It’s Pride Month, and what better way to celebrate than to build the one and only lesbian witch Gundam? I’m talking, of course, about the Gundam Calibarn, from Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury:

Spoiler Preface!!!

This post contains spoilers for Witch from Mercury. You may want to skip it if you haven’t watched the show.

About the Mobile Suit

Here is what the Gundam Wiki has to say:

The Vanadis Institute developed countless prototype units in addition to the Lfrith before the establishment of GUND FORMAT technology. Of these units, the Calibarn took the most strikingly different direction from that of the Lfrith. Unlike the Lfrith, which could be operated with minimal impact on the human body within a certain Permet Score, Calibarn prioritized mobile suit performance to seek the utmost limits of GUND-ARM capabilities and adopted extreme measures that did not guarantee the pilot's life protection at all.

After losing to the Lfrith in the development competition, it is said that all records of the Calibarn were destroyed, and it was made off-limits and sealed away. Although it aimed to become the mainstream of GUND-ARMS, the Calibarn could very well have been considered the most cursed of all Gundams from the public sentiments.

Calibarn is the super dangerous - but also super powerful - weapon that the heroes of Witch from Mercury are forced to activate in order to save the day.

Appearance in the Show

Calibarn shows up at the ass end of the show, being revealed in Episode 21 (of 24), and not engaging in battle until Episode 23.

It flies around during the final battle with a giant cannon shaped like a broom.

And later on, it gets powered up and turns Pride colored:

And then it defeats the bad guys using space magic … or the power of lesbianism … it’s not entirely clear:

Calibarn, like its pilot, becomes a gay space witch.

About the Visual Design

The Calibarn is one of those cases where Bandai and Sunrise knew they had a hit design on their hands. Almost immediately after the final episode of GWitch aired, Bandai unveiled promotional images of the High Grade Calibarn (as well as its boxart). Meanwhile, the GundamOfficial Youtube channel posted this:

And hey, I think I get the appeal. While I personally think it could have stood to look even less like the Gundam Ilfrith and Aerial than it does, it still does a few things to differentiate itself.

It has a much cleaner color scheme that is vaguely reminiscent of the Nu Gundam, and it looks a bit more angular and less organic than its sisters. It has also has two big boosters on its backpack, which makes it look and feel faster.

(I also have to imagine that that the Pride colors are also probably appealing to a lot of people. I mean, I think they’re cool).

Basically, of the three “sisters”, the Calibarn looks the coolest.

I just don’t know if Calibarn is different enough to justify some of the insane hype I’ve encountered online.

So Then Why Buy It?

Because I fell for the hype! That’s it really. The Collective Online Gundam Fandom convinced me of the greatness of this design, and of the model kit, so I bit.

About the Model Kit

This kit’s been on sale since the summer of 2023, and I’ve seen it for sale online a few times, but I never saw it on shelves, in person, until March (and at Barnes and Noble no less!). And I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen it again since.

I’m assuming that means it continues to be a hot seller, though I suppose it could mean that Bandai is slowing down on the number of GWitch reprints they’re doing now that the show’s been off the air for almost a year.

In any case, it’s been a while since I saw all the reviews, so I don’t really remember what to expect from this build.