I’ve already built one model kit from Gundam Breaker: Battlelogue, but the USA Gundam is tame in comparison to some of the other custom mobile suits that pop up in the show. Some of them are wild remixes and mashups of classic mecha, and today I’m ready to tackle one of them. Meet the Blazing Gundam:
But before we dive in, let’s talk a bit about Battlelogue. I didn’t go into much detail previously, and I think a little bit of context would help us better understand and appreciate this new mobile suit.
About Gundam Breaker Battlelogue
Gundam Breaker Battlelogue is a six-part short OVA series that premiered worldwide on Youtube in late 2021. Each of the individual episodes range from 7-14 minutes long - and that’s including the end credits sequence, which on its own takes over a minute. If you were to strip out the credits and combine all the story sequences, the entire thing is approximately 45 minutes total (though it feels much shorter than that).
Battlelogue is set in the same universe as two videogames, Gundam Breaker 3 (a PS4 game) and Gundam Breaker Mobile (a smartphone game). Each game is about a group of Gunpla fans who build custom models and use them in battle tournaments. The tournament system is mostly the same as the ones seen in the Gundam Build Fighters shows, except rather than the concept of magic “Plavsky Particles” that bring real plastic models to life, in the Breaker world your model is scanned and placed into a virtual online game.
The story of Battlelogue is basically a crossover, in which the main casts of both games meet up (and team up). This, of course, is a chance for each character to show up with a brand new custom model that Bandai can conveniently sell us in real life.
About the Blazing’s Pilot
The Blazing Gundam is the newest custom Gunpla built by Misa Satsukino:
Misa hails from Gundam Breaker 3, where she is the constant companion of the game’s silent protagonist, and founding member of their Gunpla Battle club. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to classify her as a Genki Girl, but she’s somewhere in that orbit.
Anyway Battlelogue (very subtly)1 reveals that after the events of the game, the club disbanded, and Misa was once again alone without a team.
Episode 1 of Battlelogue makes it clear that Misa is none too happy about this turn of events, and while she’s still her optimistic self, she’s also rather pissed off. And it seems as if she channeled that anger and frustration into her current Gunpla, the Blazing Gundam.
About the Blazing Gundam
The Blazing Gundam is based off of the God Gundam from Mobile Fighter G Gundam. According to the Wiki:
The Blazing Gundam is a custom designed gunpla built with the concept of being the “brother” machine to the God Gundam, inspired by other “sibling” pairings such as the Rising Gundam and the Shining Gundam.
All told, the Blazing is a somewhat unique idea for a custom design. Between the Gundam Breaker game series and the Gundam Build TV shows, a whole lot of artists have had to design a whole lot of custom Gunpla. In general, these designs fall into one of three categories:
- Take an existing design and recolor it
- Take an existing design, recolor it, and make a few notable cosmetic tweaks using brand new parts
- Take a bunch of existing designs and combine them together in a way that no real life builder could possibly do with a humble kitbash
The Blazing Gundam falls into what I consider a highly modified version of Category #2. It tweaks an existing design with new parts and colors, but it also remixes the design with itself.
For example, the clawed gauntlets on the God Gundam’s arms are moved onto the Blazing’s feet (since it uses the “Blazing Kick” instead of the “Shining/God Finger”). It also takes the foldable wings off the God Gundam’s back, shrinks them, and places them onto the Blazing’s arms. This shuffling of visual traits to different parts of the body is a risky approach. Do it wrong, and it may end up looking very awkward. Thankfully, the Blazing pulls it off with aplomb. It makes all of its limbs feel that much more lethal.
In fact, dareisay that the Blazing Gundam feels even more like a fighter than its inspiration. It looks quick and nimble, like it can (and will) do more than stand still and use its finishing move.
As for the color scheme, I like it, but it also reminds me a bit too much of the Build Burning Gundam from Build Fighters Try:
Case in point - I have an SD version of the Build Burning, and my 3-year old - who is a huge fan of PJ Masks - calls it the “Owlette Gingum” on account of how red it is. When I showed her a picture of the Blazing, she simply called it “Dada’s Big Owlette Gingum”. As far as she’s concerned, they’re the same.
To be fair, I realize that a 3-year old’s opinion only means so much. And to be clear, the Blazing uses very different (and much darker) shades of red and blue, which I like far more than the Build Burning’s simpler, more “standard” tones. I’m just saying that maybe they could have done a little more to differentiate them, especially considering they’re both melee fighters.
In terms of weapons, the Blazing Gundam has beam sabers, as well as a pair of beam tonfas (which are just regular tonfas that can also emit a beam blade). And that’s pretty much it! That’s because the Blazing Gundam, like its big brother, is mainly about fighting via the martial arts.
Speaking of which, Blazing Gundam has its own variant of the Shining Finger/God Finger - the Blazing Kick. Or should I say:
Blaaazing Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicku!
It’s an obvious and simple inversion of the God Finger, but I still love it.
The last thing I’ll say about the Blazing is that compared to the God Gundam, it looks less like its “brother” unit and more like its “sister”. It’s not outwardly feminine - this isn’t a “Girlbot” like the Nobel Gundam - but the shoulder armor is less broad, the skirt armor is not as long, and it doesn’t have quite as much of a barrel chest. Everything feels just a bit smaller, and if you place them side by side, they kind of look like a big brother and kid sister:
Visual Design as Character Development
At the risk of reading too much into things, I think the Blazing Gundam’s design tells us a lot about Misa’s character development. I don’t think it is coincidence that a girl who feels alone and angry chose to base her new Gunpla on the same mobile suit used by Domon Kashu, a man who is hot blooded, abrasive, and prefers to work alone. One gets the sense (at least from Episode 1 of Battlelogue) that she’s trying to convince herself that she doesn’t need her old friends, that she can win all on her own if she has the right Gunpla and the right attitude.
COVID Gundam?
My absolute favorite thing about Blazing Gundam is its face. I’m not talking about its special “anti-viral mask”, which it wears in the online world to innoculate itself against a computer virus:
Rather, I’m talking about how it looks without that mask:
It’s normal face has no mouth, which means it still looks like it’s wearing a mask! Considering the timing of this show’s release, I have to assume this is a coy reference to the COVID-19 pandemic. I love the implicit idea that this is the “anti-COVID” Gundam.
About the Model Kit
I know that the Blazing reuses at least some of the parts from the High Grade God Gundam, but I don’t know exactly how many. I’m curious to find out.
- When I say “very subtly”, I mean that it’s implied in the final minutes of Episode 1, and essentially confirmed by a bunch of still images that flash by during the end credits. It’s “blink and you’ll miss it” stuff, though the visual imagery alone is quite emotionally potent. [return]