Kit Review
Straight build
+ panel lining
1.
Basic photos
Size comparison with the universal standard — a cigarette pack
Body proportions from the front.
The lines of the arms and legs are quite beautiful. Feminine curves..
Upper body front and back. The original design itself has a lot of panel lining points.
The cockpit position that'll probably catch most people off guard at first.
That spot is definitely Turn A's weak point... (so it was a guy after all)
A cute round little head~ ^^;
The green part on the forehead requires you to stuff a dry decal into a narrow groove.
The manual says to push it in with a toothpick or ballpoint pen, which was a bit surprising,
but when I actually tried it, it stuck on better than I expected.
The head from various angles.
The arm with its complex panel lines.
The rear end
Close-up shots of the legs. Turn A's rear legs are truly a work of art.
2. Inner frame
Outer armor removed
Inner frame shots. The frame detail is pretty simple.
Hmm... well..
It's quite a unique head frame. ^_^;
Upper body frame. Aside from the externally exposed areas, the detail is intentionally kept simple.
The detail inside the wide-open chest is pretty intense;
Frame detail on the back of the body
The arm frame is simple as well.
The thighs have more of a movement gimmick than an actual frame.
When the knee bends, the duct-like structure on the back of the thigh is linked to it and rises up.
Leg frame. Simple style as expected.
The leg frame is a kind of double frame, but...
The detail is plain whether the armor is on or off.
Stripping away all the frame detail is itself a new approach in its own way.. there's a certain clean look to it.
But the more I look at it, the more it reminds me of Stikfas -
Frame action shots. Pay attention to the ankle range of motion..
Because the ankle bends in a double joint, it can flex forward to the maximum when there's no armor restricting it.
Crawling pose. You wouldn't actually crawl with your feet like that in real life.. right? ^^;
That unavoidable pose..
Just like the inner frame, there are no molds on the inside of the outer armor either.
"Isn't this taking too many shortcuts for the 100th MG kit!?"
you might say, but.. I suppose this is all intentional on Katoki Hajime's part. He's just going for simplicity..
That said, the inner surfaces of the armor panels that are exposed on the outside do have proper molding.
3. Detail
First, let's take a look at the head.. The entire top of the head is made of a clear part,
and you apply a silver foil tape behind the eye area.
The back of the tape is black, but behind the eyes it shines with a silver sparkle..
So when you shine a light on the eyes, they reflect back like they're glowing!
This is actually a simple customization trick I used to love doing on older-generation Gunpla about 10+ years ago..
It's really handy for making the eyes sparkle.
The fingers come as completely separate parts right from the start.
For a while they let you cut them apart yourself, but now they just include them already separated.
Only the thumb and index finger are ball joints; the rest are cylindrical so they only move in one direction.
Having all fingers on ball joints always felt like they were doing their own thing, so this is better :-)
One thing though.. Turn A is quite tall, yet the hands are really small.
I thought the hands felt too small while building it, and comparing them to the Zaku 2.0's hands — which are already on the larger side — they really do look tiny;
Oh! The crotch has come off;;
The Core Fighter separates..
The front skirt sections work like wings. Rotate the cockpit and wings and the Core Fighter is complete.
The clear cockpit cover doesn't lock in very securely though.
It's just loosely slotted in with no real locking mechanism.. I'm a bit worried it'll pop off.
Turn A's Core Fighter.
Underside of the Core Fighter.
Included are 1/100 scale figures of pilot Loran and Sochie...
Sochie appears in the show and was briefly put inside Turn A at one point.. It's pretty fun that these are included;;
The detail and proportions on the pilot figures are no joke. Proportions are Turn A's thing after all..
But here's a bit of an awkward thing..
They're both 1/100 scale, yet the seated pilot in the cockpit is nearly twice the size of the standing pilot figure.
(Does he transform into a hobbit when he sits in the cockpit??)
To be more precise, Turn A's cockpit itself is
at a completely nonsensical scale relative to the size of the mobile suit.
It's not a Bandai mistake — the original
design is just like that, so there's not much you can do..
Even watching the anime, I always thought that if Turn A is 20 meters tall,
that seems way too small compared to the cockpit scale.
The duct-like structure on the back of the legs is assembled in three layers like this.
The cross-shaped part on the chest lets you choose between a blue or white molded part.
What it looks like with the white cross fitted in instead of the blue one.
One of Turn A's highlights — the chest missile hatch opens..
