I bought this because, quite literally the JUSCO where I live was selling out all of it’s gundam stuff and had it extra cheap. Another GFF to replace the old ZZ Gundam, and it’s size would be an attention grabber.
********* WARNING: Your GFF XI Gundam / PENELOPE may be slightly different*******************
Head:
Two different heads are supplied:
The Xi head is molded pretty well with features that are easy to see. There’s no real paint running and the details are clean. The vents on the cheeks stick out decently, but seem to be easily prone to warping. This is due either to handling or the extra armor that the Xi is required to have running down its chest. I don’t know if I like that, but it can be fixed.
The Penelope head doesn’t have the forward sweeping cheek vents so that sort of warping isn’t much of a problem. The antennae are nice looking and the camera mounted on the top of the head gives it good character while being well painted at the same time. Not too shabby. Also, the Penelope’s head tends to stay on the neck much better than the Xi as it’s not being pinched by extra armor running from the chest. The head cover armor for the Penelope adds to the intriguing look, but mine is a little bent — ugh.
Torso:
The detail on the Xi parts is incredible, from the obvious paint with insignias and what-not to the actual molded detail on the front and back of almost every part. It’s clear that the modeler Kazuyoshi Udono had some serious plans for this thing when he started… and it shows. The model at its most basic is quite bare and skinny looking but very incomplete until at least some of the parts are attached (either to make the Xi or the Penelope). Because of the complexity of the model its easy to miss something that should be attached in order to finish the look. Likewise the parts are small and very light making them easy to lose, but still look great. The downside is that the pegs to attach the parts too are either too large (making force necessary to apply the part) or too small (meaning the part can just “fall off”), though this is the case with many GFFs to be honest.
Still, everything is well modeled and aside from a little filing to fit and maybe a little glue to keep parts from falling off, it looks good. That is until you want to attach the stand. It seems that the stand peg doesn’t quite fit into the Xi’s backpack very well, requiring force yet again.
The Penelope requires the Xi armor to be almost completely removed and exchanged, a new neck and clavicle portion is supplied along with a new booster and armor unit. The waist is given a larger skirt in the rear with a smaller skirt in the front when the Xi armor is removed. The unit looks a bit scrawnier until the gigantic transformation armor is attached. Not everything is cut and dry in the transformation and force is still required to attach some of the pieces while glue or some kind of light bonding tape should be used on weaker pieces. Kind of a pain, but it looks good in the end. The front section, if anything like the Ex-S, adds a I-Field emitter direction on the front of the chest, making it look almost avian. As I had imagined, it can slip off easily — though if the desk doesn’t move much it appears to stay put.
Arms:
The shoulder armor is especially well done, remind me of the Qubeley in some respects. The shoulder armor for the Xi and Penelope are completely different and seem to attach to smaller arms that appear to act like AMBAC parts. Both configurations give the respective mobile suit a lot of flare in appearance. Interestingly both shoulder armor sets seem to fit very well without much force in application.
The forearms for the Xi and Penelope are different as well, the latter featuring more detail than the former, but the Xi’s arms arent bad to look at. This gff happens to be one of the few that is capable of keeping the prefabricated hands attached without falling off. That’s a whole lot of points in my book. The hands are still kind of generic, a trigger hand, a gripping hand for the beam sabers and a clenched fist. The trigger hand for the beam rifle is obviously not capable of holding the rifle well. Clenched fist, hard to beat that. With some glue the hand will hold the rifle in place for a while. The Penelope’s forearms remind me of the PROVIDENCE’s integrated weapons/shield arm, but with that oh-so-katoki style.
The legs out of the box seem to be OK, but the knee armor for the Xi doesn’t stay on without some kind of affixing agent. Kind of a pain. The side of the lower legs of the Xi has boosters attached to it similar to the ALEX, but removable so that the Penelopes booster/armor can be added instead. The Penelope requires a radical change for some parts of the legs, including exchanging the feet and adding new boosters in the upper Achilles heel section and gigantic armor on the rear calves, which shockingly seems to stay put. Looks somewhat peacockish with that armor and it grabs your attention like I imagined it would. The armor itself is also well detailed on the top and on the bottom, where people might not likely see it. Great to see detail covered in so many directions. Especially the feet of both Xi and Penelope. I didn’t imagine it would have so much.
The best part about the legs however is that it is capable of holding its own weight and balances out pretty well. The stand doesn’t seem to be required but still helps. Nicely done.
The shield seems to apply on the the Xi as the full armored Penelope doesn’t seem to really need it. It looks nice and the detail is superb for its size, but it has warped in the box somewhat and bends at mid-pitch. It can probably be bent back a little without breakage, but its a little scary. A small peg in the back allows it to be attached to the forearms, but it seems to fall off without glue. Imagine that.
Backpacks: actually they look more like stabilizer packs. One is a small booster with separate fins for the Xi that wrap around the top of the chest to the front vents. The other for the Penelope is a rather hulking set of fins which attaches in place of the entire back side. Whats good about this is that the Penelope pack requires a second plug that allows a different peg to be inserted for the stand. This actually seems to work better than the plug for the Xi stand. (the stand comes with multiple plugs). I hope that plug doesn’t fall off the back.
