MG Shin Musha Gundam Part 1

New yet old design
Starting on this new Master Grade kit after Infinite Justice Gundam done in February: Shin Musha Gundam. ^^


Released in June 2008, Shin Musha seemed like a kit that came out of left field. Back then most of the releases were variations of Zaku II Ver. 2.0 and kits from "Gundam SEED Destiny", Shin Musha Gundam as a Gundam that never existed in the actual "history" of any Gundam universe was a very surprising addition to the series. Its massive popularity must be from fans' support for the game it originated from, "Gundam Musou". How a game managed to inspire a Master Grade kit to be released seems quite unbelievable to me at first, but looking back a bit, we also got a Master Grade kit released purely based on the support for its design from a novel - Unicorn Gundam. ^^ So I suppose Shin Musha Gundam's release is within the norm.

Also, just like Unicorn Gundam, Hajime Katoki-sensei is the mecha designer of Shin Musha Gundam. Many fans who bought this kit must be great fans of his designs, or in a more general sense, robots with this sort of design style.

Personally, I belong to the latter category - I never played the game, but I really like Shin Musha Gundam's design. The overall Samurai feel, golden intertwined tubes all over the body, thick layered armors, sharp and shiny weapons are all great design points of this mecha that I like very much. Even before the release of this MG kit, I always wanted the G.F.F. version that came out in 2007. I remember a posting I did talking about this figure was one of earliest postings I have on my old blog.

I also like the concept of having a Gundam RX-78-2 "hiding" beneath all those added armors - Gundam Ver. Ka to be exact. ^^ I'm sure many people treat it as a mecha on its own, but for me, it's Gundam clad with Samurai armors, which is just plain awesome. ^^

Speaking of which, this Master Grade kit is a very unique mixture of new and old elements. All the armors are new, but the inner frame it uses is from Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. OYW. To convolute things even more, the inner frame of Ver. OYW itself borrowed quite a few parts from its predecessor Ver. 1.5. ^^ This is a 2008 release alright, but some of its parts already came out 8 years earlier with Ver. 1.5. On top of that, it's also interesting to see that Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. Ka is the one using all these parts. Even though they are different designs of the same unit, Gundam Ver. Ka is always meant to be separated from the original design by Kunio Okawara-sensei. Through this kit however, we see elements from both designs coming together, which is a very neat features. ^^

Not to mention it's red too. Red is a fierce color. ^^


Box content.
I bought this more than a year ago from a friend of mine, and the package featured a poster that was bundled with the kit. The poster is a bit bigger than the box cover, featuring Shin Musha Gundam with the same action pose as that on the box cover, as you can see below:



A poster as an added bonus to this kit. I love added bonus. ^^
Speaking of the box cover, the box art is a massive mecha massacre. ^^


Too many Gelgoogs and Zaku IIs rushing to their doom!




Introduction of the kit on the box sides.



Construction manual with Japanese wave patterns as the background.



Shin Musha Gundam versus Turn A Gundam as shown in the centerfold of the manual.


Conceptual design of the Gundam by Hajime Katoki-sensei.


The old Musha Gundam (no "Shin"), which came out as a model kit in the 80s.
A look at the kit's content:



Runner A - Contains white, red and clear parts mainly for the helmet and shoulder armors.


White and red parts for the very common Gundam helmet and not-so-common armor plates around the helmet.


Runner B - Contains parts for the many golden tubes on the various armors.



Not so shiny-type of gold as the color. ^^;


Runner C - Contains parts mainly for the waist armors.


Multiple "segments" of the front skirt armors that are designed to be separated parts on the runner. Putting these pieces together to form the armors is one of attractions of this kit to me. ^^


Runner D - Contains parts for the legs.


(Left) Delicate design for the ornaments of the knee armors.
(Right) Very normal-looking feet parts for Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. Ka. ^^


Runner E - ABS runner that contains parts for various joints on the model. This is a runner from MG Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. OYW.



Based on the experience from building MG Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. OYW, I can tell where these parts are to be fitted on the completed model. ^^


Runner F - Contains parts for many unrelated components on the model, scattering from the joining plates beneath the shoulder armor, backpack, thrusters, parts for the muskets and others.


(Left) New interior part for the backpack, following Gundam Ver. Ka's design of having 4 thrusters.
(Right) Plates beneath the shoulder armors with tons of line details.


Runner G - Contains parts that are mainly for the legs.


Corresponding to the beautiful red knee ornament part, the slot on the knee armor is a pretty amazing design as well. ^^
As you can see, the entire armor, stretching from the knee to the front portion of the leg is rigged with points to mount various armor parts.


Runner H - Contains parts that are mainly for the shoulder armors and arms.


Very clear Gundam Ver. Ka design for the shoulder armors, with molded elevation for the details behind them that don't require any panel-lining. ^^


Runner I - Another "inherited" runner from Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. 1.5. The parts to be used from this runners will be just the inner frame parts for the thighs and knees.


A complete set of parts for the Gundam Hammer, with 14 nails altogether, but no chain is included. ^^;


Fixed trigger finger parts and armor on the back of the hand that are originally from Gundam Ver. 1.5, which are not used even in Ver. OYW.


Runner J - Multi-segment ABS runner from Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. 1.5 for the 2 inner frame of the legs.



Quite an old design by today's standard, since the technology is possible in 1/144 scale with the Advance MS Joint used by the Real Grade series, but it's still quite a marvelous design in my opinion. ^^


Runner K - Contains parts for various unrelated components again, including the neck and abdomen parts, emblems, parts for the poll weapons and others.


(Left) A V-shaped part that can be found on most Federation units from One Year War.
(Right) Emblem parts featuring Shin Musha Gundam's insignias.


Runner L - Contains all the white parts on the model (expect the helmet since the parts are already on Runner A).


Apart from golden tubes, there are white "hangers" as well. ^^


Runner M - ABS runner featuring various new joints for the kit, mostly which are meant for connecting between the armor pieces and allowing them to move.


(Left) A whole set of joint parts for the shoulder armors
(Right) Another set of joint parts for the different pieces of the front skirt armors.


Runner N - Plated runner for the weapons.



Shiny


Runner O - Contains parts molded in brown, a very uncommon color for Gunplas. Parts are for the musket and polls for the trident and spear.


Polycap set (PC-128) and a pair of screw and nuts. Polycap set is from Gundam RX-78-2 Ver. OYW, but the screw and nuts, which are meant for the knee joints are used since Ver. 1.5.


Foil stickers, dry transfer decal and clear sticker sets.


(Left) Very interesting kanji with golden flame patterns and white bars for the decal
(Right) Typical of Ver. Ka kits, tons of warning texts are included for the clear sticker, even when it's supposedly a mystical mecha. ^^


Foil stickers are mainly for the golden stripes on the muskets and helmet.


From the manual, 2 types of pattern you can choose to follow for the decal and clear sticker decoration of the completed kit. This is the Plamo Original version ...


... and this is the more commonly known Katoki Design version - the one used on the G.F.F. version.
I'm not really satisfied with the color given for the 2 golden runners actually. They are just too dark to really show off their quality, but I like my golden parts to be really... gold XD Not the plated type, but shinier than the color given definitely. The parts are too large for hand painting to be effective, so I've decided to use spray cans for them. The tools used and the different stages of the tasks will be covered in the next few postings.