Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Upper body

Head.
The eyes are painted.

Frame Arms Khanjar - Arms and shoulders. There are a lot of areas that should have orange color separation but are just plain

Arms and shoulders.
There are a lot of areas that should have orange color separation but are just plain black.

Frame Arms Khanjar - Back and backpack. The nozzles are painted silver. (1/4)

Frame Arms Khanjar - Back and backpack. The nozzles are painted silver. (2/4)

Back and backpack.
The nozzles are painted silver.

Weapons

Slim legs

A total of 8 hands are included.

The index finger on the weapon-holding hand can be chosen from 2 options.

The front of the multi missile launcher can be assembled in either closed or open form.

The mid machine gun can be assembled with either a grenade launcher or a handle.

Quite a few leftover parts remain from the main frame side.

Articulation is decent overall.

Frame Arms Khanjar - Walking pose. (1/4)

Frame Arms Khanjar - Walking pose. (2/4)

Walking pose.

Frame Arms Khanjar - Mid machine gun pose (1/4)

Frame Arms Khanjar - Mid machine gun pose (2/4)

Mid machine gun pose

Frame Arms Khanjar - Action poses using the Kotobukiya dedicated stand (1/5)

Frame Arms Khanjar - Action poses using the Kotobukiya dedicated stand (2/5)

Frame Arms Khanjar - Action poses using the Kotobukiya dedicated stand (3/5)

Action poses using the Kotobukiya dedicated stand

Double shot!

If you rotate the middle section of the legs 180 degrees and reattach them...

Frame Arms Khanjar - You can configure it into a reverse-joint leg form like this. These are the kind of legs you often see i

You can configure it into a reverse-joint leg form like this.
These are the kind of legs you often see in Armored Core: For Answer..

This kit includes all the parts for the base Stiletto as well,
so you can swap it out into a Stiletto.

Swapped out into Stiletto form

Frame Arms Khanjar - Detail shots of each section (1/5)

Frame Arms Khanjar - Detail shots of each section (2/5)

Frame Arms Khanjar - Detail shots of each section (3/5)

Detail shots of each section

Frame Arms Khanjar - Together with the original Stiletto. Same unit, but the color change really gives it a completely differ

Together with the original Stiletto.
Same unit, but the color change really gives it a completely different feel.

This time, a comparison between Khanjar and Stiletto.

Apart from the molded color, the arm and leg armor are different.

Another difference is that Khanjar's nozzles come with paint applied.

Together with the original frame.

The original Frame Arms series, which had seemed like it might fizzle out after its strong start, has now resumed. They kicked off this whole concept of a shared frame platform, but in practice the frames ended up being reused more for Border Break and Cross Frame - Break Blade than for the original series.

The newly released Khanjar isn't a completely new unit — it's more of a variation on the same body as the Stiletto. It's slimmer overall compared to the Stiletto, and the bold black and orange molded colors give the kit a very different feel. Unlike the Stiletto, the eyes and nozzles are painted, and the molded colors are much better too.

Honestly, early Frame Arms kits like the Stiletto and Type 32 Model 1 Gourai had pretty rough molded colors.. In a very un-Kotobukiya fashion, the color separation was poor and there was barely any paint applied — they just weren't kits that felt particularly worth buying. By comparison, Khanjar is a big step up in terms of molded color, but the color separation is still disappointingly lacking for a Kotobukiya kit. The shoulder ducts, for example, are separate parts, so they could easily have been molded in orange to match the design spec — but they just came out in plain black. A bit of a letdown.

The body characteristics are the same as other Frame Arms-based kits, so you can pull off some pretty nice action poses thanks to the solid articulation. Joint strength is a little iffy, but it handles most poses without too much trouble. The Frame Arms inner frame does come pre-assembled, but... the connection strength is weak, so it's still recommended to disassemble the joints and apply glue where needed. It's supposed to be a semi-pre-assembled kit, yet the assembled parts are loose enough that you need to take them apart and reassemble — a bit of a head-scratcher, isn't it? ^^;

This kit also includes all of the Stiletto's parts, so you can swap it out into a Stiletto. You can also flip the middle of the legs around to achieve a reverse-joint configuration like in Armored Core: For Answer, and 8 hand parts are included among other options, giving you a fairly generous set of extras. With the effectively increased part count, the price has gone up a bit too — from ¥3,000 to ¥3,600.

Since the original Frame Arms kits are essentially self-contained designs without any source material to back them up (?), the design really is the lifeblood of the kit. The design itself is pretty nice, but this is a kit that doesn't get the benefit of Kotobukiya's usually meticulous color separation... so it feels like it sits in a bit of an awkward spot. If the color separation had been done properly, this would be an easy recommendation — but overall kit quality is still pretty solid, as long as you don't mind the fact that gluing is still necessary. :-)

Frame Arms Khanjar | 2010.7 | ¥3,600

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.