rico soul: This is the Tyrant Sword, which is actually from Gundam and even from the Universal Century. It's just from a photo novel and not a more well known design. Overall, the aesthetic update looks good here in the render but the feet feel too small. Attached are some old Bandai pictures of earlier customs.

This is another new brand and I'm not sure if the name is a play on the suit itself being a cold/lesser known mobile suit from Gundam. The announcement post certainly hints at this being potentially the first of many designs that may be recreated later.

Interesting subject matter to tackle since it's not a gundam looking gundam but it still will tread on the gundam license. This will be a metal frame model kit and they said they will be releasing this within the year in Q4.

rico soul: lol wow really, $77. I hate to be that guy but Gundamit didn't even omit the retail price announcement photo like they usually do so it's sitting right there. First print price 135RMB, mass retail price 188RMB.

The kit is a nice follow up to the Estailev and people that are fans of this aesthetic will definitely enjoy this kit. But 300% the retail price seems a tad extravagant for logistics costs.

For reference, Estailev was 238RMB, a larger box, and at the time it came out, I believe Gundamit had it initially for $60 before demand inflation kicked in. Logistics costs have gone up slightly since then but I would have still expected this kit to come out around $60 given the smaller box and lower retail price.

Maybe there was some pricing error as the original Estailev box was much larger and so maybe Gundamit is still using those dimensions for estimation?

Well, I don't want to be too much of a debbie downer here so lets get positive and talk about the kit. This kit should be very much what people that enjoyed the Estailev are looking for. The fit and finish should be good and this kit still retains much of both what people criticized and loved about the Estailev aesthetics. There are no particular mechanical molded details on this and the inner frame is a relatively simple purpose build skeleton. The outer armor also lack any functional mechanical detail so the aesthetics gives it almost a video game polygonal look to it.

Size of the kit is the same as the Estailev as one would expect, which is to say it is a good large MG sized unit. Without the extra high mobility backpack that the Estailev ended up being packaged with, the frame holds up much better on the Cassowary and the kit doesn't have the awful balance issues. However, it also does not appear to come with a display base, atleast not in review copies. Considering the msrp is well below what is typical for a kit this size, the lack of a display base is certainly acceptable. But it may still be something to consider since we're looking at gundamit prices rather than msrp.

rico soul: So the reviews coming out of China on this is interesting. Overall, it looks to be average KO quality but there seems to be two separate levels of quality on the parts. half the parts are below average and looks like gaogao levels, with lots of flash and shrinkage. However, the other parts are solid and passable. People are saying they likely purposefully planned it this way to put more effort into the main F90 and less effort into all the panels and parts that will either be covered up or removed to attach all the different weapon packs, making this essentially a glorified display mannequin for the various F90 weapon packs.

Price wise, the F90 is late UC and a very small mobile suit so despite being MG, size wise, it's in between the average HG and MG, similar to other small suits like the crossbone. The original F90 reprints frequently for US p-bandai and is $50 retail.  Bandai actually have it and all the weapon packs still open for pre-orders currently as I'm writing this. So if you want purely a good looking naked F90, for this price difference, I'd probably still go with the original. However, if you're like me and have the original already and want to get a few more to use as a display rack, or you live somewhere where p-bandai isn't easily available, this looks to be an ok option.

This is a pretty good comparison of it against Bandai www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GMDYY5EMM/

I'll post a couple highlight screenshots from the video, left side Bandai, right side 012. Interestingly enough, the vent netting actually looks better on the 012 KO. I'm tempted to pick one up purely to replace the vent part on my Bandai F90 lol

rico soul: This is an interesting product but again this price is a bit out of touch. This is a bootleg of the metal robot spirits figure, so it has a metal inner frame and is converted to a assembly model kit. This includes all the effect parts as you can see in the pictures. However, MR figures are pretty much comparable to HG kits. They are 1/144 scale and designed to be aesthetically more anime accurate rather than for any exaggerated styles.

The MSRP of this is 138RMB so Gundamit asking $54 for it isn't completed out of character, but considering the Bandai HG Destiny retails for about $27 in the US, getting a bootleg MR for double that price just feels wrong. The MR figure designs are a bit more premium than the HG and the effect parts are nicer and it comes with a metal frame and all that, but this is still asking MG prices for a glorified HG.

I feel like this is most interesting for people that collect figures more than people that like to buy and build model kits.

rico soul: This model kit is a collaboration between Animester and Infinite Dimensions (In Era) so it should be pretty well designed and has a lot of hype behind it.

What's funny to me is that the Sky Blaze collaboration between them was announce years ago and still have no meaningful updates. Meanwhile, this pops up with a completed kit in their promo videos lol.

At least I don't think we'll have to wait to long to see this get released, hopefully.

238RMB retail price so probably in the 70-80USD range

Preorder bonus is a full set of clear armor

rico soul: We are the Ultramarines, the Sons of Guilliman. Whilst we draw breath, we stand. Whilst we stand, we fight. Whilst we fight, we prevail.

rico soul: More of the MK Metal Build knockoffs for the Metal Build strike.

To clarify, this is not the mobius zero but rather a striker pack. Looks close enough though and given MK’s experience with copying the Bandai metal build strike. I’m gonna assume the quality of this is gonna be pretty solid

rico soul: No one buys the FAZZ ver ka for the transformation. It’s not even officially supposed to transform. That part is just a carry over from reusing the ZZ ver ka.

This Daban is a straight copy of the FAZZ ver ka so technically it will have the transformation gimmicks. I just wouldn’t expect the transformation gimmicks to work well on it. If you want to display a ZZ in g-fortress mode, get a Bandai ZZ ver ka. Those just recently reprinted and should still be available at retail

rico soul: TieChuang has been making all the MG 00 die-cast frames and now they're expanding into an original gundam? Sweet.

This concept art looks very 00 inspired so it seems like they are sticking in their comfort zone. Definitely has a Avalanche Exia vibe to it.

Will be interested in seeing how this turns out. Their alloy frames have all been pretty good and the latest Exia frame from them shows some nice design modifications and LED work.

rico soul: The Chinese market gets these kits months before we get them internationally. So you can see discussions on them on Chinese boards and videos. That and some personal experience with daban products and I can more or less filter through the info to post some short summaries here for none Chinese speakers. If you understand mandarin, this is a video on this Perfectibility from a pretty good channel for bootleg kits: https://youtu.be/JnbmjED9SuI