"nice kit but with a few flaws" by Winkelkar (Belgium) on Mar 13, 2004

The problem with models is as with most toys they look awesome and stunning on paper and on photographs. Unfortunately you have to be quite the expert to make em look as good as on the illustration photo's. Of course they look very good if you're no model-building-expert but still they lack that extra something that you want to see. Same here and I think this model kit is somewhat a school example.

First impression of the kit:
- Box:
Looks very nifty with a beautiful CGI rendering of the mecha flying upwards with his gun ready and with some Zeta's flying up too in Wave Rider mode. The side has the pics with the details such as the markings etc. and weapons pic.

- Manual:
Very nicely black and white illustrated manual with some promotional colour pics in the middle. It also features nice artwork of the innerwork of the mecha (head and body, etc.). Too bad all the technical stuff is in Japanese. What I also liedk alot was that the transformation is very clearly illustrated. It took me no problem at all to transform.

- Contents:
Well I already build the thing so i forgot how many runners (trees) it has.... But I guess it was around 10. Also included are a small bag of screws, one sticker sheet and one decal sheet, a small cable for the ones on the back of his legs. Just the standard basic needs to put it together and to make it look somewhat like on the pics. Of course the panel lines aren't painted on but those can be very easily applied with a marker. It doesn't necessarily have to be with the famous Gundam Markers. Any marker that holds on PVC will do. Those can be found in any good toystore.

Building:
Waw...... When you look at the pics you would say damn that looks complicated.... Well rest assured it isn't. And i'm no master builder. Putting the arms and the legs together went very fast and very smooth.
Oh one quick tip: apply the panel lines before you build it. It will be too difficult to do it right afterwards.
I had no problem connecting everything to the right place. Everything snaps together very firmly but if you want to you can apply extra glue for extra support. But it's not really needed anywhere. Just be carefull to place the polycaps in the right position. You can very easily put one of those in wrong. Upside down or with the wrong way facing left or right because someitmes they have a really small corner that needs to be in the right place.
When completed everything feels sturdy in it's place except the hip..... OMG that thing has given me headaches because that is the only thing that is flawed in the design. You see the ball joint for the legs are connected to a small plate that is supposed to be "secured" with a very small peg. And when posing it those pegs can come loose very very easily. So now everytime I move one of it's legs I have to push them and then I can safely turn to bend the legs before the plate comes off. Very very annoying because this serieously decreases the poseability.

Poseability:
More limited than I thought actually. For one because of the very annoying hip construction and second because of the wings on it's back it tends top tip to the back very easily. Also the feet are limited in moving in terms of that the white plates that cover the front of the feet restrict them from letting your Gundam leaning to the front.Also they can't turn a lot which results in feet that have very little choice but to stay strait almost all the time. Too bad otherwise it certainly would have gotten 4 stars.

Conclusion:
A very nice looking model but that's about it. Poseability is seriously hindered because of the design. It looks really great especially with the stickers and decals applied but it's just a statue unlike some other less good looking models but what you prefer looks or playability is your choice of course. I wouldn't mind a bit more poseability even if it was just to add some balance.