Saturday, May 20, 2006

PLAMO Review 6: MG Gundam RX-78-2 Version 1.5

I guess I don’t have to introduce much about Gundam RX-78-2, since he is the reason why there are a bunch of people, including me who call themselves Gundam fans. Although many other Gundam design appears after the original UC0079, Gundam RX-78-2 remains the favorite of them all. Almost all new Gundam product series start with him, Master Grade, Perfect Grade, HCM Pro and so on. For the Master Grade series alone, until now, there are seven Gundam kits released: the Gundam, Gundam G3, Gundam Ver 1.5, Casval’s Gundam, Gundam Ver Ka, Perfect Gundam, and Gundam Ver One Year War, which tells you how popular he is among modelers.

The only one MG kit I have is Gundam Ver 1.5. It’s called Ver 1.5 because half of the parts used are from the initial MG Gundam released in 1995 and another half newly designed, mainly the inner frame of the legs, a new head, new manipulators, shoulder armor, and some new weapons. The most notable improvement is the design of the leg mechanism, which uses the Perfect Grade design. This allows the model to have more flexibility and pose-ability. Armor hatches are also available now, so some mechanism can be revealed. However, all the armor pieces of the leg can be detached to review the entire inner frame, if you would like to do so.

A newly designed head seems to be a good idea as well, as the initial MG model’s head seems a bit ‘odd’ for me. Maybe it’s just my personal feeling, but I’m glad Bandai fix that, somehow. :-P. Other goodies include new armaments: the Gundam hammer (the linked chain is absolutely cool!), and a Gundam javelin (the beam part needs to be painted).

The only limitation seems to be the arms, where their movements are still limited to the elbow. The leg movements are close to Perfect Grade standard, but the movements of the arms is worst than models that came before this one, such as MG GP01 and even MG Dom. However, the details of the legs for this model are so well designed, only a few others can match, like MG God Gundam (which emphasizes on action frame rather than logical mechanism), Gundam Ver OYW which uses the same leg frame, and Gundam MK2 Ver2 released very recently. Therefore, I think this model is a very good design, and if you like Gundam of the original color, then this is still a good model to be considered. Gundam with beam rifle, shield and bazooka mounted on the rear skirt armor Gundam Hammer Beam Javelin Action pose with Hyper Bazooka Armor hatches available for the legs and body