Kit Review

Straight build + Panel lining + Seals

Size comparison with a cigarette pack.

Detail shots

Removing the Virtue armor

MG Gundam Virtue - Virtue armor layout for head, torso, arms, and legs (1/4)

MG Gundam Virtue - Virtue armor layout for head, torso, arms, and legs (2/4)

Virtue armor layout for head, torso, arms, and legs

MG Gundam Virtue - The inside of Virtue's skirt and the inner surfaces of the armor are packed with detailed molding. (1/3)

The inside of Virtue's skirt and the inner surfaces of the armor are packed with detailed molding.

After removing the Virtue armor, you'll need to attach the hair parts separately to display it as Nadleeh.

Gundam Nadleeh

MG Gundam Virtue - Close-up shots of Nadleeh. The red hair parts are soft parts, but they don't feel particularly soft. They'

Close-up shots of Nadleeh.
The red hair parts are soft parts, but they don't feel particularly soft.
They're more like firm jelly — they can flex a little without snapping easily.

Gundam Nadleeh with all armor removed

The inner frame isn't much different from the shared GN frame.

MG Gundam Virtue - Frame detail shots (1/4)

MG Gundam Virtue - Frame detail shots (2/4)

Frame detail shots

There's no molding at all on the inside of Nadleeh's armor.

Cockpit hatch open.
With all that hair, getting in and out must be a pain (....?)

Gundam Nadleeh's weapons

Effect parts can be attached to the beam rifle.

MG Gundam Virtue - The beam rifle locks onto both the hand and the forearm at the same time, and there's a gimmick where it s

The beam rifle locks onto both the hand and the forearm at the same time,
and there's a gimmick where it smoothly rotates together even when the wrist is bent.

Shield interior detail

The beam sabers are stored inside the knee armor, but they're a bit awkward to pull out.

GN Bazooka for Gundam Virtue

GN Bazooka deployment

The grip can be slid back or spread apart for easier holding.

Expansion gimmicks on the GN Field deployment section

The GN Cannon barrel can be extended and repositioned to the front.

Detach the GN Cannon and pull out the grip, and it can be used as a weapon for Gundam Nadleeh.

It uses a system where four different hands are swapped out.

The peg inside the finger slots into a hole in each weapon's grip, so the grip strength is pretty solid.

MG Gundam Virtue - The back can be fitted with either a GN Drive (top) or a solar furnace (bottom) — your choice of combinati

The back can be fitted with either a GN Drive (top) or a solar furnace (bottom) — your choice of combination.

MG Gundam Virtue - You can insert a separately sold green LED into the GN Drive to get a light-up effect like shown on the ri

You can insert a separately sold green LED into the GN Drive to get a light-up effect like shown on the right,
though it's really only visible when the room is dark.

MG Gundam Virtue - A horizontally sliding joint part for the stand is included, which does a great job of holding up the heft

A horizontally sliding joint part for the stand is included,
which does a great job of holding up the hefty Virtue securely.

Tieria Erde figures in both pilot suit and dress outfit are included.

Leftover parts from the shared frame runners

Limb articulation.
With Virtue, the thick armor naturally cuts down on the range of motion.

MG Gundam Virtue - At least when built as Gundam Virtue, the rear foot armor moves to give the ankle a slightly wider range o

At least when built as Gundam Virtue, the rear foot armor moves to give the ankle a slightly wider range of motion.

Hip joint slide gimmick

MG Gundam Virtue - There's a gimmick where the upper body opens up and the shoulders swing forward, but the angle is pretty n

There's a gimmick where the upper body opens up and the shoulders swing forward, but the angle is pretty narrow.

Wrist articulation

GN Cannon articulation

Gundam Nadleeh poses

Lights off with the LED on.
Wish it were a bit brighter..

MG Gundam Virtue - Gundam Nadleeh action poses. The grip strength and joint strength are both great, so you can pull off stab

Gundam Nadleeh action poses.
The grip strength and joint strength are both great, so you can pull off stable poses even while holding the large GN Cannon.

MG Gundam Virtue - Gundam Virtue action poses (1/5)

MG Gundam Virtue - Gundam Virtue action poses (2/5)

MG Gundam Virtue - Gundam Virtue action poses (3/5)

Gundam Virtue action poses

MG Gundam Virtue - The GN Bazooka pose — basically Gundam Virtue's signature look. When holding the big, heavy GN Bazooka hor

The GN Bazooka pose — basically Gundam Virtue's signature look.
When holding the big, heavy GN Bazooka horizontally, you're relying entirely on the grip strength of both hands.
It takes some fiddling to get right, but once you've got both hands on it, the pose holds up better than you'd expect.

MG Gundam Virtue - Comparison with the Gundam Nadleeh included with the no-grade 1/100 Gundam Virtue released in 2008. The ha

Comparison with the Gundam Nadleeh included with the no-grade 1/100 Gundam Virtue released in 2008.
The hair got a bit fuller over 13 years...
Also worth noting, the Gundam Nadleeh from the 1/100 Gundam Virtue didn't come with a beam rifle or shield.

