April's Big Time Loot

Now let me show you how we brought the fun in my day!
I have been wanting to get this monster since a very long time ago, but its price was always just as intimidating as its box size. Finally, when I saw a nice deal from a local online hobby website, I went for it and got my fourth Perfect Grade Gunpla - GP01/Fb. ^^

The price offered for this big guy was the lowest I saw for years, even though the shipping charge is understandably high for such a huge box, of such heavy weight too. ^^; It arrived last Wednesday, just right for me to treat it as a birthday present for myself. ^^






Very intimidating box size as mentioned. A little shorter than the box of PG Strike Rouge, but double the thickness. ^^


2 full boxes of runners and other materials.



40-page construction manual. With many repeated steps omitted, the actual work of assembling the model would be more than what is inside the manual.



The very colorful instruction manual explains about the mecha design of this Gundam.
As you can read from Dalong's review on this PG, it's clearly not the best of releases in its series when it comes to articulation. But still, it's one of the best Gunpla ever produced by Bandai in my opinion. Richest in terms of gimmicks like the full hatch-open functions, a feature Bandai didn't implement for Astray Red Frame and 00 Raiser, transformable Core Fighter x2, inner frame details, tons of plated parts, including that for the targeting sensor of the rifle, pre-assembled fingers and some of the joints, light-up function for the eyes, where one has to assemble the electronic parts on him own, conversion between the two modes, special gimmick for the FB mode: deploying the chest thrusters without part-swapping and many others. ^^ Realizing that one will be able to assemble all these parts and features made it a really awesome kit. ^^

The MS container is another bonus, but I don't think I'll be assembling it because of its size. ^^;

For such a huge model, I would be very happy to show off its inner frame details via the full hatch-open feature. Articulation isn't that important for me because the smaller MG or HG would be much more ideal for the task. There won't be much space for PG GP01 to swing his beam saber in my room at the moment so I'll pass on the articulation part. However, with that said, it doesn't mean that this PG is poor in that area. As the highest grade in the Gunpla line, the articulation is unquestionable. It's just a matter of preference between the model's features.

However, the feature that thrills me the most at the moment would be the number of parts for this model. About 1,600 including all the screws, springs and mess pipes I believe. ^^