▶Box Open
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As a sort of commemorative touch, the bottom of the box has a printed history of First Gundam plastic model kits.
(I've scanned the bottom of the box at a large size too, so check the box art at the very bottom of the page..)
Along with the manual, there's a flyer for the upcoming 1/12 beam saber release.
At a glance they look like almost the same image, but..
The 1/12 beam saber flyer has the beam saber part of the illustration slightly different. ^^;
They keep throwing that thing into recent new releases.. but it doesn't really seem all that useful..
Just like the Zaku 2.0, polycaps are kept to a minimum here.
When they tried to eliminate polycaps entirely and ran into problems, they settled on using polycaps only where they're truly useful and
replacing the rest with soft ABS joints.
It's the solution Bandai's development team arrived at after their own round of trial and error.
Sure enough, the hammer runner that came in the MG Turn A is included in this kit as well.
I always wondered why that one was made as a separate runner, and my guess that it was being set up for Gundam ver.2.0 turned out to be spot on.
(If you're curious, check out the MG Turn A Gundam info review )
All the round barrels on the weapons are done with slide molds.
The Zaku 2.0 had the same treatment, and if Gundam ver.2.0 hadn't followed suit there probably would've been an uproar..?
On top of that, not just the outer shells of the beam rifle and bazooka, but even the internal frames are all single-piece parts.
Being the First ver.2.0, the level of attention to detail is just on another level..
From the cylinders all the way to the thigh frames, single-piece slide mold parts are everywhere.
Slide molds are applied in several places on the head as well.
The slide mold on the side-head ducts is a bit unexpected.. but that's because the head is split left-right rather than front-back.
Even the camera cover and the vulcan cannons tucked inside the head are slide-molded.
I'm not sure about everything else, but..
molding those tiny vulcans pointed out by the red arrow as single pieces feels like a bit of overkill..;;
One thing I'm a little disappointed about.
The outer armor parts don't use undergates — they're all normal gates.
I was secretly hoping that since it's the First, they'd go the extra mile on this too.. OTL
- System Injection Block Analysis -
First off, all the Core Fighter parts are structured so they can be separated out via system injection.
Are they planning a separate release? I'm not really sure what the point is, but there must be some intention behind it.
Both the outer shell and frame of the backpack can be separated via system injection.
That's gotta mean they're planning some kind of backpack variation, right?
The head, crotch, and lower torso parts are also separated out via system injection.
Hmm.. something smells fishy, doesn't it?
It makes sense that the unique weapon parts included in this ver.2.0 are separated out via system injection.
But..
Look closely and you can see that along with the head parts, the front face of the shield is also grouped together in a system injection block.
Planning some kind of color variant, perhaps?
The white parts on the weapons side are organized into a rather complex system injection block.
Core Fighter, bazooka, head, shield, beam Jabelin, figures, and more —
whatever they're planning to make, this is a runner that can be broken down and recombined into all sorts of little pieces.
Hmm.. given that the shin armor and shoulder armor are made differently,
it kind of feels like they have something like the Prototype Gundam line in mind..
The outer armor — knees, ankle covers, and other leg armor pieces — are all separated out via system injection.
Especially looking at how the ankle cover section is different, it seems pretty likely that a Prototype Gundam MG release is in the cards.
Looking at the arm inner frame runner, the hand/shoulder frame parts are separated from the rest.
A variation with swapped shoulder armor makes sense, but I'm not quite sure why the hands are separated out too.
The leg frame section is divided into —
(as expected) the knee cover and knee parts, the entire foot-side frame parts, and everything else,
making three separate zones.
Finally, the six skirt parts attached to the lower body are also separated out via system injection.
The rough first conclusion is that Bandai is at least planning for an MG GM 2.0 and MG Prototype Gundam release
as a baseline consideration.
(G3 is excluded from consideration since it's purely a color variant.)
Of course, whether they actually release them or not is entirely up to Bandai depending on how the market goes. :-)
▶Manual
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Manual
Bonus: 1/12 Beam Saber upcoming release flyer
▶Runners
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Runner
Runner
▶Parts
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Parts