Gunpla Build - High Grade Leo

This is the first time I have ever purchased a model kit of a mobile suit that I genuinely don’t like:

It’s the goddamn Leo. The worst mobile suit in Gundam Wing, and quite possibly the worst grunt mobile suit ever.

About the Leo

Some grunt suits manage to look cool. Some manage to be decently powerful. The Leo is neither.

Technically speaking, the Leo is a mass production version of the Tallgeese. You can see this very clearly in their visual design -

Considering that the Tallgeese is one of my favorite (if not the favorite) mobile suits in Gundam Wing, you would think that I might find the Leo to be similarly appealing. But no - somehow the Leo takes a great design and makes it ugly.

Here is a short list of its problems:

• The red panels on the head. This is the only part of the mobile suit that is red, and it contrasts greatly with the rest of the color scheme.
  • The panels also wrap too far around the head.
• The Leo’s head is shaped to look like it’s wearing a hat. Not a helmet, mind you, but a hat. Why not make it in the shape of a helmet? Even the lowliest rifleman in any army is going to get a helmet. But not the Leo!
• The shoulder armor is a bit simpler than the Tallgeese. Too simple.
• The arms and chest are largely the same, but the Leo lacks color separation.
• The Leo lacks the Tallgeese’s skirt armor, which makes it look more sleight.

Basically, the Leo goes a bit too far in stripping down and simplifying the Tallgeese, and its color palette is both monotonous and dissonant.

Now, this might be forgivable if the Leo somehow acquitted itself well on the battlefield. Instead, it is arguably the most cannon-foddery of all grunt mobile suits in the entire Gundam metaseries. Simply put, Leos exist to be destroyed. Literally the only mobile suits they are effective against are other Leos. Against Gundams - heck, even against other grunt suits - Leos simply stand around and shoot, and eventually get destroyed. And no, I’m not joking - here are but a few instances of Leos literally just standing and shooting:

At least other grunt suits try to move around and give their opponent a fight. Leo’s on the other hand operate with a startling lack of agency, strategy, initiative, or survival instinct. They may be called Mobile Suits, but rare is the battle in which they are, well, mobile.

All of these problems are exacerbated by the fact that the Leo never goes away. The setting of Gundam Wing is unique in that the change of pace of mobile suit technology is shockingly slow. This isn’t Zeta Gundam, where new models and prototypes are cranked out every few days. That means the Leo remains on the battlefield until the very final episode. We never get a reprieve from the its suckiness.

Making the Leo Look Better

Now we get to the reason why I bought this kit in the first place - I wanted to challenge myself to try and make the Leo look better.

For all the complaints I just lodged against it, the Leo still has “good bones”. I figure that with some better color separation and detailing, it should be possible to bring out some of its inner Tallgeese.

That’s the idea in theory, but as always the devil is in the details. I’ve spent the last two months overthinking exactly which shades of which colors to use, and exactly where to use them. I eventually I decided to YOLO It and do something. If it ends up looking ugly, so be it - it’s a Leo after all.

Gunpla Evolution?

Check out the logo in the top corner of the box:

Gunpla Evolution Project eh??? That sounds intriguing. I wonder what it is …

Thirty minutes of research later ...

Okay, I’m not entirely sure what Gunpla Evolution Project is all about, but here is what I think it is:

GEP appears to an experiment of sorts. Bandai is taking kits from across all four major grades - High, Real, Master, and Perfect - and each one as a showcase for some particular evolution in Gunpla design. For example, the very first GEP kit - the High Grade Zeta Gundam Revive - allegedly manages to support the Zeta’s transformation gimmick without having to mess around with the model’s proportions or articulation. Elsewhere, the Real Grade Crossbone Gundam is supposed to have an extreme level of detail (even for a Real Grade), while the Perfect Grade Gundam Exia has some sort of extra special system of built-in LEDs.

However, there are few things about GEP that I am left uncertain about. For one, I don’t know if it is still an ongoing concern. The fact that the last GEP kit was released in 2019 suggests that it is all done, but the fact that there is yet to be a Master Grade GEP kit suggests that it isn’t.

Second, I’m not sure if the concepts introduced in these kits are truly experiments, or whether they are sneak peaks at technologies that will eventually find their way into all future designs.

Conclusion

Weirdly, I am weirdly forward to this build. The end result will either be a much cooler looking Leo, or an unmitigated disaster. Only one way to find out!