Garbage Time 2023 is over, but there’s one more thing I want to talk about before I move on.
It’s about Barbatos. All of them.
In my experience, most - not all, but most - mobile suits are designed such that they can be reasonably recreated as High Grade Gunpla. This is especially true of protagonist mobile suits, since there is an expectation that they’ll sell the best.
I’m starting to think that a lot of the problems I have with the High Grade Barbatos models stem from the fact that they break this unofficial rule.
Simply put, all forms of Barbatos are too detailed to be easily replicated at 1⁄144 scale. They have too much detail on their inner frames, too much parts separation, and too much color separation. And this means that the High Grade kits are just too compromised for their own good.
The reverse is also true. I think it’s fair to say that most mobile suits benefit from the extra size and complexity benefited to Master Grade kits, even if only a little. But with the Barbatos variants, I think they’d all benefit significantly.
In fact, we don’t even have to guess. There is a Master Grade of the OG Barbatos, as seen below:
Now compare that to the High Grade:
The difference is striking. It’s not just that the MG has more detail. It has better proportions, some of the armor has a better, “sharper” look, and you can even see the claws on the fingertips. The MG simply a better ability to capture all the subtle details of a mobile suit design with high-than-normal complexity. And I’m willing to bet the Lupus and Lupus Rex would benefit just as much from such an upgrade.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Bandai would have been better off making Master Grades of all of these mobile suits. That, or they should have toned down the designs to make them work better as High Grades.
Either way, I’m glad I “solved the problem” so to speak. Maybe my issue isn’t with the mobile suits themselves, but with these Gunpla.