Ohhh yes. It’s finally here.
When I was at Otakon this past summer, I was pretty close to buying the old Nu Gundam Master Grade. I haven’t done a kit that appeared in Char’s Counterattack proper since the old 1/100 scale kit back in 2001, and I scrapped that a looong time ago. The only kit from CCA on my shelf is the HGUC Hi-Nu Gundam, which isn’t even in the movie itself! Sure, this one’s a Version Katoki which technically doesn’t appear in the movie either, but whatever. Nu Gundam is Nu Gundam!
Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of parts here. Ignoring the G-Armor, which is really just two kits sold together as one, this is probably the most complex kit I’ve owned so far. I’m not too daunted by this, however. It’s complex, sure, but it doesn’t look as awful as it could be thanks to Bandai’s recent simplifying practices.
As a result, there are four runners of repeated parts here. That’s an awful lot, and once again I understand the reasoning. Bandai tries to keep costs down whenever possible these days, and if they can do that without negatively affecting the kit itself, then bring on the repeated runners.
The big controversy with Katoki’s take on Nu is the full psychoframe. I love this idea. Yeah, it wasn’t in the movie, but who cares? Katoki does stuff like this all the time. His version of the Wing Gundam has six extra cartridges for the buster rifle, so why can’t Nu have a full psychoframe? It makes it feel like the Unicorn’s daddy, and the “psychoframe” part now seems like an actual frame, not just something around the cockpit, or a little T…
Silver stickers are included to go behind each of the translucent green parts to give the psychoframe a more “luminescent” look, but I’ll probably just paint the insides silver and save myself the trouble.
Most important is this kit’s inclusion of waterslide decals! It took them long enough. I’ve gotten tired of searching high and low for the official Bandai decals, or having to try my luck with uncut third-party decals that I’m absolutely terrible with. It seems like Bandai realized this was a good idea, and I hope this becomes the standard from here on out.
The hands here are… quite a thing. These are clearly based on data gathered from making the real grades, and I’m excited to see how they perform. I’ve heard good things so far!
Interestingly, there are a lot of empty mold gates here. At first I thought these were just on the Fin Funnels for the double Fin Funnel set, but they’re present on some of the other runners as well. Maybe we’ll be seeing another variant sometime down the road? I’m hoping for Katoki’s take on the Mass Production-type Nu Gundam. I love that design.
A unique stand is included for displaying with all the Fin Funnels active. Unsurprisingly, the base is shaped like Amuro’s trademark “A” emblem.
Additionally, I picked up an LED unit to install in the head. Yes, this one has light-up eyes! I haven’t used one of these before (I still haven’t made the one for my Hyaku Shiki) so hopefully this won’t be too hard. I’ve really come to hate painting eyes.
I’m really pumped about building this kit, so I’ve been feverishly working on my Crossbone Gundam to get that up to spec. As soon as that’s done, I’m cracking this puppy open. Make sure to get yours from FPNYC!
