Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack.

Four old kits bundled together.

1. D-SSERD

The red Diyzard.

Weapons include a Power Launcher and shield.

Interior view of the shield.

The open gimmick on the back of the legs.

1/144 Heavy Metal L-Gaim Set 1 - The knee articulation is a bit iffy... the tube on the back of the knee is so stiff that th

The knee articulation is a bit iffy...
The tube on the back of the knee is so stiff that the knee barely bends. T_T

The shoulders can raise up a little too.

Binder articulation.

One leftover part remains.

1/144 Heavy Metal L-Gaim Set 1 - Action pose (1/3)

Action pose

2. D-SSERD [WHITE]

Diyzard [White]

Structurally identical to the red Diyzard.

Action pose

1/144 Heavy Metal L-Gaim Set 1 - Together with the HG L-Gaim. At a glance they have a similar silhouette — and apparently th

Together with the HG L-Gaim.
At a glance they have a similar silhouette — and apparently the two were famously easy to mix up in the original series too.

3. ALLONE

Aron.

Articulation

The feet articulate separately forward and back, and the wrists bend quite a lot.

The neck does rotate, but it's blocked by the armor so it only turns just a tiny bit.

Action pose

4. WORKS

1/144 Heavy Metal L-Gaim Set 1 - Works from various angles. (1/3)

Works from various angles.

Underside

Top panel articulation.

The center section moves up and down along with the cylinder.

Body with the top panel raised.

Articulation of the cranes on both sides.

1/144 Heavy Metal L-Gaim Set 1 - There's a set of feet with folding toes included for placing the 1/144 L-Gaim on top, but t

There's a set of feet with folding toes included for placing the 1/144 L-Gaim on top.
The molded color doesn't match at all, and you have to glue it together with the 1/144 L-Gaim, so it's not easy to use.
On top of that, the reissue set doesn't include a 1/144 L-Gaim, so I tried pairing it with the similarly shaped Diyzard [White] instead.

With the Diyzard [White] placed on top.

Together with the 1/144 A-Class Heavy Metal Set.

This kit is the 1/144 Heavy Metal L-Gaim Set 1, released as a Premium Bandai online exclusive. Like the previously released 1/144 A-Class Heavy Metal Set,it's a reissue bundle of four 1/144 old-kit L-Gaim kits — specifically the 1/144 Diyzard, Diyzard [White], Aron, and Works.

These are kits with nearly 40 years of history behind them, so they're genuinely old-school in every sense of the word. Everything has to be glued together, the color separation is minimal, and the proportions feel a bit awkward. Articulation is also pretty lacking, so there's not much you can do in terms of posing — the Diyzard in particular has that pipe on the back of the knee that's so stiff it's hard to bend the knee at all. That said, joint strength isn't bad, so standing them on display isn't really a problem.

Of the four kits, the Works is a transport vehicle for heavy metal mechs — its full name is Base Machine Works — and thanks to decent molded colors and a bit of color separation, it's probably the most visually impressive of the bunch. The Works comes with articulated feet for the 1/144 L-Gaim, meant to be used when laying it down on top. But since there's no 1/144 L-Gaim in the reissue bundle, and the molded color doesn't match the actual L-Gaim anyway — plus you'd need to glue it on — those parts end up being a bit of an awkward inclusion.

As you can tell, this isn't a kit you should judge by modern quality standards. The real value here is simply that these hard-to-find old 1/144 L-Gaim kits have been reissued at all. It's a kit made for longtime fans who loved L-Gaim back in the day — for some people, it'll be a little trip down memory lane. :-)

1/144 Heavy Metal L-Gaim Set 1 | 2024.6 | ¥3,500

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.