Gunpla Build - High Grade Gundam Age II Magnum (Photos)

Force Avalon is ready to compete - and here comes The Champ!

If this kit is in any way indicative of the quality of High Grade Gundam AGE kits, then I have to agree with all the builders who have raved for years about their quality.

So much about this kit - the build process, the color separation, the lack of seamlines - is what I expect from a good modern High Grade. And yet so many of the kits I’ve built - including some that are even more modern - fail to meet the same level of quality.

Now to be fair, some of this may be due to the design. The sharp angles and edges make it easier to hide away seamlines, and the flat, basic geometric shapes means there isn’t much opportunity for panel lines, thrusters, and other things that might need color correction.

But that still doesn’t explain the high degree of parts and color separation, or the fact that it manages a transformation gimmick without having loosey goosey joints. Really, the only things I’ve built recently that surpass this level of quality are the G Gundam High Grades they’ve been selling on Premium Bandai.

Which also makes me wonder - if they could pull off this kind of model in 2011, what the hell was the excuse for some of the less than stellar High Grade lines that came out later …?

Action Poses

During the build, I wondered why the purple sections of the shoulder armor are on hinges. Now I finally see why; the funnels mounted on the shoulders tend to get in the way during poses, but the hinges allow you to push them back just a bit to get them out of the way of the arms:

At least, I’m assuming that’s the use case. And if so, it’s a very clever gimmick.

One minor quibble I have with this kit is the shield. A normal Gundam shield is much larger in comparison, and one of the benefits of that is that the shield hides away the arm (which you usually have to twist and contort in order to make the shield face forward). But since this shield is so tiny, we don’t really have that luxury.

The good news is that there are ways to workaround this problem. For instance, you can simply use the shield to attack:

Or you can just be clever/careful with how you position it:

Or, you know, you could just remove it if you need to:

Here’s a fun pose from the instruction manual that I tried to replicate:

I like how the rifle is positioned between the shoulder funnels, rather than in front of them.

In Gundam AGE, the pilot of the AGE-2 favors using dual beam sabers, so let’s try and honor that.

Using the Funnels

Let’s play around a bit with the funnels.

First off, it turns out that they can be held:

Just in case you wanted to use an alternate melee weapon:

Now, as for propping them up in the air like proper funnels, they are compatible with the Witch from Mercury Weapon Display Base.

However, every time I get a model with bits or funnels or something, I get all these grand ideas about using the Display Bases to create all sorts of cool action poses, only to be reminded that they are, in fact, a pain in the ass to use.

So I ended up lazing out:

Cut me some slack! (or not, that’s perfectly fine)

I do want to note that even without the funnels attached to its body, the AGE II Magnum still looks pretty great.

Flight Mode

In order to transform this into flight mode (or “Phoenix Mode” as it’s called), we have to take it apart like an Autobot in a Marvel Transformer comic.

And now we discover that the transformation mechanism in the torso is way more complicated than I realized. You can pull out the torso like so, which automatically causes the head to tuck in:

Then - and this is crazy - you can pivot torso up and back so that it plugs into the back:

Next we make some adjustments to the Beam Rifle, and plug it in:

Fun fact - keen eyed readers might have noticed that there’s a hole in the AGE symbol embedded in the chest. That’s where the handle of the Beam Rifle plugs in.

Moving onto the legs, you have to take advantage of the double knee joint to bend it back like this:

The legs then plug into this rectangular block, which is the only reason why this transformation gimmick is technically a Partsformation:

Things get crazy when we move to the arms. The shoulder armor pivots downward, and the funnels … well, the best way to describe it is that the funnels kind of fold in on themselves.

Leading to this:

This plugs back into the torso, and voila:

I’ve seen a bunch of different transformations in my time, and this ranks among the best, both in terms of how it works, as well as how it looks.

I love how the funnels turn into wings, how the weapons cover the whole top of the mobile suit to make it look more like a ship, and how the head tucks in so that you can’t see it from underneath:

But yeah, it’s a cool looking craft, even cooler than the normal AGE-2.

Conclusion

I’ve had extremely good luck with all the models I’ve built so far this year. None of them have been anywhere close to bad, with most of them in the realm of “great”.

But I think the AGE II Magnum has crawled its way to the top of the heap. It’s a great build, a great look, with an incredibly good transformation gimmick. No other notes - this is a winner.