Beam Rifles: 2 of them - different. One for each configuration. They look ok, but the painting isn’t that great as some of the light blue color looks to be a little runny. Don’t much like that, but it’s not a huge gripe. The hands don’t really hold the rifles very well though.
Beam sabers: 2 of them with colored beams already deployed and 2 without. They seem to fit ok in the hands and snugly in the holsters. Not bad, not bad. The Penelope’s beam sabers are emitted from the forearm composite weapon (like the Providence). I didn’t expect that, but of course I’ve never read the manga so I had no idea.
Mobile Armor??? : I’m not sure exactly what it is, but the Penelope can be stripped to it’s basic form while its armor combines to form a …. thing… Fying armor, I don’t know. It looks interesting, but reminds me of the RAGNAROK flying machine in Final Fantasy 8. I’m not that into it, but the stand comes with plugs to display it.
In the END:
Again, I purchased something that I thought would be interesting, but I never would have bought it at the MSRP. I don’t think a figure need be so expensive. However, upon opening the box and removing the trays I understood why the MSRP was so high. The kit is well made if not for the standard gripes inherent in the GFF line. They can all be overcome with a little patience, a file and some glue and a little paint if you’re into it. Out of the box it isn’t bad at all and stand up very handsomely. A little light on the beam rifle grip, but that’s not all that bad. The fact that the Armor can be removed and create a small mobile armor is great in that its almost like purchasing 2 or 3 figures for the price of 1. Place this guy on your desk and invariably co-workers will approach in awe and wonder. I’m glad I purchased it cheaply, but I think that I would have had some satisfaction even at the standard price. Well done, Katoki. Indeed a fearsome looking beast of a machine made into a compact figure. I do recommend it if you like it.
Best Features: Large Size, Transform-ability (via parts replacement), mix-and-match ability, Mobile Armor/ Armor split ability, high detail.
Worst Features: Ubiquitous GFF problems (weak hands, strangely sized pegs), Force required to apply parts, minor warping
I forgot to mention. Another wee minus point: The display stand that comes with the penelope misspells Penelope as PENEROPE. Good for a laugh but otherwise not too bad.
I think it is a great kit as well. There are some pics up at my website (including close-ups of the details). I actually have the mobile armor placed next to the “naked” Penerope figure. It makes for a great display. Overall, I am very pleased with the kit as well.
February 2nd, 2009 at 12:02 am
I bought this because, quite literally the JUSCO where I live was selling out all of it’s gundam stuff and had it extra cheap. Another GFF to replace the old ZZ Gundam, and it’s size would be an attention grabber.
********* WARNING: Your GFF XI Gundam / PENELOPE may be slightly different*******************
Head:
Two different heads are supplied:
The Xi head is molded pretty well with features that are easy to see. There’s no real paint running and the details are clean. The vents on the cheeks stick out decently, but seem to be easily prone to warping. This is due either to handling or the extra armor that the Xi is required to have running down its chest. I don’t know if I like that, but it can be fixed.
The Penelope head doesn’t have the forward sweeping cheek vents so that sort of warping isn’t much of a problem. The antennae are nice looking and the camera mounted on the top of the head gives it good character while being well painted at the same time. Not too shabby. Also, the Penelope’s head tends to stay on the neck much better than the Xi as it’s not being pinched by extra armor running from the chest. The head cover armor for the Penelope adds to the intriguing look, but mine is a little bent — ugh.
Torso:
The detail on the Xi parts is incredible, from the obvious paint with insignias and what-not to the actual molded detail on the front and back of almost every part. It’s clear that the modeler Kazuyoshi Udono had some serious plans for this thing when he started… and it shows. The model at its most basic is quite bare and skinny looking but very incomplete until at least some of the parts are attached (either to make the Xi or the Penelope). Because of the complexity of the model its easy to miss something that should be attached in order to finish the look. Likewise the parts are small and very light making them easy to lose, but still look great. The downside is that the pegs to attach the parts too are either too large (making force necessary to apply the part) or too small (meaning the part can just “fall off”), though this is the case with many GFFs to be honest.
Still, everything is well modeled and aside from a little filing to fit and maybe a little glue to keep parts from falling off, it looks good. That is until you want to attach the stand. It seems that the stand peg doesn’t quite fit into the Xi’s backpack very well, requiring force yet again.
The Penelope requires the Xi armor to be almost completely removed and exchanged, a new neck and clavicle portion is supplied along with a new booster and armor unit. The waist is given a larger skirt in the rear with a smaller skirt in the front when the Xi armor is removed. The unit looks a bit scrawnier until the gigantic transformation armor is attached. Not everything is cut and dry in the transformation and force is still required to attach some of the pieces while glue or some kind of light bonding tape should be used on weaker pieces. Kind of a pain, but it looks good in the end. The front section, if anything like the Ex-S, adds a I-Field emitter direction on the front of the chest, making it look almost avian. As I had imagined, it can slip off easily — though if the desk doesn’t move much it appears to stay put.
