Thank you to Gundam Mad for selling me this kit. I hope neither you nor Bandai take this personally, because spoiler alert - I end up saying some very-not-nice things about this kit.
Alright, just have to clear some confusion up for the newbies, because shortly after I got into this hobby, this really made it difficult for me to specifically look for this kit.
There are two different designs for the Gundams in Gundam Wing - the original TV versions and the retconned Hajime Katoki redesigns used in the Endless Waltz OVA/movie and the Glory of the Losers manga. This specific Wing Gundam is the Endless Waltz redesign of the first Wing Gundam, and as documented on this blog before, the one with the feathery wings is the redesign of the mid-season upgrade, the Wing Gundam Zero.
There. If you like this version of the Wing Gundam as much as I do and want to get your hands on a kit of it, I've just saved you a ton of perplexed searching. Now let's build us a Real Grade of it. Would've preferred the Hi-Resolution Model in an ideal world, but that's a P-Bandai exclusive, because of course it is.
Looks like we're dealing with pre-assembled inner frame parts, though unlike last time, the manual has you assemble the armour as you go.
Legs
You know you're dealing with a kit dedicated to detail when you have parts that look like they're the same colour until they're assembled side-by-side, as demonstrated by the different shades of white on the upper leg armour.
At this stage, I had to dab a bit of plastic glue into the connecting grooves of the red heel, it doesn't seem to stay on securely.
Chest
Yes, I accidentally started on the chest assembly.
The manual isn't clear about this, but after moving B7's central pivot up using B3, it seems to want you to detach B7 so that C1 fits on it...
Yeah, I don't know either. Glimpsing back at the waist section I accidentally skipped over isn't giving me any answers. Maybe it's just the way the arrow looks.
Waist
Ah, I get it - the horizontal part from the Chest assembly does go in after having levered it upwards.
Arms
The arms attach to the torso a little strangely - you're supposed to angle the shoulder joint back then fit the arm onto it, then move the shoulder hinge back into its original position. It's not difficult, but I don't recall any kit I've built that uses this method.
These shoulders loosely slot onto the upper arms, and it doesn't really feel all that secure, much like with the shoulders on the Wing Zero Ver.Ka. But I do still like the look of this Gundam as it comes together. Well...we just need the...
Head
I know this is par for the course for Real Grades, but man were the eye and camera stickers on the head a pain. But we now have an assembled Gundam that just needs some honking great wings sticking out the back and an overcompensatory beam rifle. But first, let's get some of the stickers on.
Ahh, magnifico!
Backpack
The first red part that slides into the wing feels like it fits loosely, but the white part hanging off it horizontally and the second red part secure it in place, so don't fret about that.
The aforementioned white part is important to keep notice of - if it's jutting forward, then you're facing the wings from behind, so that's how you know which wing is the left and right one.
Kind of awkward to pose it upright, but I guess that's what Action Bases are for. It kind of helps that the next immediate steps after the backpack attachment show the action base adapter. So naturally I swiftly ordered a black Action Base 2 and threw that together. I mean, what's the use of assembling a variant of the Wing Gundam if you can't easily see the wingspan?
Weapon
Now that all that's assembled, RANT TIME.
There's a tab on the right side of the rifle handle that slots into the palm of the shooting hand to secure it in place, but in trying to fit the hand back onto the Gundam, the tab broke off. So I tried to plastic glue it back on, then after waiting for a bit, I attempt to attach it again, and the tab gets stuck inside the hand, with no amount of tweezer application able to get a grip on it and fish it out. So now, not only can I no longer attach the beam saber to right hand, but unless I want the rifle limp in the left hand (which nobody would, since it's a huge rifle), I have to permanently glue it onto the hand.
Side note, no - the manual doesn't give the numbers that specify an order to fit the parts together when putting the hand on the Gundam, so even if this was a mistake on my part and I should've put the hand on the Gundam before fitting the rifle and the other half of the hand, I still reserve some major ire for whoever laid out the instructions. Whoever you are, you're right there in my personal model kit Hell alongside whoever wrote out the head instructions for the Perfect Grade Unicorn, and the person who slipped those typos into the Aoshima Mechagodzilla manual.
Between this rifle nonsense and the shoulders still coming off while I'm trying to get the arm in position, I'm not happy with this. The punchline is that the plastic glue not only doesn't work all that well, so I can't pose it with the rifle, but because of this, I can't pose it with the shield without it getting even more lop-sided on the stand. And even if it did stick adequately, it would have meant that I can't properly transform the kit into Bird Mode without potentially wrecking the hand further.
To cut a long story short, this singular part of the rifle breaking has basically locked me out of some of the best display potential this kit has, and I feel like banging my head into a wall for how genuinely angry it's made me.
I know it's a Real Grade and delicate parts come with the territory, but this is atrocious. I know a lot of people really like this kit, and there's a lot about it I find aesthetically pleasing, but with the loose parts you'd expect from a Real Grade coming in abundance, only a few of which can be safely glued down like the toes, my experience with this kit was pretty much ruined by the horrible rifle attachment process.
So now I'm left having to detach the shield to stop it leaning to the side on the stand, and even reattaching it to the base after it came loose made matters more complicated, so this kit frustrated me even after trying to compromise, leaving it as almost a monument to my own frustration. If it wasn't such a nice-looking Gundam, I'd have mothballed this kit immediately after publishing this blog.
Perhaps I might buy a second one a year or so later and revisit it like I plan to do with the Real Grade Astray Red Frame. Perhaps things will be put into context if I try out the Master Grade, the Ver.Ka, or (by some miracle) the P-Bandai HiRM version of this kit, but as a Gundam model in its own right, proceed with caution.
God, I feel so frustrated right now. Not since the Turn A has a kit given me such a miserable conclusion.
The Good
+ Katoki's design of this Gundam has always had a place in my heart
+ Build is simpler than it looks
+ Lots of nice details
The Bad
- The peg that secures the beam rifle in the hand is dreadful
- Shoulder hinges feel very loose
- Needs an action base to properly show the design off
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