I had grand plans for this photo shoot, but they kind of fell apart.
The big and glaring problem is that this model is really only designed to work with its included display stand, and that to be blunt, it’s a pretty crummy stand.
It starts with the spindly little Fin Funnels mounts. I’m 100% certain that these are supposed to be adjustable, so that you can position the Funnels as you’d like. After all, each one has multiple moveable joints.
The issue, though, is that the plastic is brittle, and while the joints technically move, they are all unbelievably stiff. If you apply too much pressure, the arm will break as easily as a pretzel stick:
Toning Down the Torque
I can’t guarantee this will work with 100% reliability, but there is a way to minimize the chance of a break. If you’ll remember from your high school physics classes, torque is the product of multiplying the amount of force by the length of the lever arm. So when you bend the joint, create as small of a lever arm as possible by putting your fingers as close to the joint as you can, like this:
But DON’T do this, or it’s going to snap like a dry twig:
I ended up breaking two of them, one of which was reasonably easy to glue, and the other not so much.That’s why you’re going to see some photos later on where only five of the Funnels are deployed. It’s annoying not to have all six, but it is what it is.
The second problem is with the stand itself. When Bandai includes a stand, sometimes they’ll just give you a full blown Action Base, but in cases where they don’t, what you’ll usually get instead is something cheap and simple that only allows you to adjust the height and angle of the stand to one of a few preconfigured positions.
For example, consider this one, where you can see a set of very visible teeth and notches that designate all the positions:
The display stand for this Ver. Ka does the same thing, except the teeth and notches are embedded inside of what looks like a normal, enclosed joint:
I’ve never seen this kind of configuration before, and you’ll have to forgive me when I say that I didn’t realize that it was like this. At some point I started the move the joint back and forth like it was normal, and as a result I broke the teeth:
It turns out that if the teeth are broken, there isn’t enough friction to keep the joint in place. In other words, the Nu Gundam’s weight will pull the stand down. Maybe not all the way to the floor, but pretty close.
But even if I didn’t break the joint, I’m not sure how much it would matter. When the joint is broken (which ironically gives it a full range of motion), and you position it as far up as it can go, you can get the model this far off the ground:
That’s … actually not too bad. It isn’t great, but it’s also not horrible. But remember that it’s not supposed to work this way! If you actually set it to the higher of its two preconfigured positions, it only goes this high up:
It may not be super obvious from this photo, but trust me when I say that it’s barely off the ground. It’s a middair pose in name only.
But it gets worse. The tip of the stand - the part that actually plugs into the model - has no articulation at all. You can’t tilt the model forward or back, or side to side.
All of this is to say that they didn’t make it easy to pose the Nu Gundam in anything resembling a cool, dynamic action pose, and once I realized that that was the case I decided not to fight it. Don’t get me wrong - I would have loved to do more than I did for this photoshoot, but it just wasn’t feasible. I still hope you enjoy the photos, but even I have to admit that it was an underwhelming shoot.
Standing Poses?
You might be thinking “why not just do some standing action poses?"It’s a fair question, and the answer is that the ankle joints on this model aren’t particularly strong. Even without the Fin Funnels mounted to the back, I found that it frequently bends forward at the ankles unless you have it perfectly balanced. That meant that even standing poses were rather tricky.
For better or worse, this is more of a "look but don't touch" Gunpla.
About the Visual Design
On the bright side, at least it looks pretty!
It’s highly detailed, yet also surprisingly reserved. When you compare it to the Real Grade version, it becomes clear that the legs, the feet, the front skirts, the shield, and to a lesser extent the head could all be way busier, but they’re not. And I actually think I prefer that:
At the same time, it’s definitely got more going on than, say, the Entry Grade version (which is much closer in look to the original lineart):
The Ver. Ka feels like a really nice fusion between the the two extremes, one that leans towards being hyper detailed without going overboard.
The more I dwell on it, the more this is becoming my favorite iteration of the Nu. I’m curious to see if that persists, or if it is simply a case of recency bias.
LED Light
I tried to remember to turn the LED on for most of these photos, but due to how bright the lightbox is, the eyes aren’t super bright or glowy. And yet I still think they look pretty great, certainly beter than if I had used the stickers. I'm not convinced it's worth using an LED every time it's an option, but I think it was definitely worth it for this one.About the Build
This build felt like a blast from the past.
At my very start with this hobby, I was building Real Grades, and those early builds generated an almost euphoric sense of jy and wonder. I marveled at how they came together, with all these intricate little parts forming around a core inner frame to create something so detailed and intricate. And every single one of those early builds took me roughly a month to complete.
That’s basically what this build was like too, and aside from making me feel nostalgic, what I appreciate most is how it rekindled those feelings of fascination and wonder at watching a model come together.
To be clear, I don’t think that the model is really much more complicated than other Master Grades. It’s more the fact that as you start adding all the armor, and then all the decals, it starts to come together to become something greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a special feeling that I don’t always get from other builds, even from other MG’s.
Psychoframe Mode
I chose not to put the model into its “Activation Mode” where all the Psychoframe is visible. After breaking some of the display arms, and also causing a ton of wear and tear to the back plate (on account of frequently removing it to turn the LED on and off), I decided that I didn’t want to push my luck.
I might go back to it one day, particularly if I can figure out a way to use some more Green LEDs to illuminate the Psychoframe bits. But for now it didn’t seem worth it.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that this kit has flaws. The display base is a dud, the ankles are wobbly, the Funnels can be finicky (though I still assert that they hold together pretty well if you’re careful), and you’ll have to add some paint if you don’t want the LED to create a big monoeye.
But even with these flaws - and to be clear, some of them are quite significant - I can’t bring myself to feel down.The experience of the build itself, coupled with the look of the final model, leaves me with nothing but positive vibes. Like the Real Grade Nu before it, I think this is going to be a build that sticks in my memory for a very long time. And in the end, that’s what matters most.