Arms:
The shoulder armor is especially well done, remind me of the Qubeley in some respects. The shoulder armor for the Xi and Penelope are completely different and seem to attach to smaller arms that appear to act like AMBAC parts. Both configurations give the respective mobile suit a lot of flare in appearance. Interestingly both shoulder armor sets seem to fit very well without much force in application.
The forearms for the Xi and Penelope are different as well, the latter featuring more detail than the former, but the Xi’s arms arent bad to look at. This gff happens to be one of the few that is capable of keeping the prefabricated hands attached without falling off. That’s a whole lot of points in my book. The hands are still kind of generic, a trigger hand, a gripping hand for the beam sabers and a clenched fist. The trigger hand for the beam rifle is obviously not capable of holding the rifle well. Clenched fist, hard to beat that. With some glue the hand will hold the rifle in place for a while. The Penelope’s forearms remind me of the PROVIDENCE’s integrated weapons/shield arm, but with that oh-so-katoki style.
The legs out of the box seem to be OK, but the knee armor for the Xi doesn’t stay on without some kind of affixing agent. Kind of a pain. The side of the lower legs of the Xi has boosters attached to it similar to the ALEX, but removable so that the Penelopes booster/armor can be added instead. The Penelope requires a radical change for some parts of the legs, including exchanging the feet and adding new boosters in the upper Achilles heel section and gigantic armor on the rear calves, which shockingly seems to stay put. Looks somewhat peacockish with that armor and it grabs your attention like I imagined it would. The armor itself is also well detailed on the top and on the bottom, where people might not likely see it. Great to see detail covered in so many directions. Especially the feet of both Xi and Penelope. I didn’t imagine it would have so much.
The best part about the legs however is that it is capable of holding its own weight and balances out pretty well. The stand doesn’t seem to be required but still helps. Nicely done.
The shield seems to apply on the the Xi as the full armored Penelope doesn’t seem to really need it. It looks nice and the detail is superb for its size, but it has warped in the box somewhat and bends at mid-pitch. It can probably be bent back a little without breakage, but its a little scary. A small peg in the back allows it to be attached to the forearms, but it seems to fall off without glue. Imagine that.
Backpacks: actually they look more like stabilizer packs. One is a small booster with separate fins for the Xi that wrap around the top of the chest to the front vents. The other for the Penelope is a rather hulking set of fins which attaches in place of the entire back side. Whats good about this is that the Penelope pack requires a second plug that allows a different peg to be inserted for the stand. This actually seems to work better than the plug for the Xi stand. (the stand comes with multiple plugs). I hope that plug doesn’t fall off the back.
Beam Rifles: 2 of them - different. One for each configuration. They look ok, but the painting isn’t that great as some of the light blue color looks to be a little runny. Don’t much like that, but it’s not a huge gripe. The hands don’t really hold the rifles very well though.
Beam sabers: 2 of them with colored beams already deployed and 2 without. They seem to fit ok in the hands and snugly in the holsters. Not bad, not bad. The Penelope’s beam sabers are emitted from the forearm composite weapon (like the Providence). I didn’t expect that, but of course I’ve never read the manga so I had no idea.
Mobile Armor??? : I’m not sure exactly what it is, but the Penelope can be stripped to it’s basic form while its armor combines to form a …. thing… Fying armor, I don’t know. It looks interesting, but reminds me of the RAGNAROK flying machine in Final Fantasy 8. I’m not that into it, but the stand comes with plugs to display it.
In the END:
Again, I purchased something that I thought would be interesting, but I never would have bought it at the MSRP. I don’t think a figure need be so expensive. However, upon opening the box and removing the trays I understood why the MSRP was so high. The kit is well made if not for the standard gripes inherent in the GFF line. They can all be overcome with a little patience, a file and some glue and a little paint if you’re into it. Out of the box it isn’t bad at all and stand up very handsomely. A little light on the beam rifle grip, but that’s not all that bad. The fact that the Armor can be removed and create a small mobile armor is great in that its almost like purchasing 2 or 3 figures for the price of 1. Place this guy on your desk and invariably co-workers will approach in awe and wonder. I’m glad I purchased it cheaply, but I think that I would have had some satisfaction even at the standard price. Well done, Katoki. Indeed a fearsome looking beast of a machine made into a compact figure. I do recommend it if you like it.
Best Features: Large Size, Transform-ability (via parts replacement), mix-and-match ability, Mobile Armor/ Armor split ability, high detail.
Worst Features: Ubiquitous GFF problems (weak hands, strangely sized pegs), Force required to apply parts, minor warping
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:05 am
I forgot to mention. Another wee minus point: The display stand that comes with the penelope misspells Penelope as PENEROPE. Good for a laugh but otherwise not too bad.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I think it is a great kit as well. There are some pics up at my website (including close-ups of the details). I actually have the mobile armor placed next to the “naked” Penerope figure. It makes for a great display. Overall, I am very pleased with the kit as well.