Due to some unfortunate circumstances, which were honestly and 100% totally out of my control (me and my lazy ass) my follow up part 2 post that was coming “tomorrow” has been delayed an entire week or so. However I have the time now so lets do this. more…

Wow, quite a mouthful of a title. Next month will be a great month for Gundam Kit fans who have a wad of cash to burn (me) with the release of perhaps the best looking Perfect Grade (PG from now on) so far. What’s so special about it you may ask? Take 1 part samurai, add it to the Strike Gundam kit, add a sleeker more battle ready look and you get something along the lines of these pictures. If you look closely you’ll also noticew that this seems to be the basic, unpainted, un-lined kit. And that is just downright awesome because 99% of kits shots you see are the finished product of someone who has all the gear ready to go. This is how awesome this beast will look seconds after fitting the last part together. 

Please excuse the small pictures but since there are a few, it’ll save you time opening them. 

However with all this awesomeness comes the only downside. The cost. While this isn’t an issue for me because i’m an idiot, at $170 US excluding shipping, it isn’t exactly something that everyone can afford. In Australian that equates to about $260 or so. If your interested, head over to HLJ.com and you can see how much it’d be for you.

Oh get your mind out of the gutter already. Honestly… Well due to some unfortunate circumstances, the huge post I had written up is now useless as every one of the 40 odd pictures I took to accompany it were deleted by family members. *sigh* All That I can do is show off a picture of the finished result of my PG Strike Gundam, with the recently bought and constructed Striker Unit addon. Here is the big guy all finish, sprayed and posing his ass off on top of my desk..

I’m pretty bummed about not being able to follow up on my last gundam post which was ages ago. I went to a lot of trouble to have photos of nearly every step I did and even before/after shots of the pieces I had already constructed. Oh well though. So as I had this package arriving today I thought this to be a decent substitute, as i’m a bit low on stuff to write about today. Perhaps next time will be about an ongoing anime or something. Time will tell. Anyway.

So today the 2 things I ordered arrived. a PVC statue of Choco from Chocotto Sister, and a trading figure box from Pantsu/Strike Witches.

Well I that is the box itself, and pay no attention to my monitor… I was watching Zero no Tsukaima season 3 at the time I took these. Perhaps a little bit of shameless advertising for them but honestly HLJ.com are the best place i’ve found to buy anime related goods and random toys from japan. The stuff they have is cheap, very fast shipping (they can ship my order on a friday, and i’ll have it monday) and a pretty damn big selection of stuff. Ok plug over. 

This is what I actually bought. 

I was looking through HLJ one day and they were having a sale of old things that never sold. Fair enough I thought, there is bound to be something cool in here yeah? While there wasn’t a lot that interested me, I did find a ton of bargins such as things that were $110, but now selling for $15. Then I ran across this.

Way to cute to pass up and since I am a fan of the manga (never seen the actual anime however im in the process of fixing that now) I figured i’d pick it up since it was only $20. The super cute Choco. I wont go into the actual story of the show itself since that isnt the point of this post but rather just to show off some cute things.  

Next up we have the Strike Witches figures. There are 7 in the set, and come in a box of 10, all randomly picked so unfortunately I was 1 short of the whole set. To make matters even more disappointing, that 1 missing happened to be my favorite character… Lucchini. Oh well though.

And Finally, in no relation to anything mentioned above, I give you 1 of the best scenes/series enders in anime history. For those that don’t know, this is from the 2nd season of the show Zero no Tsukaima. In case you wanted a bit of a backstory for this, and I must warn that spoilers will be posted from here on so if you don’t wish to view them don’t read further or watch the video. The guy in the video, Saito, has gone to fight an army of 70,000 on his own in order to protect the girl he loves (Louise). If you were wondering as well yes technical he does die, although he is brought back to life and returns to Louise in the last moments of the same episode so there is a happy ending. This also happens to be 1 of the scenes where I started to tear up because it really is such a sad, sad set of episodes leading up to the cresendo you see now. 

