If ever there was a Gunpla that warrants busting out the pink background, it’s this one:
The more I look at this design, the more I like it. It’s not the coolest, or the toughest or anything like that. But it’s different, and that makes it interesting to me.
It’s such a different take on a mass produced grunt suit; it’s not a simplified version of some slick prototype, nor does it even really fit into the main aesthetic of its faction. Instead it’s a bunch of parts seemingly slapped together as quickly and as simply as possible. It’s exactly the kind of grunt suit that Axis Zeon should have.
Or to quote Marge Simpson:
Action Poses
So the big question here is, “does the gun get in the way when you’re not using it?”
It depends on the pose:
If you can tuck it away neatly, and spread the arms out, it’s going to look just fine.
Though it you don’t tuck it away neatly, it sticks out a bit:
Unfortunately I lost the right holding hand, so I could only equip the beam saber in the left hand:
The two chest parts can move independently of the rest of the torso, which is good overall, but it can also lead to photos like this, where the chest sections aren’t symmetrical, and as such they don’t look quite right:
Now for the second most important question, which is “How well does it pose with the gun?”
Overall, it’s not too bad:
Granted, it has to rest within the open-palmed right hand in order to look decent, and that’s going to limit its range. But to be fair, the Gaza C seems to have been designed largely for long distance line firing, so it’s not like it was ever intended to fire from all angles:
Though if you really wanted to, you can adjust things so that it can fire backwards:
Transformation
The transformation process isn’t too complicated, though once again I found myself confused by some of the instructions, so much so that I finally decided to just wing and hope for the best. In the end, I think I got right; here it is in its “walker” mode:
I feel like I need to emphasize just how good the engineering is on this model. The feet (and legs) and rotate 360 degrees, and the knees can bend backwards.
It’s all quite wonderful, especially for a vintage 2006 kit.
In order to put it into flight mode, we just flip the feet forward to look like bird’s claws, and off we go:
In fact, the claws might be my least favorite thing about the transformation. Everything else about it looks like a proper space fighter craft, which is more than I can say about most flight modes from this era of the Universal Century.
Conclusion
I never would have thought that a model of the Gaza C of all things could be so good, especially not from almost 20 years ago. And yet here we are. This was such a fun and pleasant build, and a wonderful photo shoot to boot. What a fantastic build to kick off 2025.
Parting Thoughts
I did not use the included display stand, since it only allows a single fixed position. Instead, I used a new (to me) display stand - an Action Base 7 to be specific. This was my first real test drive of the Base, and with any luck I’ll have a followup post soon going into detail about it.