Kit Review

Straight build + Stickers

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV - Detail shots (1/4)

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV - Detail shots (2/4)

Detail shots

Weapons & Accessories

The shotgun's stock is movable.

You can use joint parts to mount weapons on the rear/side skirts.

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV - To deploy the Lambda Driver, you have to remove all the cover parts on the shoulders

To deploy the Lambda Driver, you have to remove all the cover parts on the shoulders and back one by one.

Then attach the covers onto the separate deployment parts.

Lambda Driver open state

The dagger-in-mouth pose is done via parts swapping.

You can bend the neck forward to open up the cockpit hatch.

Remove the parts below the hip joint to expose the stand hole.

Leftover parts

Limb articulation is excellent.

Forward/backward shoulder movement

The waist can only bend forward to a certain degree.

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV - There's a gimmick where you pull the hip joint pin downward to extend the range of m

There's a gimmick where you pull the hip joint pin downward to extend the range of motion.

Natural kneeling pose using the hip joint extension gimmick

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV - Even without the hip joint extension gimmick, the skirt-free design still allows for

Even without the hip joint extension gimmick, thanks to the skirt-free design,
you can still pull off this level of natural posing.

Mid-air leap pose

Two-handed shotgun pose

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV - Monomolecular Cutter action (1/3)

Monomolecular Cutter action

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV - Alongside Kotobukiya's 1/60 Arbalest (left), released the same month. The Koto versi

Alongside Kotobukiya's 1/60 Arbalest (left), released the same month.
The Koto version is the TSR variant so the design is a bit different, but the size difference is what jumps out at you first.

Two Arbalests released at the same time, of all things...

In April 2018, alongside the airing of Full Metal Panic Season 4 — Invisible Victory, the 1/60 Arbalest Ver.IV was released. Kotobukiya also put out their TSR version Arbalest that same month. Bandai released a total of three Full Metal Panic kits simultaneously — the Ver.IV alongside two Guren Mk-II variants.

The articulation is top-tier, thanks to the limbs that fold up nicely and the skirt-free hip joint design. There's also the hip joint pull-down extension gimmick on top of that, but honestly the base articulation is already so good that you can pull off dynamic poses without it. The feet are a bit small though, and the ankle joints feel oddly restrictive, so posing on the ground can be a little limiting — but once you put it on a stand, it feels like pretty much any pose is possible. Joint strength is solid too, so poses hold well, though with so many moving parts it does take a bit of time to get everything lined up just right.

The weapon loadout is generous as well. The dagger-in-mouth look is done by swapping out the face parts, and you can use joint parts to mount weapons on the rear and side skirts. The Lambda Driver deployment — arguably the key gimmick — is handled via parts swapping: you remove all the cover parts from the shoulders and backpack one by one, then attach them onto separate deployment parts. The Kotobukiya Arbalest has a fold-out deployment mechanism, but while the parts-swap approach here is a bit fiddly, it does feel more solid in comparison.

All in all, the exceptional articulation and solid color separation make this a high-quality mecha model kit. But perhaps the biggest selling point is the price — at ¥2,800, it's less than half the ¥5,800 Kotobukiya Arbalest. Sure, it's on the pricier side compared to regular Bandai Gunpla for what you get, but thanks to Kotobukiya (of all things), it ends up feeling like a bargain by comparison.

Of course, the Kotobukiya version has its advantages — a fold-out Lambda Driver and a wire gun are included — but in terms of parts fit, build feel, molded color quality, and joint strength balance, the Bandai version is simply the better kit overall. Technically they're different designs too, TSR vs. Ver.IV, but the visual difference isn't huge, so a comparison is pretty much inevitable. Either way, when it comes to quality and value for money, Bandai wins — and there's really no getting around that. :-)

1/60 ARX-7 Arbalest Ver.IV | 2018.4 | ¥2,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.