Kit Review

Straight build +
Stickers

HG Gundam Throne Eins - Size comparison with a cigarette pack. The GN Launcher on its back is so huge that the overall height

Size comparison with a cigarette pack. The GN Launcher on its back is so huge that the overall height is pretty impressive.

Closer look at just the body

Body close-up. The body design and parts layout are really unique.

Head and backpack close-up

The GN Launcher on the back is pretty long even when folded..

Arm section

HG Gundam Throne Eins - Quite a unique leg design. The center of gravity looks oddly balanced. The kit itself has no trouble

Quite a unique leg design. The center of gravity looks oddly balanced.
The kit itself has no trouble standing on its own at all.

HG Gundam Throne Eins - Articulation is pretty good. The front skirt armor does limit the range of motion a bit.. but the leg

Articulation is pretty good.
The front skirt armor does limit the range of motion a bit..
The legs themselves fold 180 degrees thanks to double joints.

Action pose with the GN Launcher angled out. The proportions are better than I expected!

GN Rifle action.

HG Gundam Throne Eins - The beam saber mounted on the shoulder.. whether you swing it forward or backward, it's really hard t

The beam saber mounted on the shoulder.. whether you swing it forward or backward, it's really hard to get a good draw pose ^^;

HG Gundam Throne Eins - And on top of that.. what a rip-off.. there's only a beam saber handle — no beam effect part included

And on top of that.. what a rip-off.. there's only a beam saber handle — no beam effect part included in this kit.

Had no choice but to borrow the beam saber from the HG Virtue and plug it in. Fits perfectly. ^^

Mounted on Action Base 2 for 1/144 scale

Stand action

Powerful GN Launcher action. This kit really seems like it needs a stand.

GN Launcher open! Various gimmicks open up on both the front and back.

HG Gundam Throne Eins - The shoulder stock of the GN Rifle swings up and connects to the underside of the GN Launcher. The co

The shoulder stock of the GN Rifle swings up and connects to the underside of the GN Launcher.
The connection is a slide-lock type, so it holds together really solidly. Surprisingly satisfying..

HG Gundam Throne Eins - When the GN Launcher is fully extended, it's about 30cm long — quite a beast. As you know, the whole

When the GN Launcher is fully extended, it's about 30cm long — quite a beast.
As you know, the whole setup is meant to have the other two siblings lined up behind it to fire together..
So the GN Launcher full-open mode doesn't mean much on its own,
and it'll really look the part only when Throne Zwei and Drei are all together.

A shot with HG Exia.
Even setting the GN Launcher aside, the Throne has the bigger build overall.

The Gundam Throne Eins — the first of the three Throne siblings that suddenly showed up mid-series as a source of tension — has been released as an HG kit. In the show, it appears as a new Gundam from Celestial Being and ends up shaking things up in a pretty sneaky way.. though it doesn't last all that long before fading out.

When the Gundam Thrones were first introduced as new Gundam units, the designs got way more criticism than praise for being so un-Gundam-like. You could say they were unique to a fault. And then there's the whole three-siblings setup — it felt a bit too obvious that they were trying to squeeze three kits out of one design, you know?

Anyway, there was a lot of drama and debate about it.. but in the end, the kit itself turned out better than all that negativity would suggest. It's actually pretty common for units that got a rough reception early on to end up as surprisingly decent kits, and the Throne series seems to be one of those cases. For starters, the kit's proportions are noticeably better than what you see in the illustrations or the anime... ^^;

Once you actually build it in 3D, it holds poses well and has a nice sense of balance — it's quite usable. The legs look like they'd be a real balancing nightmare, but the joints are all pretty solid so there's no real issue.. The color separation isn't perfect, but even just the straight build shows off a pretty vibrant color scheme. The molded colors might be a bit hit-or-miss depending on the design palette — it's got a similar feel to the HGUC Acguy — but it doesn't look cheap at all. Either way, above all else, this is a kit that surprisingly gives you that satisfying hands-on feel as you build it. Probably feels even better because I wasn't expecting much..

The weapons are implemented pretty faithfully, and the GN Launcher's open gimmick is well reproduced. However, like a few recent kits in the series, there's a beam saber handle but no actual beam saber effect part. -.- I tested it and the soft beam saber from the HG Virtue fits perfectly, but come on — they could've just thrown one in.. it's getting a little annoying how they keep leaving it out..

All in all, thanks to above-average quality and proportions that actually surpass the source material, the HG kit should do a fair bit to improve Gundam Throne's image. The only real shame is that it didn't last very long in the show..... Seeing the fun GN Launcher gimmick made me really want Throne Zwei and Drei to come out soon so I can put the whole set together. :-)

HG Gundam Throne Eins | 2008. 2 | ¥1,900

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.