Saito, for all your flaws and bog standard anime male lead features, when you’re trying to protect Louise, you become such a bad ass.

So it’s been awhile since my last post, and I thought that today I would try something different since I am putting together my most expensive, and complex gundam yet. I, for once, am going to a semi step-by-step sorta deal. When i’m all done i’ll give it a quick review/overview so it’ll be a 2 in 1 post. So here we go. Oh, and please ignore the stuff in the background haha. I took these at 2am and this is the most level part of my room for showing things off due to my height. So yeah ignore all the boxes and Kodomo no Jikan stuff.

This is what I am putting together. The Perfect Grade Strike Gundam. What is a perfect grade you may ask? (if you care haha). Well to my knowlege the grading of Gundam kits goes as such. Ungraded, High Grade (1/144 scale generaly, sometimes 1/100), Master Grade (usualy 1/100), Perfect Grade (1/60). They are the top end of the Gundam model spectrum and as such also require the most work, and most paitence to complete. If you so wish, it is very easy to put together a Master Grade gundam in around 8 hours give or take. That’s usualy how long it takes me. Perfect grade Gundams (and i’m going on what other people have said, as I havn’t finished one yet) is that they take a few DAYS to finish as the sheer number of parts is so high. As an example of what I mean, I would estimate the number of parts in an MG kit would be around 200. PG Kits have over 560 minimum. Some up to 800. Now, lets begin with this thing.

Day 1

So I woke up and got started straight away. I took the parts I needed for the legs (working in reverse order than im used to, which is a good thing. you work your way up from the feet) and feet and sprayed them out in the yard. No photos of that because after all, whats so special about runners (plastic that holds the parts together) on a clothes line? Nothing. Unfortunately due to being out of stock, I don’t have any spraypaint for the red, blue or yellow sections of this kit (Next Day Edit – They have come into stock once more, so i’ve ordered a ton and they arrive in 2 mondays time) That is going to be a bit of disapointment but since this is my first attempt at actualy spraying and inking a gundam perhaps it’s better I try my hand at it first. So I finished the foot in around 10 min. Nothing special really except the sheer size of this guy’s foot compaired to the 1/100 MG scale kits is massive.

See? Besides the obvious fact my photoshop and photography skills suck, thats almost double the size. About an hour later I had the leg finished. Again nothing too special. What I love about this leg though is that so many things move when you do the simplest thing like bend the knee. Now I see why there are so many parts

Ignore the fact it looks like I have nail polish on (spray paint SUCKS to get off your nails without metho or something). Say mabye 10 – 20 min later I had the entire thing finished. Next up was to apply the stickers (no decals, buu. thats crap, I don’t like stickers) and ink the leg. Here is the finished product. Sorry, best I could do so late at night.

All day and I have 2 whole legs to show for my effort. Man this is going to be 1 huge Gundam. More to come when I am able to continue.

Next Day Edit – Ok so I’m not able to continue today because it seems its raining and i may very well run out of spray paint for this guy. After spraying both legs (only small cans mind you) I may have enough for mabye 1 or 2 runners but thats about it I think. So this may be put on hold until 2 mondays away when my next shippment of spray arrives. Joy T.T

Well come the 27th it will be my birthday. I decided to buy myself a gift package because I do enjoy gifts quite a bit. What? Nothing wrong buying yourself a gift. So I figured I would Just make a small post about what I bought because i’m a little picky about things I buy believe it or not. Also note worthy that while i’m not a fan of any of the Gundam anime series, I do love some of their models because they look great and are fun to put together.

So first up this is originaly what I bought and only planned on getting this little cutie. As any Gundam 00 fan will know, this is Haro who accompanies Lockon Stratos inside his gundam. While I have yet to get any of these items (they arrive monday or tuesday) according to the description given, he reacts to voice by lighting up his eyes and saying a few phrases. On top of this he can rock left and right when he is on his special stand. He can also tell the time and function as an alarm clock if you want. Another feature this has is if you roll it on the floor, when it gets upright it will pop open its ear flaps and say a phrase. He comes with 2 arms and legs which you can pose him with if, like me, you wouldn’t want to ruin him.

