Straight build
Straight build
--- LM (Limited Model) General Overview -----------------
The LM series was an experimental lineup of plastic model kits released between 1996 and 1997. It targeted products that were tricky to release as standard retail kits at the time. The lineup is a real mixed bag of over 20 different products spanning Gundam, Evangelion, Escaflowne, and more — and of those, exactly 6 Gundam-related kits were released.
In terms of construction, these kits sit somewhere between resin and injection plastic — the parts come on runners, but the inside of each part is either fully or partially solid. That gives the finished model a satisfying heft, and most parts need to be glued together. On top of that, there's no color separation at all since everything is molded in a single color, so painting is a must. The detail is also pretty rough, so a fair amount of reworking is needed too. In a lot of ways, these kits really show their age.
The lineup name makes it sound like a simple limited release, but technically these are classified as limited-production standard retail kits. They've never been reprinted, so they're not even listed in Bandai's official Gunpla catalog, and they've become rare finds on the secondhand market. Some kits in the lineup were later released as proper injection Gunpla, but others remain the only Gunpla ever made for their respective mobile suits — making this a truly classic lineup among classics.
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This kit is the 1/144 Daughtress Custom, released in 1996 as LM No. 6. It's the mass production unit from Gundam X, and for 24 years it was the only Daughtress plastic model kit — right up until the HGAW Daughtress came out through Club G in 2020. True to the series concept, it's molded in a single color with that solid, resin-like heft.
By mixing and matching the head and weapons, you can build three different configurations: mass production type, commander type, or weapons-enhanced type. That said, there are no ankle joints and the leg articulation is really poor, so there aren't many poses you can pull off. The detail is chunky, the joint strength is iffy, and the proportions are oddly thin and elongated in a way that just looks a bit off. All things considered, it's honestly hard to even talk about this kit in terms of quality. It's basically like a mass-produced resin kit aimed at painters and kitbashers — a minor mobile suit that you were just glad existed at all.
These days the clean HGAW Daughtress is far easier to get your hands on, so this old kit doesn't hold much practical value anymore. But there's still something historically interesting about the fact that Bandai developed even this obscure a mobile suit in this hybrid resin-injection format. :-)
[ Updated at 2021.11.21 ]
AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.