Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Upper body close-up

HG Tieren Taozi - The chest area is still plastered with stickers. It would've been so much better if they'd done proper colo

The chest area is still plastered with stickers.
It would've been so much better if they'd done proper color separation while they were at it — this is a total blemish on an otherwise great kit..

The head. The black cross section on top of the head has nice color separation too..

The rear. There's a big tank attached to the backside.

HG Tieren Taozi - Arms, legs, and weapons. The design is completely different from the original Tieren. (1/4)

HG Tieren Taozi - Arms, legs, and weapons. The design is completely different from the original Tieren. (2/4)

Arms, legs, and weapons. The design is completely different from the original Tieren.

The feet in particular have gotten longer.

2 inner thigh parts are left over as leftover parts.

HG Tieren Taozi - The tank on the tail moves up and down through a wide range of motion. The default position is with the tan

The tank on the tail moves up and down through a wide range of motion.
The default position is with the tank raised upward.

The shoulder armor moves freely at various angles. The defining feature of the Tieren Taozi.

The articulation is still pretty good, but..

HG Tieren Taozi - The leg articulation is a bit worse compared to the original Tieren. This is because the structures added t

The leg articulation is a bit worse compared to the original Tieren.
This is because the structures added to the back of the legs and the ankle guards added at the ankles restrict the range of motion.
Even so, the range of motion has only narrowed somewhat, and it still delivers above-average articulation.

The front-to-back shoulder movement gimmick is still there too..

Action pose

HG Tieren Taozi - Even with the somewhat reduced leg articulation, poses like this come together naturally. (But.. c'mon, the

Even with the somewhat reduced leg articulation, poses like this come together naturally.
(But.. c'mon, the pilot is a girl — that pose is a little much..)

Kneeling pose.

Spread the shoulder armor out wide and it looks just like wings.

Stand on!
Since this is a unit that mainly operates in space, it really looks its best up on a stand.

Carbon blade action.
On the Tieren Taozi, the carbon blade can't be stored in the backside..

Flight mode..

Comparison with the Tieren Ground Type.

Most of the exterior design has been changed overall.

Together with Allelujah's Gundam Kyrios, its rival in the show.

HG Tieren Taozi - No particular reason, but for some reason I feel like comparing it to the Live Concert Version Zaku Warrior

No particular reason, but for some reason I feel like comparing it to the Live Concert Version Zaku Warrior from Gundam SEED. ^^;
Both are kits molded in an unusual pink, but the Tieren Taozi's molded color is a bit more subdued and matte, which gives it a more premium feel.

The Tieren Taozi — the personal unit of Soma Peries, the Human Reform League's super soldier — has arrived as an HG kit. This is the first variation of the Tieren, which looked like it was going to spawn a ton of variants, and just looking at the runners, about 60% of the parts are new, so it's worth a lot more than just a simple retread. From head to toe, all the major exterior armor pieces are brand-new designs, so it really feels like an entirely new kit.

The pink molded color, which I was a bit worried about, actually came out looking quite lovely and soft. Back in the Gundam SEED days there was a pink Zaku Warrior known as the Live Concert Version, and while the color itself wasn't bad, there was something a bit off-putting about the slightly garish, shiny feel of the plastic.. Thankfully, the Tieren Taozi's pink is more matte and subdued, so that cheap, plasticky feeling is almost completely gone.

The Tieren Taozi has far more color separation points than the base Tieren — even the yellow and purple parts are properly separated — so even a straight straight build shows off a really vibrant color scheme. That said, the chest area is still handled with stickers, which creates a noticeably unbalanced feel. They did such a great job with color separation everywhere else, so why did they have to cheap out with stickers on the most visible spot.. -_-; A textbook example of Bandai's signature sabotage.

The Tieren was already an exceptionally well-articulated kit to begin with, and the Tieren Taozi carries over the same joints. However, the Taozi version comes with design changes in several areas, and the various structures added to the legs do restrict the articulation somewhat. Even so, once you put it up on a stand.. it still shows off articulation that's well above average.

One of the defining features of the Taozi version is the gimmick where the shoulder armor spreads out like wings, along with the tank on the backside. These two elements really amp up the dynamism of action poses. The shoulder armor gimmick in particular could've been embarrassing if it were too loose, but it's very stiff and solid, so it holds its position firmly no matter what pose you put it in.

Since the base kit itself was already such a high-quality build, the variation kit with its swapped-out exterior armor feels fantastic too. Sure, the articulation — which was already phenomenal — has taken a slight hit, but the vibrant color separation, color scheme, and design more than make up for it. When it comes to pure build satisfaction straight out of the box, it's hard to imagine a kit much better than this one. :-)

HG Tieren Taozi | 2008. 1 | ¥1,500

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.