MG Gundam Virtue - Comparison with the no-grade 1/100 Gundam Virtue with armor attached. The 1/100 Virtue was a pretty ground

Comparison with the no-grade 1/100 Gundam Virtue with armor attached.
The 1/100 Virtue was a pretty groundbreaking kit for its time.

Together with the HG Gundam Virtue/Nadleeh.

MG Gundam Virtue - We've finally got all four Season 1 Celestial Being units done in MG. Exia came out in 2009, then Dynames

We've finally got all four Season 1 Celestial Being units done in MG.
Exia came out in 2009, then Dynames in 2019 and Kyrios in 2020 — so it took 12 years in total.

Straight build

At last, the final member of the Gundam 00 Celestial Being quartet has gotten the MG treatment — Gundam Virtue. After MG Exia dropped in 2009, we waited over 10 years for Dynames and Kyrios, and now Virtue has finally made it too. Honestly, with such a uniquely compelling concept unlike any other Gundam out there, this is a kit that probably should've been MG'd a long time ago.

Gundam Virtue has this unique concept where it carries another Gundam — Gundam Nadleeh — inside it, and the kit comes in a large box that feels like two kits bundled together. It's a long, big ¥8,000-class box, but since the individual parts are large, the total part count isn't as overwhelming as you might think. The frame reuses the shared GN frame from the previous kits, and overall it has that clean, satisfying build quality you'd expect from a modern MG.

The core gimmick — the Nadleeh/Virtue armor attachment system — is implemented smoothly and works well. The armor goes on and comes off easily, and the fit when attached isn't bad at all. The attachment method itself isn't drastically different from the old no-grade 1/100 Gundam Virtue, but true to MG standards, the inner surfaces of the Virtue armor feature solid color separation and molding.

With a big, chunky kit like this, joint strength is always the biggest concern — but the shared GN frame, which moves without polycaps, is high quality and holds everything firmly in place. If anything, it's almost a little too stiff, to the point where moving the joints feels a bit labored, but that means every pose — whether standing straight or action poses — stays locked in solidly. The one odd issue is that the foot contact with the ground feels a bit iffy; when standing it on a flat surface, the front and back of the feet tend to splay apart and the kit leans forward. It's a separate issue from the joint strength, and might just be a subtle weight balance or design quirk, but it's a little annoying.

The weapons cover both Nadleeh's and Virtue's arsenals thoroughly, and notably include the beam rifle and shield for Nadleeh that were left out of the no-grade 1/100 Gundam Virtue. The GN Bazooka faithfully recreates all the deployment gimmicks from the show, so you can pull off that iconic two-handed GN Bazooka firing pose. Thankfully, the connection between the hands and the weapons is solid, so weapons don't drop easily. The included horizontal-slide stand joint part also does a great job of supporting the body, letting you display the hefty Gundam Virtue stably in the air.

The 1/100 No Grade Gundam Virtue that came out back in 2008 was actually a pretty high-quality kit in its own right — even pulling it out again 13 years later, you can't help but be impressed. At least in terms of the armor removal and weapon gimmicks, it held its own against MG kits. Of course, the MG still shows a huge gap with its solid joints, dense frame, and internal detail. On top of that, Gundam Nadleeh's hair is rendered in a much more three-dimensional way, and it comes as a complete full-option set that even includes Nadleeh's weapons.

It's a kit that gives you the fun of essentially building two Gundams, and thankfully the durability is solid all around — joint strength, armor attachment, weapon stability, stand connection, you name it. It's not quite perfect, but it's more than satisfying enough. This was already a popular kit just for its unique design and sheer bulk, and it's great to see it come out as a well-refined, high-quality MG — worth the wait. :-)

MG GN-005 Gundam Virtue
Category	Rating	Analysis
Seam Lines	★★★★★	Perfect except for some of the weapons
Molding Color / Color Separation	★★★★★	Solid, no-frills color separation
Proportions	★★★★★ ★★	Big, sturdy, and chunky
Articulation	★★★★☆	Virtue takes a hit structurally, but Nadleeh is excellent
Joint Strength	★★★★★ ★★	Solid joints that hold up that big frame. Better than expected.
Internal Frame	★★★★★	The frame itself is average, but the double-armor structure is the whole point of this kit
Detail	★★★★★	Not too much, not too little — just right.
Weapons / Accessories	★★★★★ ★★	Generous weapon loadout and armor removal functionality.
Parts Count / Price	★★★★★	422 parts total. Parts per ¥1,000: 52.75. It's more about volume than part count.
Uniqueness	★★★★★ ★★★★★	A distinctive unit translated into MG form cleanly and faithfully. Nails the bulk, the gimmicks, and the stability all at once.
Dalong's Point : 121 pts.

* The scoring system used only for MG has been carried over from First 1.0 twenty years ago,
so applying it uniformly even to the latest kits — whose quality has leveled up across the board — is honestly a bit ambiguous.
Since it's just my personal take and can't clearly capture the differences in kit quality over the years,
please don't read too much into it and just use it as a loose reference.
(For kits scoring above 100, take it to mean the quality is much better than kits of the past.)

MG Gundam Virtue | 2021.11 | ¥8,000

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.