Kit Review

Straight build + Panel lining

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Upper body

Head

Back and backpack

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Arms/Legs (1/3)

Arms/Legs

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Leg details / Shield (1/3)

Leg details / Shield

As expected, the 1/100 Astray's articulation is great..

Action pose

The shoulder socket fits together perfectly with the shoulder armor.

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Bazooka action (1/4)

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Bazooka action (2/4)

Bazooka action

This kit includes one special part..
Namely, a shoulder part with the arm cut off.

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - One-armed state. This is a bonus to recreate the scene from the comics where the right arm i

One-armed state.
This is a bonus to recreate the scene from the comics where the right arm is severed and the bazooka is equipped on the left arm.

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Beam rifle action (1/4)

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Beam rifle action (2/4)

Beam rifle action

Beam saber action

The Gerbera Straight ends up as leftover parts. The coating on the blade is omitted too.

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Comparison shots.. First off, the 1/100 Gold Frame was previously released as a limited edit

Comparison shots..
First off, the 1/100 Gold Frame was previously released as a limited edition,
but this time it's out as a regular release.

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Compared to the limited edition (left), the regular release's coating color is noticeably ri

Compared to the limited edition (left), the regular release's coating color is noticeably richer and deeper.

Even comparing the gold plating on the shield, you can see a clear difference in color tone.

Together with the original Astray and Red Frame.

The Astray trio, all released as regular editions.

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Together with the Amatsumikaboshi, which shares the same gold plating family. The coating qu

Together with the Amatsumikaboshi, which shares the same gold plating family.
The coating quality and color tone are pretty much on par with the Amatsumikaboshi.

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - A collection of 1/100 Astray-series kits released as regular editions. You could say it's th

A collection of 1/100 Astray-series kits released as regular editions.
You could say it's the most popular series among the side-story kits — they even got a PG before an MG..

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame - Straight build shots. The gold plating is so striking that panel lining doesn't seem to make

Straight build shots.
The gold plating is so striking that panel lining doesn't seem to make much of a difference either way.

Alongside the release of the PG Astray, as part of what seems like a "let's milk the Astray again" project (?), the 1/100 Gold Frame has been released following the 1/100 Green Frame. Ever since the Red Frame came out, under-gates were already built into the outer armor parts, so a gold-plated Gold Frame release felt like pretty much a foregone conclusion.. but it actually took a whopping 5 years to finally happen. In the meantime, a limited edition Gold Frame did come out, so I'd kind of given up on ever seeing a regular release.. but here it is at last.

The thing most people are probably most curious about is.. how does it differ from the limited edition Gold Frame that came out before? Well, for starters, the regular release has noticeably richer and deeper coating color compared to the limited edition. To be more precise, the gold plating on the old limited edition was a bit too bright.. which made it look somewhat lacking in weight and depth. With the regular release, it finally has that proper gold feel to it.

And perhaps because they were conscious of the fact that a limited edition had already come out.. a bazooka originally from the Duel Gundam has been added as a bonus. Of course, it's not the same piece from the old Duel Gundam kit — it's a brand-new mold newly added for this regular release Gold Frame. It's there to recreate a scene from the comics, and as a bonus, a shoulder part depicting the right shoulder in a severed state is also included.

As for the overall quality, the previous 1/100 Astray was already such a standout kit in the No Grade lineup that there's really no need to go into detail.. One thing worth noting compared to the regular Red/Green Frame versions is that the addition of the coating layer has made the joints noticeably stiffer, which is actually a big plus. No matter what pose you put it in, that worry about joints being too loose seems to have gone away.

All in all, this is the regular release of the Gold Frame, and aside from the bonus bazooka included, there's nothing particularly special to flag about this kit. That said, with this regular release Gold Frame now out, the limited edition version has kind of been left out in the cold — and honestly, since the coating quality itself is better on the regular release than the limited edition, that feeling is even stronger;

Anyway, if you've been eyeing that nicely coated Gold Frame with undergates, this seems like a great opportunity. :-)

1/100 Gundam Astray Gold Frame | 2009. 5 | ¥4,000

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.