OLD Z Gundam 1/220 Qubeley

Release 1986.3

Price ¥400

BANDAI BANDAI Japan product info

Box side view

Runners

Parts diagram

Manual

Straight build + waterslide decals

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

So-so limb articulation

Small panels are included as accessories.

Action pose

You can tuck the arms slightly inside the shoulders for a flight mode pose.

Flight mode

Together with the 1/220 Z Gundam and Messala.

Together with the HGUC Qubeley.

This is the old-style 1/220 scale Qubeley from the Z series, and since it was never released in any other scale in the old lineup, it's the one and only old-kit Qubeley ever released. Being such a bulky design, it seems like 1/220 was the only scale they went with — but the shoulders came out way smaller than I expected, which was a bit of a letdown. On top of that, the whole kit is molded in a single white color, so the silhouette ends up looking pretty washed out.

Unlike a good number of the earlier 1/220 kits that became straight builds, this Qubeley requires glue to assemble. Maybe because of its larger size, polycaps were used and you're meant to bond everything together firmly with glue. The polycaps do give the joints a nicer feel, but the overall articulation itself isn't great.

With such limited articulation, there aren't really any cool poses you can pull off — though you can tuck the arms into the shoulders to recreate a flight pose. But since the shoulders are so small, the arms don't go in all the way, so it ends up looking a bit awkward. As a bonus, small panels are included as separate parts, but they're so tiny they look like they're just waiting to get lost.;;

This kit has its place as the only old-style Qubeley ever released, and it seems like it'd work well as a practice piece for painting over a white base. That said, those tiny little shoulder pads are really hard to forgive. :-)
[ Updated at 2017.5.5 ]

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.