OLD Limited Model

1/144 G-Falcon

Release 1996.12
Price ¥1,500

Straight build

--- LM (Limited Model) General Notes -----------------
The LM series is a lineup of plastic model kits released experimentally 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, 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 insides are either fully or partially solid. That gives the finished model a nice, weighty feel, though most parts need to be glued together. On top of that, there's no color separation and everything is molded in a single color, so painting is a must. The detail is also pretty rough, so you'll need to do some extra work. In a lot of ways, these kits have that classic old-school charm.

The name might make it sound like a simple limited edition release, but technically these are classified as limited-production standard retail kits. They haven't been reissued, so they're not even listed in Bandai's official Gunpla catalog anymore — making them 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 of their respective mobile suits. It's a truly classic lineup in every sense of the word.
------------------------------------------------------

This kit is the 1/144 G-Falcon, released in 1996 as LM No. 17. While the 1/100 G-Falcon came out as a standard retail kit bundled with the 1/100 Gundam Double X, the 1/144 version was released as an LM kit. True to LM fashion, it comes molded entirely in a single pale white color, so painting is absolutely necessary.

Feature-wise, the kit does let you recreate the G-Falcon on its own, as well as the combined and storage forms with the 1/144 Gundam Double X. But the resin-style solid parts make the joints unreliable. The whole thing is just too heavy to pose easily, and keeping it standing on its own is no simple task either. The binders that act as the lower support in the combined form are especially flimsy.

Painting is definitely required no matter what, but there's still something to be said for being able to pull off the G-Falcon combined form in 1/144 scale. If you glue down the loose joints and put some good paint work into it, this kit could actually look pretty cool. :-)
[ Updated at 2021.11.29 ]

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.