Fully open. All 8 hatches open individually. There are 6 missiles.. six nipples..;
The missile bay can also be removed entirely.
With the missile bay removed.
You can also slide the missiles inside the bay out slightly to recreate a pre-launch scene.
The missiles don't come out all the way though — only as far as shown in the photo.
On the back, the vent hatches for the Moonlight Butterfly system's nanomachine dispersal open up.
All the opening and closing gimmicks on the body are fully reproduced. Very MG indeed.
4. Weapons
Turn A's basic weapon set.
Turn A's rifle
The handle can be folded, and the handle storage area has a sliding cover that opens and closes.
Push open the back of the rifle to reveal a handle inside.
It's needed when holding the rifle with both hands.
Shield gimmick. The handle section slides up and down on a rail,
and the parts that wrap around both sides of the arm also move within a 90-degree range.
Why on earth are there so many panel lines even on the beam saber handle..
The rifle and beam saber also plug into the peg on the palm..
The good news is, the grip is re~ally solid ^_^
They don't fall out easily.. Why didn't they do it this way from the start.
You can insert a support bracket into the slot on the back of the shoulder to hold weapons in place.
The rifle and shield mounted on the back.
5. Articulation
Arms and legs that bend as far as they should.
Individual finger articulation with no modifications needed.
A newly attempted feature in the MG Turn A — a shin joint (?)
The leg bends once more in the middle, allowing for more natural poses.
When the shin folds in the middle, the triple-structure rear leg duct section separates and moves independently.
It's a pretty fun linked gimmick.
On the back of the thigh, bending the knee causes the duct to pop out rearward,
though it's not as noticeable as you might expect..
Just looking at the way the feet fold, it looks like it's about to transform into some kind of aircraft.
Suddenly reminded me of the Macross Valkyrie~
The shoulder armor cover moves like that to extend the arm's range of motion.
The waist articulation has a fairly good range of motion. It really helps with pose recreation.
6. Action Poses
Alright~ let's start with a cool pose first.
First up.. a laid-back cool pose making use of that extra shin bend.
Impressive that it doesn't topple over in such a cocky stance.
One of Turn A's signature poses — the walking pose.. (not really anything special, but)
the added shin joint gives the legs a very distinctive line when walking.
A highly recommended Gundam Hammer action pose. Pretty dynamic.
Holding the rifle with both hands..
(the way the photos are arranged makes it look like they're fighting each other;)
The kneeling pose looks a bit unnatural..
Due to the lower body and hip joint structure, the thigh only raises 90 degrees,
and the lower legs are disproportionately long, making it tricky to pull off.
Turn A! Open your chest!
Missile hatch open action.
The infamous calf action (^^;) The cow is pretty cute..
There's a scene in the anime where Turn A rescues a cow for someone's livelihood (;),
and this is included to recreate that moment.
There's a cow inside me
A natural unsheathing pose.
The front and back shoulder armor are fixed together, but to raise the arm upward,
the front and back shoulder armor separate and only the front part rotates.
A cool beam saber action
To mount it on the Action Base 1, you need to use a separate adapter part included with the Turn A kit
to connect the base's joint to the back.
But the connection point is small and weak, so it's a bit limiting when trying to recreate a variety of poses.
Stand action~ definitely brings out more dynamism.
Missile action
Rifle action
This po~se right here..
A very dynamic and beautiful pose that makes great use of the MG Turn A's articulation.
Definitely click to see the full-size photo..
Gracefully, la~la~la~
7. Comparison Shots / Wrap-up
The MG Turn A has no stickers at all, and the decals are sparse — and even then, most of them end up leftover;
I guess you're supposed to just slap them wherever you want...
Size comparison with the standard reference MG Gundam Ver. O.Y.W. 0079.
Turn A's official height is 20m, so it is a bit taller.
Together with some recent 100-point-plus kits.
It seems like MG quality is leveling up across the board these days.
Bonus. Comparison with the 1/100 no-grade Turn A released exactly 8 years ago.
The MG is (obviously) superior in every way — color, style, and proportions.
The proportions in particular are quite different.. the MG feels slimmer and more slender, and it's a little shorter too.
Head and leg duct (?) comparison.
The leg ducts on the old 1/100 no-grade weren't bad-looking either.
The difference is that on the MG, the duct section moves in separate segments-
This is a kit that shows — MG is MG after all!
That beautiful po~se, even looking at it again.. (Click! Click!)
Straight build