Next up we have a Master Grade 1/100 Zeta Plus C1 Type from Gundam ZZ. Having never even heard of Gundam ZZ before last night, this model was rather surprisingly cool to look at. As you can see he is all gray with some white, silver and blue on him. Quite a welcome change from the usual white base you tend to find. When these actually arrive, I may put some pictures up of the finished results incase anyone coming here also likes to make these. He also transforms into a plane! Woo! He is like the Kyrios model I have only cooler looking.

Moving along, we have another Master Grade Gundam. 1/100 Wing Gundam Zero Endless Waltz Version to be exact from Gundam Wing. When I saw this I had to buy it as it just looks so damn cool. After seeing the Zeta gundam this one was a little ordinary with its colour scheme but it more than makes up for it with awesome looking wings. Comes with its own display stand too so He will have a place on my desk next to my already built Hi-Nu Gundam from Char’s Counterattack.

Yet another Master Grade kit here. Actualy they are all MG rank so I won’t bother saying that anymore. This one comes from the 08th MS Team series according to the site. He is a 1/100 GM Sniper. What caught my eye about this fella was the colour scheme, like the Zeta, and the fact his huge sniper gun was wired into his backpack and then is in turn, wired into a big generator (I assume) which comes with him. He was quite cheap too so it was a win win.

Next we have the 1/100 MG Strike Noir Gundam kit, from Gundam Seed Stargazer. Again this guy is pretty cool looking with his colour, which actualy reminds me of Saber’s kit I bought years and years ago from the Tekkaman Blade series. Anyway this guy has these funky Scorpion-esque whip things that come out of his hands and I thought that was so cool that I had to get him. His wings on his back open up as well to look even cooler when he is all posed up.

Finaly we have a kit from a series I have never even heard of before last night, Super Robot War. His name is Alteisen, and is the heaviest of the lot that I bought (most kits here are around 800g, this guy is 1300g) This guy is what set me off on my Gundam hunt because after reading some of the stuff he has in/on him and seeing his pictures I just had to buy him. According to details he has Individually articulated fingers, which is pretty damn awesome I think. On top of that his shoulder cannons open up which again reminds me of Tekkaman Blade’s kit. On top of that he has something i’ve never seen in a MG kit and that is when you push his “vernier” as the site puts it, an LED inside his head will light up and show his eyes. Thats pretty cool. Just wondering if you can keep his eyes on for good. That would look pretty spiffy i’d imagine but I would be willing to bet it would drain the battery and kill the LED rather fast. On top of that, this kit comes with a 12cm high PVC model of his pilot to stand next to if you wish. I’m not sure I really care about that but I may as well add it to my collection.

Note: I could only find a blue painted version of this guy but this is him none the less…

So as I said these havn’t arrived yet but when they do I may sort of continue this post and put up some finished product versions along with the collection I already have. Not sure yet.

Turn A Gundam, an old 1999 Gundam anime that has never landed anywhere other than Japan. If you ask a veteran of the series, they would likely say that the older series of the franshise have better plot, development, and greatly likeable characters. Just look at Loran Cehack, the main character is wide eyed character full of life. Turn A Gundam is also one of the last Gundam directed works of Yoshiyuki Tomino, so because of that, many fans may say that the franchise should have ended at this series.

 It’s unlikely Bandai will ever publish it, same with Gundam ZZ, Gundam V, Gundam X, and the other OVA’s, manga, or moives. They’re old, fanboys already watched them, won’t likely sell well in the US, and some even didn’t appeal well to Japan’s audiences, for example, one had more human like mech designs. Gundam is fairly known, but not that popular. With Gundam Seed’s poor CG animation, poor dubbing, Hisashi Hirai character designs, and emo characters that lead to awkward animated .gif images, it only hurts.

Maybe Turn A Gundam wasn’t lisenced because of the nude swim part in the first episode.