In Gundam SEED Destiny, three new mechas introduced at the initial part of the anime are Chaos, Abyss and Gaia. Developed by ZAFT as new weapons after the war, each of these Gundams can transform into different MA modes to give them advantage during battles in different terrain. However, news about the development of the three Gundam reached O.M.N.I and three strengthened humans were sent to hijack these MS. Of course they succeeded in doing so; else we won’t have much to watch in SEED Destiny. Chaos, piloted by Sting is adapted for air and space combat; Abyss, piloted by Auel for underwater combat, and Gaia, piloted by a girl, Stella, specialized for ground battle.Among the three Gundams, my favorite is Gaia. Partly because I like the color scheme of black and yellow on this MS, another reason is that the pilot, Stella’s development in the story is quite tragic. A strengthen human who was erased of the memory of the past, and trained only to kill, Stella tried to break free from such contentment with the help of Shin. Being unsuccessful, Stella was brought back by the Blue Cosmos, the organization behind O.M.N.I to pilot the devastating MA, Destroy Gundam, and ended up being killed by Kira with his Freedom Gundam.
If you compare the three characters mentioned,
I think Stella’s story is the most intriguing one. So, I bought the HG version 1-144 scale Gaia immediately when I saw it on the shelves of Packson Toy Department. Don’t get me wrong, Chaos looks cool as well, I even got a 1-100 scale model on that one, but Gaia is still my favorite.On the model, I have not much to complain except for the details of the shield. You can see that I don’t paint this model because I ran out of Gundam paints. Stickers are provided but only cover the little vertical bar in the middle. I was looking for the yellow stickers for the top and the bottom bits of the shield but have to settle with what Bandai have for this box. You can see that the rifle is in plain grey as well.
On the transformation of this model, the arms of Gaia don’t fold up to form the paws for the cat-like four-legged MA. Instead, you have to swap them with extra parts to get the paws. The transformation is pretty cool, but since the legs have to fold to the front to form the MA, Gaia ended up with no knee cover (which is in practical battle condition, a total disadvantage). The legs look extra skinny as well.
SEED destiny ended a long time ago, there is no news on any plan for more models on Gaia, so I don’t think Bandai’s going to release the 1-100 scale version for this mecha. So for a model below RM 100, this fella is quite a good choice to be added into another one of your Gundam list.
