MG Hi-Nu Gundam

Hello everyone! I know I'm a day late getting this review to you, but bear with me, it'll be a good one. My pal Seraphim, after putting it off for over a year, finally finished building his MG Hi-Nu Gundam. I've been quite anxious to see it in person, and I've gotta say I'm quite pleased with pretty much every aspect of it. This time around, though, I won't be the one blathering on about it, as Seraphim was nice enough [read: I forced him] to write up the review for this fella. So without further adieu, let's see what Seraphim has to say~!

Alright, so I was guilted into writing this while being harassed by my boyfriend to play Pokémon cards with him D: I'm not used to writing about model kits so please excuse my limited knowledge of your gunpla vernacular; I'm more specialized to write about cross-dressing Asians who make crappy music. SO HERE IS MY FIRST REVIEW READY GO:

As far as I know, the Hi-Nu is a more recent Master Grade model kit. I bought it about a year ago but never actually finished it until a few weeks ago. This is the first time I actually paid any attention to cutting off the nubs from the runners with a razor and nippers (usually I just break them off and use scissors to get rid of the big chunks) but since I'm living with Baby TheEnd, I was told that that is unforgivable [BTE: it absolutely is, you should always clean nubmarks D: ]. The model is fairly accurate in comparison to various fan art of the mobile suit variant. The Nu Gundam has been one of my favorites since I bought Char's Counterattack way back in middle school since I think Newtypes are awesome, but when I learned of Hi-Nu from the Char's Counterattack Technical Manual I fell in love with it for a lot of reasons. Here's a few: I like the blue / white color scheme better than the white / black / yellow, the funnels are attached in a cooler manner, it has bigger weapons and it comes with external fuel tanks like the Sazabi, meaning it can kick ass for longer.

The posability of this model is pretty good, though I don't really know of a kit that I would consider having terrible articulation. The arms are double jointed and the knees have cool mechanical parts in them that slide back and forth when you bend them. The two complaints I have about the design of MG Hi-Nu are the feet and the head / cockpit. The front half of the feet are only attached to the back part by a U-shaped joint that clips onto a horizontal rod. This makes the front of the feet fall off easily, as they tend to unclip. As for the head / cockpit, the hatch that slides open to reveal the pilot is a bit awkward. It doesn't open up all the way and it covers the face when it does so since you have to lift the front half of the torso to do it. That casing is also attached to the runners along the neck near the start of the shoulders, making it impossible to move the head while it's open. Head motion is also limited because of this "feature." Gosh, I sound like Java now: "They're not glitches, they're features!"

The funnels are pretty cool. They attach semi-easily but fall off twice as fast [BTE: and I noticed in every picture I took I had the funnels attached backwards, so please excuse that ^__^;; ]. The effect parts are a serious pain to fit in and it usually takes me a good 5 minutes to get it to work properly after bending the plastic several times. However, when it all works, the display stand with the funnels flying out looks awesome. A cool feature about the funnel stand is that the kit comes with decorative blue flame effect parts to add to the back of the funnels. This gives your model a "fighting in space" feel to it, and the flames are easily attached or removed to change between modes [BTE: I couldn't put Hi-Nu on the stand for this photoshoot, though, as part of the locking mechanism in the top of the stand snapped, so it had to be glued in place at an awkward angle]. With that being said, the kit comes with its own custom Amuro Ray stylized "A" shape stand, as well as plastic tubes to attach the funnels to. Once bent, however, the tubes are not able to be reshaped and playing with them too much causes them to break. The "A" stand comes with 4 unfolding arms with 3 holes in each to place the tubes, giving you 12 different funnel tube placements.

In terms of "anime accuracy," which I heard is quite important to some people for some reason, I think this kit meets that expectation pretty well even though it isn't featured in any sort of anime but whatever (I just hope those people don't play Yu-Gi-Oh and watch the first US season of it...). The kit does blend the silver parts well with the whites of the legs and body and it is featured mostly in the thrusters, main body casing, and small details. There isn't a lot of panel lining on this kit so if you dislike doing that then this kit would please you. This is my first time ever panel lining a kit and I was told I did a pretty decent job for my first time. In case anyone was curious, I used a Gundam Marker on the blue parts and a mechanical pencil for the white parts. This is also one of the first kits I've made that I didn't break while building or posing, which is another personal victory, but Hi-Nu here has already undergone some reparative surgery. What happened, you ask? Well, let's just say he was overworked as a model. He did receive some emergency hip replacement parts from a friend and is doing just fine now.

D: AHH I'm being rushed now. Quickly, weapons! The kit comes with a few beam sabers, all clear blue plastic, a beam rifle that is white and silver, and a bazooka with a color scheme similar to the rifle's. Since it's a Gundam, it naturally comes with its own shield that has an awesome Z-shaped pattern made out of blue and white parts. I panel lined mine and I'm quite proud of how it came out 8D. The shield can be attached to the little blue part on Hi-Nu's left arm. Last thing, the beam sabers can be stored inside the wing-looking parts.

Alright, now I have to go lose at Pokémon cards. I hope I did well for my first review :D *product placement* Be sure to check out my blog for other fun Japanese culture writings-desu. It's the gif banner with all of the drag queens on it. *product placement* Byyyee~

*~†~*Seraphim*~†~*


Well, that was certainly an interesting review ^__^;;. I'll go ahead and add my say now, though Seraphim already covered most of the important stuff. The MG Hi-Nu Gundam is a really awesome kit, and my only big complaint is that the funnel attachment system is quite weak. The way the hips move is also a bit strange, as the pegs that the legs plug into do not allow for rotation. Instead, the entire peg swings back and forth. For those of you wondering, I was the one who broke Hi-Nu's hip joint, but thanks to some quick thinking and my buddy Lupes the problem was solved within a week :D

Other than that, there really are no problems with the MG Hi-Nu, and if you've got ~$70 to pony up for it, then by all means get it! It makes a very unique addition to anyone's collection~

And that's all Seraphim and I have to say about this awesome kit. See you Friday~ :D