Kit Review

Straight build

S Gundam straight build shot

Ex-S Gundam straight build shot

Booster unit straight build shot

Core Booster straight build shot

The universal size reference — a cigarette pack comparison.

SD S-Gundam - By swapping a few parts on the S Gundam base body, you can recreate all three forms: Ex-S, and S Booster. And a

By swapping a few parts on the S Gundam base body, you can recreate all three forms: Ex-S, and S Booster.
And as a bonus, the Core Fighter and Core Booster too.

S Gundam (with seals applied)

S Gundam in action~

The beam rifle naturally(?) has a spring-loaded missile launching gimmick

It flies surprisingly straight and quite far.

Ex-S Gundam (after seals applied)

The large backpack doesn't replace the S Gundam's backpack — it just clips right over it ;;

SD S-Gundam - There is a gimmick that lets the arms swing slightly side to side. As you can see from the shoulder molds, they

There is a gimmick that lets the arms swing slightly side to side.
As you can see from the shoulder molds, they're a bit soft and blunt — probably because the tooling is getting old..

I tried to pull off Ex-S's signature sideways gun pose, but it just doesn't look right ^^;

Booster unit form (after seals applied)

G-Core. Just a single piece with a few seals slapped on.. ;

Core Booster. Gotta give it some credit for the color separation it does have.. lol

Together with the Zeta Plus from the same Sentinel lineup.

Together with the MG and HGUC S Gundam.

Together with the MG/HGUC Ex-S. The SD looks relatively tiny by comparison;;

Together with BB Senshi No. 22 S Gundam.
The Core Booster has been added for the G Generation release.

Following the Zeta Plus, the star of Sentinel — the S Gundam — has now gotten the SD treatment. It's essentially BB Senshi No. 22 S Gundam with a Core Booster added in, and it lets you build every related variation. The kit covers all three mobile suits — S, Ex-S, and the Booster Unit — through parts swapping.

As for color separation, there are some nice touches like the chest duct being molded as a separate part, but overall it's about as basic as any other SD — just enough to get by. Being an older kit, seam lines are fairly visible in places, and there are a few spots where the seam gaps open up a bit. I wasn't really expecting much, but sure enough, there's no transformation gimmick for the G-Cruiser or Attacker at all. ^^;

Personally, I think the proportions are decent enough, but the detail and molds are a bit soft and blunt — showing their age. That said, the design itself is so good that a decent paint job would make it look pretty sharp.

The parts swapping between S and Ex-S feels a bit lacking — it's basically just the chest and backpack. The legs are actually shaped differently on the real thing, but here they share the same parts, and the propellant tanks on the Ex-S forearms are missing too. So the S and Ex-S end up looking pretty similar, and you can barely tell them apart unless you look at the backpack size.

Still, above all else, the real selling point is that this is the one and only SD kit of the Superior Gundam. There are still plenty of die-hard Sentinel fans out there, so as an MS, this kit carries a lot of meaning. :-)

SD S-Gundam | 1999.6 | ¥400

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.