Welcome to our very first Gunpla unboxing and review!
Hey there! I am Solon, you might know me as your friendly local game store/hobby store owner, also long time Gundam fan since I was 8 y/o. The store (okay, not the store, it was all me) started dabbling in Gunpla sometime last year, and things got out of hand real quick... Now we are known in the city as the shop that focus on the latest Gunpla releases fresh out of Japan.
Enough shameless self promotion, let's get right into the unboxing and review of the brand new HG 1/144 Gundam Lfrith Ur.
Unboxing and Content Overview
Let's take a look at the runners. The Lfrith Ur packs a bit higher runner counts compared to other "The Witch from Mercury" kits. All the runners are designed for the Ur, no recycled parts from other kits at all.
Runner A, B1, B2 (teal color runners) and E (bony white runner) contain all the outer armor parts. The dark grey runner C and D house the joints and weapons, and the plastic feels a bit softer. Not quite ABS plastic kind of softness, but softer than your regular PS plastic. Last but not least, runner SB-13 has a pair of clear blue beam sabers effects.
There is also a sheet of stickers for the "Permet Score" effect on various parts of the Mobile Suit.
The instructions sheet features a lot of full color shots of the kit, and the first few steps of the instructions are also in full color.
Tools, Assembly, Tricks & Tips
For this build, I did not plan to paint the kit other than filling in the panel lines and details here and there with Gundam Markers. So I brought all the tools I need to minimize stress marks.
The tools are:
A pair of generic plastic nippers
OLFA craft knife, with a new blade if you have one handy.
Glass file (not shown in picture) for filing down the gate marks and polishing.
An old brush to clean your nippers and glass file periodically. You don't want your glass file getting clogged up with particles, nor chunks of plastic getting caught at the joint of your expensive single blade nippers.
Every time I build one of these new The Witch from Mercury (TWFM from now on) HG kits, I get reminded on how color separation has advanced drastically through the years. I still remember back in the day when I got my first HG Gundam GP-01 kit, I had to paint the eyes and the signature red "chin". Now all these different parts come in their own pieces in their own color. It's so easy to put together too! Not at all frustrating even though the head is so small.
The sticker in the middle of the V fin took a bit to position, but it turned out looking great. I also clipped off the safety tab on the fins, and smoothed out the cuts with the glass file. Gorgeous! *Chef kiss*
I love this new design for the arm connection. The elbow just "click" into the forearm. If you plan to paint the kit and want to remove the seamline on the forearms, you won't have to worry about masking the elbow joints or cutting bits out to fit the elbow back into the forearm again! They also got rid of all the seamlines by disguising those as panel lines, so these new TWFM kits are almost 100% seamline free. That's pretty impressive. I wish they give all the new HG kits the same treatment from now on.
The rest of the assembly was very enjoyable. It was very nice to feel that "click" when the parts connect together.
When it comes to gate marks/stress marks, you might want to pay attention to couple areas when you are building yours. The parts for the Phased Array Cannon on its back have a lot of pretty thick and wide gates. I suggest when you do your clean-up clip with your single blade nippers, clip a bit further away from the part to avoid leaving a stress mark on the part. Just file down the rest of the nub with your glass file.
The proportions of the finished kit is surprisingly good. I personally don't like a lot of chunky designs. This one is definitely the exception. I also appreciate the fact that the kit has a pair of grabbing hands, and a pair of open hands for more posing and weapon display options.
Articulations
For a thick, chunky design, this kit is actually very poseable and well articulated. The head sits on a double ball-jointed neck which allows a very nice range of motion (for my next review, I will make sure to include some pictures for range of motions for all the joints). A versatile neck allows more "expressions" for the head and add to the overall attitude of the design when done right.
The arms and legs are relatively unhindered when you want to put the kit in those dynamic poses.
As you can see, the Lfrith Ur passed a customer's "Dab Test". So articulation is pretty good for a kit with a thicker proportion. Lol.
Final Thought
Like I said earlier, I am not one for the heavier aesthetics, but this one is definitely the exception. Unlike the Dilanza, there are a lot of sharper, angular details on the legs, and that does a lot for me. It's probably because the Lfrith Ur is designed by Yanase Takayuki sensei, the Mecha Designer for the Gundam 00 series, which has some of my favorite Gundam designs.
The pros of this kits are:
-The new Bandai HG design and engineering are just so much fun to work with. I hope they keep this going with all the new HG releases from now on.
-Nice range of motions even for a heavy, chunky design. You can easily pull off a lot of the hot looking poses. Do recommend an Action Base 5.
Cons:
-Gates on the Phased Array Cannon can be pretty wide (3-4 mm). If you don't want to leave any gate marks or stress marks, it might take a bit more work.
-The Beam Gatling Gun is pretty heavy, might strain the shoulder joint with frequent posing. Joint treatment is recommended.
Thank you for reading through my first Gunpla unboxing + review! If you have any suggestion, please feel free to post in the Comment section.
If you want to get a copy of the HG Gundam Lfrith Ur, TTR has it in stock!
Want to minimize your gate marks/stress mark? God Hand Nippers will help!
