I got a handful of small gift cards for my birthday last month, and with so many family members encouraging my model kit hobby, I figured I might as well do the same. I ended up buying four different kits, all of them at extremely good prices l(which is the only reason I got four in the first place). They have not yet all arrived - one of them appears to be shipping directly from Japan, and may not arrive until the end of Feburary! - but as of today I do have two of them. And lo and behold, there’s a bit of a theme behind them. Can you guess from this photo?
That’s right - after having such a great time with the High Grade Sandrock, I decided to give in and get those other Gundam Wing kits I was eyeing.
On the left, of course, is the High Grade Maganac, which will pair perfectly with Sandrock. On the right is the kit I have been secretly pining for for over a year now - the Real Grade Tallgeese. The only thing stopping me from getting it sooner was
- The price (it’s not pricey, but does cost more than I’ve been used to paying for High Grades)
- My inability until recently to embrace the fact that I now like a lot of Gundam Wing designs, and that that’s okay!
This is also the first Real Grade kit I have built in a long time. My first four kits ever were all Real grades, and I have not built one since. That means it has been … six years since I last built a Real Grade!??!?
Yikes.
Apparently times have changed with the line since then. Youtuber Mecha Gaikotsu is fond of the phrase “Early Real Grade Syndrome”. Basically, a lot of the earliest Real Grade kits have this quirk in which their joints get very loose and floppy over time. Some of them also struggle to stay in one piece, due to parts that fall off much too easily. In other words, the idea of the Real Grade line is great, but it took a while for Bandai to figure out how to do it well. According to Mecha (and other reviewers I follow), the Tallgeese is one of the first (if not the first) Real Grade kits that addresses the issues responsible for Early Real Grade Syndrome, and thus stands among the very best examples of the line. That has nothing to do with my reasons for wanting to build it, but it stands as an added bonus.
I am not sure which one I am going to build first, but I am looking forward to getting to these sooner or later.
Other Thoughts
- Allegedly the white plastic in the Tallgeese kit is specially made so that it is glossy and shiny out of the box. This is intriguing to me, and if it ends up being true, I likely will not topcoat it. If Bandai thinks it should be shiny, then it shall be so.
- The fact that I have not built a Real Grade kit in six years makes it look as if I stopped liking them, but that is not true. The main reason why is that very few of them that have come out since have been up my alley, at least not at their price point. Why spend $30 on a RG kit I only somewhat like, when I could buy two or three High Grades of mobile suits I love?
- The one exception to this has been the Real Grade Nu Gundam that came out last year. It just looks too big and complicated for me to deal with right now, though eventually I will probably break down and get it.
- While I had never heard the term Early Real Grade syndrome back in 2012-2014, I definitely experienced it. I think this lead to me being subconsciously turned off by Real Grades, even if I did not know it. Out of the four I own, only the Gundam Mk. II is as solid as the day I finished it. The rest have all sorts of issues that literally none of my High Grades face.
- It looks as if Bandai’s main solution to Early Real Grade Syndrome was to downplay the use of the “Advanced MS Joint” system. Basically, Advanced MS Joints are pre-assembled sections of inner frame that allow Real Grades that superb level of articulation. Unfortunately, these parts seem to be the ones that loosen up over time. More recent Real Grade kits allegedly use only a handful of these parts, instead building the rest of the inner frame the hard way, piece by piece, ala Master Grades and Perfect Grades.