Product Description: A poseable 1/144 scale action figure of Wing Gundam, based on the designs of Katoki Hajime. Nicely detailed, and it comes with the parts for its transformation into Bird mode, as well as multiple hands and weapons to play with!
I Can Haz Quality Control? The Mobile Suit in question is a Hajime Katoki redesign of the original XXXG-01W Wing Gundam by Kunio Okawara; its frame is largely based around the XXXG-00W0 redesign Katoki created for Endless Waltz, but with a color scheme much similar to the original Wing Gundam; new additions are the Buster Rifle, which has been much revamped-it is much longer and thinner than the original, with a scope derived from the Wing Zero refit's buster rifle, and a blue extension mirroring the rear piece of the shield that extends up over the arm-two arrays of power packs, presumably spare batteries for the Buster Rifle, (itself only carrying enough energy for one discharge in each of its three batteries), which are contained in white racks that can be attached to the forearms in Bird Mode-the forearms themselves, which now sport Wing Zero-like sensors and two lengthy talons per forearm which will turn 180 degrees along the flat of the arm-the wings, which are now a large, weighty conglomeration of red, white, yellow and blue-and the shield, which resembles the original Wing Gundam model up until the midsection, where it becomes that of the Wing Gundam Zero. The whole model sports text such as 'Lagrange One' and 'XXXG01' on the shield and 'Colonies Liberation Organization' on the wings. It is extremely pretty, overall, and the redesign itself is sound.
The manufacturing is where things go sour. However these were made differently from other previous Bandai action figures, the old methods worked better. The detail inlays and the paints themselves are excellent, but the quality of the actual paintjob is quite poor, with colors bleeding off onto surfaces they shouldn't all across the board. The plastic molding itself is very poorly done, and there are defects nearly everywhere one looks; moving parts seem to fall off at any given moment; mine was separated at the midsection, with all six of the pelvic armor plates off at various points; the shoulder guards do not move very well at all, and indeed must be forced into their Bird Mode positions; the talons on the arms were warped, the plastic itself is very, very brittle, parts do not move as they should, most notably the backpack system when transforming into Bird Mode (which is also EXTREMELY fragile), and, what for me was worst of all, the entire right head extension (the 'ear', if you will) is deformed, sunk more than half a centimeter below its correctly positioned counterpart on the left.
The instructions are as bad as the Mobile Suit itself; as usual they are in Japanese, but these particular instructions are insufficiently detailed pictorial-wise and make deciphering the already over-complex transformation sequence a real task (it took me half an hour).
Overall, the Mobile Suit receives Two of Five. Very attractive design, but simply horrible manufacturing and poor instructions. Buy it if you're one of those who chooses not to take it out of the box or really like the design; otherwise, not for the average fan or a child.
pictures looked better! Well, I had wanted one of these since they came out 3 years ago....And now I got my chance. But, what you see in the pictures is not what you get in the mail. To be blunt, I wasn't that impressed with the quality of the toy. As a matter of fact, it was horrible. Joints keep seperating, you need to glue them in place, and parts don't fit correctly. The molding to the figure was bent or the shape wasn't right for its head and the shield. And then there's the paint job. Maybe mine was the practice figure that wasn't meant to be sold, but for whatever reason, the paint job was downright pathetic. Smudges on the toy are apparent, lines are smeared rather than painted solidly...overspray on at least 70 percent of the figure is apparent....overall, it looks okay if you look at it from a distance...but up close, you see all the imperfections at its utmost glory. I don't think this thing was worth $40 dollars. The arch-nemesis Wing zero figure is bigger, paint job is flawless, parts fit perfectly, and molding and shape to the figure is excellent, and all this costs only $29 dollars...had I not been a huge fan of gundam wing, I probably would have gotten a refund by now.
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