Going back to a little bit of Gunpla after having fun with Revoltech and Nendoroid. ^^ The new project is on this guy: HG 1/144 GN-X.
From the first season of "Gundam Double O", GN-X is a Mobile Suit I like very much in terms of its mechanical design. The rather awkward face design does seem pretty intimidating, and together with other design elements like the long pointy binders, protruding armors and claw design on the hand units do project a fearsome image of this unit. Some of these designs, especially the face is rather unconventional in the world of Gundam, which is what attracted me to this unit in the first place. I also like the grayish color scheme used on GN-X. It's not a common color to be used as well, but it's a very suitable color to match GN-X's role as a protagonist MS in my opinion.
Then again, I would also want to say that I don't really like the idea of how GN-X debuts in the anime. ^^; It's almost too convenient for the three factions to acquire the help of Alejandro Corner, who betrayed the Celestial Beings and presented them with the technology of GN Tau Drive. Before the arrival of GN-X, I believe each faction is running investigation on the origin of the Gundams and the organization of Celestial Beings itself, and the entire investigation was covered in many episodes. I like the idea very much, since the process would eventually lead them to either discovering the truth, or at least give them some ideas on how to advance their own technologies to try to match the Gundams. All those stories seem wasted as the emergence of GN-X renders all the information worthless. When GN-X is powerful enough to counter Celestial Beings, why bother looking for anymore clues about the enemy? The entire story is then centered on the final showdown between the GN-Xs and the Gundams. The pacing is a bit rushed to build up towards the ending in that sense.
But I'm separating my feeling about the story from my liking towards the unit itself. To me, GN-X is a very awesome MS regardless of its role in the series.
For the model kit itself, it has a few superior points as compared to the other HG kits of the same series, namely the inclusion of 2 clear parts for the beam sabers, which is pretty unbelievable for not being included for all the Gundams, ^^; separated hip and thigh joints, something very usual back then when this HG kit was released, but no longer so today. However, it's still my liking towards the unit that made me pick it up in the first place. ^^
Introduction of the kit on the side of the box.
It's recommended to get more to build up a whole team of GN-X it seems. ^^
The content.
Box art, with matching action pose from a completed kit on the manual.
Runner A - Contains white parts mainly for the legs and arms, gray parts for the weapons and hand units, clear parts and red beam saber parts.
Clear parts and beam saber parts.
Runner B - Contains all light gray parts for the exterior portion of the unit.
Some hints on more variations to come.
Released after the end of Season 1 in Japan, I believe the design of the runner was made after confirmation that some variations of the unit will come out for Season 2.
Runner C - Contains dark gray parts for the interior or joint portions of the unit.
Some hints on variation design again.
Polycap set and foil stickers.
Quite a lot of very tiny pieces for the foil stickers, those triangular ones for the GN Tau Drive especially.
Cut out all the parts and categorized them accordingly.
Another contrasting feature of this kit is the absence of ABS runner, which is common for HG kits from the first season of "Gundam Double O". Like the hints on more variations to be developed for GN-X for Season 2 of the anime, I believe the material used for the runner was a factor considered when GN-X was first planned by the folks at Bandai. Comparing the two seasons, almost none of the HGs in Season 2 are designed to have ABS-type runner, but relied on the new polycap set mentioned in the introduction of HG 1/144 00 Gundam not too long ago. GN-X, while still a Season 1 unit technically, must have been designed to be in that way as well, so that its variations in Season 2 will match that particular standard.
Everything is properly planned you could say, which is really something not surprising for customers of Bandai. ^^
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