Master Grade 1/100 Shining Gundam Review

This is the Master Grade 1/100 Shining Gundam. This is an older Master Grade kit, having been released back in 2002. This was back when Bandai was experimenting with different innerframes for Master Grade kits, so the innerframe of this kit may seem a bit primitive compared to modern Master Grade innerframes. Being an older Master Grade kit, this kit makes use of philips head screws. Bolts are also used to help secure the screws in place. You’re going to be screwing in a lot of very small screws into the joints of the innerframe, so you’ll have to be very careful not to lose any. For this reason, I recommend keeping the screws in the bags they come in until they’re needed, or placing them in a small tray.

•DETAIL•
As a G Gundam fan, I can safely say that this kit is very well detailed and very accurate to the anime. In order to bring out that detail, however, you’re going to need to do a lot of panel lining, as well as a bit of paintwork. For example, the vulcan guns on the head are molded into one of the pieces for the head, and as such are unpainted. The vents on the bottom of the corelander are molded out of yellow plastic, so if you’re aiming to get this kit looking as anime accurate as possible, you’re also going to have to paint those.
Like most Master Grade kits, this ones has both normal sticker decals, and marking sticker decals. If you’re going for anime accuracy, you’ll have to skip adding the marking decals. However, if you want to give this kit a bit more Master Grade flair, then the marking decals look pretty good. I skipped adding the marking decals on mine, except for the King of Hearts crest mark, which I applied to one of the hands, but what you do is up to you.

•ACCESSORIES•
For accessories, you get a nice variety with this kit. With this kit you get two Shining Finger hands, two gripping hands for holding the beam sabers, two closed fists, two karate chop hands, one short beam saber handle, one long beam saber handle, one short beam saber blade, one long beam saber blade, two open faceplate pieces used for the transformation, one corelander, and a 1/20 scale Domon Kasshu figurine. One thing that you’re going to immediately notice about this kit is that while the Shining Finger hands are made of plastic, the other hands are actually made of a rubbery material. This in no way affects how they fit or how they move or anything, it just may seem odd for builders like me that are used to the hands being made of plastic.
Like many older Master Grade kits, you get a 1/20 scale figurine of the pilot. In this case, Domon Kasshu. This figurine comes molded in a sort of peach colored plastic, so you have to paint everything on the figurine yourself. Whether or not this is a problem will depend on if you have the proper painting tools, and how good you are at painting tiny details. This figurine has no real purpose apart from being a fun display piece, so you don’t need to keep it or do the paintwork if you don’t want to. I honestly didn’t keep mine because I just wasn’t up to trying to paint it.

•ARTICULATION•
Despite being an older Master Grade kit, you still get a lot of great articulation out of this kit. The head can look up and down, as well as rotate a full 360 degrees. The arms each rotate a full 360 degrees at the shoulders, and can rotate a bit at the biceps. The way the upper arms are designed limits the bicep rotation, but you still get enough rotation for most poses. The arms each get a double bend at the elbows, and the hands rotate a full 360 degrees, as well as pivot and swivel. The arms can also move all the way outward, and can swing all the way forward at the shoulder. You get both a forward and backward bend at the abdomen, and a bit of side to side rotation at the waist. The side skirt pieces and corelander get in the way of a lot of the waist rotation. The legs can move almost all the way forward, and can move backwards a fair bit thanks to the hinged back skirt piece. Due to the ball and socket way the legs connect to the lower body, the legs can’t move outward very much. Each leg gets a double bend at the knees, and the feet can pivot and swivel at the ankle, as well as bend upwards at the front of the feet.

•GIMMICK•
Like any Master Grade kit, this one has some cool gimmicks it can do. While this kit lacks an opening cockpit on the mobile suit, the cockpit of the corelander does open. The corelander can also be removed or inserted into the Shining Gundam’s back to replicate the docking process from the anime. Also, the front of the chest actually pushes in so that you can display your Master Grade Shining Gundam with it’s arms crossed if you want. And naturally, this kit can replicate the transformation to Super Mode. While the faceplate isn’t engineered to flip open, you do get two pieces that you swap out with the normal faceplate to replicate the effect of the faceplate being open. The flaps on the head also flip out, so unlike many action figures of the Shining Gundam, you don’t have to put on a whole different head for the Super Mode. Next, the white colored panels on the shoulders lift often to reveal the yellow panels underneath. These yellow panels can be painted gold if you want the color of them to be closer to the anime if you want. The next step of the transformation is to lift and move forward the blue armor on the lower arms. The next step of the transformation is to open the panels on the outer sides of the lower legs, which reveals hidden thrusters. Next, use the hinges in the feet to extend forward the fronts of the feet. And finally, flip down the white colored pieces on the sides of the feet, and the transformation to Super Mode is complete!

•MY ISSUES WITH THE KIT•
I really love this kit, but it isn’t without it’s problems. It doesn’t have many problems, but it does unfortunately have a couple. First, the chest piece that’s made to push in does so very easily, so you’re going to find yourself accidentally pushing that in a lot while you’re trying to pose the kit or while you’re handling it. The next issue is with the screws, that it can be difficult to screw them in just right. If you twist them too far in, the joints end up being really tight, but if you don’t twist the screws in enough, the joints end up being too loose. So it can be frustrating trying to find that “just right” point between too much and not enough.

•FINAL THOUGHTS•
All in all, as a G Gundam fan, I absolutely love this kit! Despite being a bit shorter than most Master Grade kits, it’s still a fantastic representation of the Shining Gundam, and I love that it can do the transformation to Super Mode. It might be an old kit, but it still holds it own very well compared to newer Master Grade Gunpla in terms of detail and articulation. This kit usually sells between $25 and $30, making it a fairly inexpensive Master Grade kit. If you’re a G Gundam fan, and you love the Shining Gundam, I highly recommend picking up this kit if you find it.