plaMoReviewRoundup-WeekEnding2025-06-14

This is the first post of its kind, will backfill previous months.

Real Grade #15 - GN-001 Gundam Exia - 1/144 RG Bandai

Multipart build:

Some people love the design of the Exia but I find it a bit skinny. It's a fencing gundam, the skinny build is to make it fast for swordplay. And it has a lot of swords to play with. 3 physical and 4 beam.

I've been building RG kits in the order they are numbered for the most part and I'm seeing a trend where the design is getting simpler. This kit had surprisingly few runners. I remember the images promoting RG kits showing stacks of runners as tall as the finished kit itself.

Pros

• It's still an RG kit despite feeling "simpler" - everthing that is a colour is a separate plastic part. There's some really nice layering of clear parts on top of reflective stickers with text to get effect seen on the box
• Feels fairly solid once built. At least the one I built doesn't seem like parts will fall off randomly.

Cons

• The clear blue holographic film needs to be placed facing outward on a particular side, or else it won't have that holographic effect. Or at least, that how it looked to me.
• The reflective thin stickers on the thighs pick up the imperfections of the plastic underneath way too easily, which results in a distorted reflection and ruins the effect. I was able to fix it by using thicker foil sticker pieces form an HG kits, see the beginning of part 2. Because the stickers are so thin, they tend to crumple and bunch up in weird places so extra care must be taken.
• The clear blue film again. in the head, very finicky.
• limited leg movements because of how the front/back "skirt" parts and hip joint is designed. Older RG kits had a swinging hip bone specifically to solve the problem this kit somehow regressed to. Basically, this thing can't raise its knees.

One Piece Grand Ship Collection #07 - Marine Warship - non-scale Bandai

Taking a little break with this one after the Exia. It's just a simple, no-tools-required, SD level kit. It has those rounded gates that in theory allow you to pop the parts off the runners without needing any tools.

The kit itself could be assembled in under 30 minutes if you're not too fussy about mess up looking numbs. Painting is highly recommend for these kits as the plastic has all the same details as the stickers moulded on

One surprise though, is that this kit has a gimmick. Previous kits on this line do not have movable parts. This one has movable cannon in the turrets. Well, it only moves a tiny bit up and down. The turrets themselves do not move. But still that's more gimmick that expected.

One odd thing noted was that the stickers and the spots on the hulls do not line up in some places. Entirely possibly I put the sticker on wrong though.

Mobile Suit Gundam GquuuuuuX #1 - gMS-Ω - GQuuuuuuX - 1/144 HG Bandai

You are not mistaken, the model number is in camel case and there's an Omega symbol in there. It reeks of "H@ck3R" vibes, which is probably what they are unironically going for. And I've getting tired of having to count out the us.

The kit itself is not bad. It's not as groundbreaking as most people are making it out to be though - We've had polycap-less kits for while now, such as the The Witch from Mercury line, where the space previously occupied by polycaps can be reshaped into more interesting articulations and gimmicks. It's different from regular Gunpla mostly because the design is very different. Kind of how the enemy mobile suits from Gundam AGE felt novel because they were such a radically different design. I've seen more impressive HG kits before.

On a related note, this kit does not have gimmicks. By which I mean no fancy moving parts, flaps, hidden detail that slide out. The design is kind of mimimalist. But you do get 2 heads for different modes (swappable parts, not a new thing either). You only get 2 pair of hands. Open and Gun/Sword hand.

The weapons aren't too bad. The rifle is actually multiple different couloured pieces (you still need to paint for full effect though), the beam saber part is a nice shimmery slightly holographic plastic. The way the blade loops makes me think it's operate the same way as a string launcher. Maybe it's shown the anime but I fell like I've missed that part. I totally see the designers playing with those toys and thinking "what if the string was plasma". We also get a Heat Hawk - minimalist but not too bad.

It has Kyoukai Senki vibes the way the limb articulations work. The knees and elbows are single jointed and sort of fold like a scissor to reach tighter angles. It adds to that emaciated look. It's super skinny. Like its had tuberculosis. Reminds me of the G-Fighter's Neo Sweden.

While the Evengelion style kind of clashes with classic gundam, we have to appreciate how the touch or realism when it comes to the fuel tanks and thrusters. The entire leg is clearly a rocket.

The feet are as shown in the anime. It's a fancy hoof attached to a rocket afterburner and that translate to this thing cannot stand on one leg. Not a big thing, but just a thing.

Oh and stickers! This kit tries to do stickers right, and almost gets it right. Stickers accent the model, it does not define it. There are some very nice thin sticker but they can be a pain to apply if you lack experience.

And that's just some fresh thoughts on kits built this week. May add in more stuff over time.