Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - A dedicated stand is included — and given the design, this flying mech really would be tough to display

A dedicated stand is included —
and given the design, this flying mech really would be tough to display without one.

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (1/10)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (2/10)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (3/10)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (4/10)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (5/10)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (6/10)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (7/10)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Various angles (8/10)

Various angles

Various angles.
You can tell they put in a real effort to pull off all that fine surface detail.

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - The only moving part… the cover on the joint that supports both side structures opens just a tiny bit —

The only moving part…
The cover on the joint that supports both side structures opens just a tiny bit — just ever so slightly.
There is a gimmick inside, but the angle is so narrow you can barely see it. T_T

Underside

You'll need to remove the center cover to connect it to the stand.

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Close-up shots from underneath. The intricate molding really stands out here too. (1/5)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Close-up shots from underneath. The intricate molding really stands out here too. (2/5)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 - Close-up shots from underneath. The intricate molding really stands out here too. (3/5)

Close-up shots from underneath.
The intricate molding really stands out here too.

A few stand parts are left over as leftover parts.

Alongside Ikaruga from Trizeal — another flying mech from the same gaming world.

After turning game characters from Mega Man and Medarot into plastic model kits, Kotobukiya has now followed up the Trizeal Ikaruga with another injection kit of a flying mech from a game — this time it's R-Gray 1.

R-Gray 1 is the flying mech from RayStorm, a shooting game that anyone who spent time hanging around arcades back in the day will remember. What was once just a simple arrangement of pixels in the game has been reborn as an incredibly detailed model, almost like a real spacecraft. Tons of surface detail has been added throughout, and the various wings and ducts are densely color separated and rendered in full three dimensions — even as a straight build, you can't help but think, "yeah, this looks awesome!"

The concept is quite different from Ikaruga, the other game-based flying mech kit. Ikaruga was like a Gunpla kit in that it had tons of tiny, intricate parts, was tricky to assemble, and required a lot of glue — whereas R-Gray 1 is put together just like a snap-fit Gunpla kit. So it's much easier to build than Ikaruga, and once assembled it feels solid and sturdy with no worrying weak spots. In a word, comparing the two is kind of like comparing a military model kit to a Gunpla kit. If you were a bit put off by Ikaruga's somewhat fussy assembly, building this one will probably have you going "now THIS is what I'm talking about!" Almost all the parts snap together and hold firmly without any glue.

That said, the focus is entirely on capturing the look of the mech — the only moving part is that cover on the connecting joint that opens just a crack, so this is really a kit meant purely for display. It would've been even cooler if things like the ducts opened up here and there, so that's a bit of a shame. Also, while there's plenty of surface detail, the molding doesn't have particularly sharp edges, so it ends up feeling slightly less precise than you might expect.

Even so, overall satisfaction is higher than with Ikaruga — probably because it's easier to build and the mech design feels more familiar. Personally, I'd love to see Kotobukiya keep going and release mechs from other classic arcade shooters like R-Type, Xevious, Galaga, and TwinBee. Either way, I think this is a pretty fun concept for anyone who has fond memories of arcade shooting games. :-)

Ray Storm R-Gray 1 | 2011.12 | ¥4,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.