Greetings! Ren here once again for another review. It's been like a month now since my last review. I might sound like a broken record but yes it's because laziness. But not just laziness, I became busy at work so I wasn't able to take some shots and write stuff here. But anyway it's good to be back here again to write another review for my blog. And I hope this week I'll be able to post another review so stay tuned.
So for today we have a review of a not so old kit. And I might say one of my favorite limited edition Gunplas, the HGUC Sazabi Ver GFT.
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| (photo from http://www.blu-ray.com) |
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| (photo from: www.japanator.com) |
A close look at the head and upper torso. The head's design was said to be inspired of Char's helmet during his UC 0079 days. It is obviously red and sports a green mono eye for the main cameras. You can move it but you need to take off the whole helmet piece first. And be careful with the two antennae on top it's thin plastic and you might destroy the Sazabi's face if you're not careful. The upper torso consist of red/black parts with a touch of grey for the neck. Add the decals for a great look.
As you can see clearly, the sticker decals are not that reliable when you apply them to a part that sort of pops out. I think it should've been better if it's a water slide decal, because water slides are fun. And is 10x better than the regular one. But hey, this is a Bandai kit so they've done this for a while now.
Here's a closer look of the Sazabi's funnels that are in-stored.
And basically you can open them up to see some good details inside. The stored funnels is just made up of a one piece that you can attach. But I decided to cut one down. (Find out why later)
Anyway, enough of the decals, look at this shiny looking Sazabi is really amazing. You might not see it in the photos but when you see it in person it is indeed very beautiful. The redness of the kit is not that deep of red, and not that light red it's a just right kind of color and the black and small bits of yellow parts are a great combination. (red/black/yellow FTW!)
Here are the waist parts that also has some awesome looking decals. And if you want more details with the yellow belt like part give it some panel lines.
On the other side of the front skirt, there's another decal that sports the letters "CD" within a shield. I think this one stands for Casval Deikun (discarding the "Rem" for reasons I do not know, maybe the R might make the logo/decal bigger or it might occupy more space) which is Char's birth name before taking the identity of Char Aznable. If you wanna know why he changed it just read the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin manga or watch the OVA if you're like me that falls asleep when reading a manga. So yeah, lots of details and lots of warning signs around this kit.
At the back, there's a huge back skirt part that also has athe S-01 decal. If you're a great at painting model kits, you can paint that black part with silver paint or whatever you prefer. ("Gunpla is freedom" as the Meijin said)
And here at the left side of the feet is one of it's similarities with the Ver Ka. Oh God, I wish this were just water slides.
Now let's take a look at the accessories. This kit includes the beam shot rifle, it's famous shield, six activated/open funnels and a pair of one piece funnels that are stored in it's backpack/thrusters. A beam tomahawk that can activate its full beam saber form and a single clear part for the axe blade. And we also get a pair of holding hands to hold the beam sabers and beam tomahawk, a single trigger finger hand for the right arm and an open left hand for some expressive poses.
The beam shot rifle is just a three piece black part. There are not much details in this beam shot rifle but a couple of sticker decals can be attached. Another thing to point out is that you can't do the shotgun like action on it's fore-end. What a bummer.
Next up is the huge shield. And of course it can't be complete without the huge Neo Zeon insignia on the center. And some small detail stickers to add a more Ka like vibe.
With the back we see minor details with the black part and another part to attach on the Sazabi's forearm.And if you take a look in the middle, there's a small connector to the...
Beam tomahawk. Compared to the SD version, this one doesn't need any stickers for the beam tomahawk (whew). But instead it's a three piece red and black part. And just like other high grades, it has a part that can be used to connect to the holding hands and for the shield.
Too bad the beam tomahawk is just stored in the shield and you can't do what the Sinanju can.
Here's the beam axe blade. (above) And the full beam saber mode. (below)
And here's another look of the beam tomahawk stored on the inner side of the shield.
And here's the beam saber with that little peg.
I really love the scuplting on the beam effect parts of this kit. It's not your usual straight beam saber but this one has some crooked uneven edges that makes this beam saber look awesome compared to the normal generic ones that the Federation has.
And lastly here's a piece of the activated funnel. All of them look the same so I just have a photo of one.
And also thanks to the guy from r/Gunpla who shared his DIY effect part for the Sazabi Ver Ka. You can use the left over runners of the beam effect parts as a beam effect part to attach to the funnels. (More on that later. We'll get there I promise.)
And here's the Sazabi fully armed.
And now that it's fully armed. Let's go to one of the lowest aspects of this kit. The articulation.
The head can move fairly up. It's pretty obvious because of the helmet's design.
But the downward movement is a little better.
You can turn the head both ways but for an extended turn, you need to move the chin up because it's hindered by the black collar.
You can rotate the arms around.
You can bend the elbows that far.
A swivel on the upper part. (shout out to Jobby the Hong, and check out his funny reviews.)
And you can move the arms upward but that's all that it can do. *sobs*
The shoulders can move forward but not that much. But hey, the waist's swivel is great!
For the legs it can move up like that and the bend on the knees are okay.
And the leg can also be move backward that far.
And for the splits. Yeah, that's all there is.
I hate it that Bandai did the same thing with the legs of the Ver Ka. If you move the legs too wide it'll pop off easily.
But to be fair with Bandai, maybe they tried another method instead of this but it was a failure so maybe this is the best method for a mobile suit like the Sazabi.
And for the feet, it's pretty much the same with other HGs out there. But there's a great amount of detail inside of the feet.
And now that we're done with the articulation, let's do some poses.
Kudos to Bandai for great sculpt. I hope other Zeon mobile suits that use beam sabers/blades as weapons should also get the same treatment.
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| Tamashii Stage Act 5 is not included with the kit. |
CONS
- Limited articulation
- Sticker decals (should've been water slide)
- It's shiny.
- Decals (But yeah, it should've been water slides)
- Beam effect parts
- The red is the right kind of red.
- It shows of a Ver Ka feel.
- Did I mentioned about being shiny?
So there it is my review of the HGUC MSN-04 Sazabi Ver GFT. You can only purchase this on the Gundam Front Tokyo in Odaiba but yeah too bad it's closed but if you're a Sazabi fan and a fan of the movie and you're lucky enough to find a seller that has one (unbuilt of course) then buy yourself one.
What are your thoughts? Any negative reactions? Suggestions? Will you buy it once Gundam Front Tokyo opens again? (If they'll still sell it) Hit me up on the comments below share your thoughts. Anyways, there'll be another review this week so stay tuned.
See you in my next post!
またね
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