damage my original v-fin part. Definitely a nice backup part for those people like me that do not live in japan and thus cannot order missing or broken parts.





3. Articulation and Details:

All assembled and next to the domon figure for size comparison. The kit actually looks far better than my expectation when building the kit. In all honesty, the individual parts (head, arms etc. ) felt like they were of a lower quality than usual. The plastic were clearer not as good as newer kits, some nub marks are very badly placed and worst of all, many panel lining channels were ridiculously shallow for the ink to stay.

Luckily for some reason, when the mobile suit looks pretty awesome once assembled despite its many flaws.

Back of the god gundam. ( sorry for not opening the ring fully). Painted the inner back thrusters in chrome silver.

Articulation is rather decent for an older master grade. As expected from the simple ball joint on the legs/waist, the legs are rather restricted and they can only move forward and back and not much to the sides.

The rubber soles do provide much support and friction to the kit's standing pose, thus with some adjustments here and there the gundam can stand on one leg. The arms folding pose is also helped by a chest gimmick in the model where the chest can slightly be pushed in so that the arms can better fold across. Clearly i did not do such a great job here, but i am sure it can be done better.

The torso can be opened up to reveal not the domon figure in the core lander, but a 3D sticker which is suppose to power up the gundam in some mysterious way. If i am not wrong, this sticker gimmick is not present to the HGFC version, so minor win for the MG version.

The grey rubber hands work fine, but the cut marks can be quite visible in certain poses.

No problems kneeling down. Effect looks pretty good rather unexpectedly.

4. Poses

More action poses. Most are copied directly from the manual itself...

The longer than usual beam saber hilts meant that God gundam can hold each beam saber with 2 hands.

The pink beam sabers work really well. Apparently the Mg master gundam's darkness finger was also molded in the wrong colours as well. Luckily many years later these colour discrepancies were rectified in their newer HGFC counterparts.

 

The shining finger works much better than the rubber ones, since it has no visible cut marks and it stays better in the hand.


5. Sturdiness

While posing the kit, this blue piece on the arm keeps getting loose, especially during the hand swapping.
Otherwise, i would say overall the kit is very stable, with little loose or falling parts. That in itself is a great deal, seeing that even after 10 years kits like Mg 00 Qan[T] has falling sideskirts.

Another aspect of this kit's sturdiness has be do with screws. Many, many screws were used in the construction. There were screws in the arms, knees, ankles and even torso. Many builders seem to have great difficulty installing the screws, but it is actually not that hard. Probably need to get a better fit screwdriver and remember to position the screw 90 degrees to the part. I will say the screws do make the kit more solid with the cost that each limb is harder to pose with. But 'harder to pose with' is always better than having loose parts. In my opinion certain kits could use screws for greater stability. For instance at this moment my Mg Epyon EW's wings are getting really saggy due to its own weight. A screw on each side would have made that better.

6. Conclusion:

As god gundam practices his left arm shining finger to fight Sai Saichi....

Negatives:
1. Rubber hands are bad, and should never be seen in gunpla again.
2. The black stickers should clearly be made in plastic.
3. Slightly lower quality plastic overall.
4. Green beam sabers are anime inaccurate.
5. Many panel lining channels are poorly done, and ink do not stay well in them.
6. No dry transfer decals for a master grade.
7. Core lander is clearly not going to be displayed on its own.
8. Too many screws.

Positives:
1. Decent articulation for a 2001 kit.
2. The shining finger hands were great.
3. The extra v-fin could come in handy.
4. Screws do increase the kit's sturdiness.
5. 2500 Yen for a master grade.

Details: 4/10 Looking at individual parts this kit could very well look like a high grade.
Articulation: 7/10 Decent articulation despite its simple design.
Sturdiness: 8/10 Overall a very sturdy kit.
Poseability: 7/10 Good posing options despite the lack of weapons.

Well this kit seems to have a long laundry list of flaws ( quite possibly my longest list of negatives thus far), i have to say that this is a 2500 yen kit and we get what we pay for. If i treat this kit as a 1 100 non grade or high grade, since it is around the same price as NG Arios and NG Saviour, i will say that this MG God gundam is in fact, mindblowing. Especially if i compare it to my NG Saviour, which is 2600 yen, this kit practically wins hands down in almost all aspect. It has a inner frame, good colour separation, many accessories and extra hands, and a extra v fin, all for the awesome price of 2500 yen. Hence, i will say this is a overwhelmingly good kit, though it is not something i will recommend to non-fans of the G gundam anime.