The 1/144 scale HG Gundam Exia is simply the best model from its line, and a really fine kit overall.
What you get:
-Good poseability. The suit can’t really crouch effectively (few 1/144 kits can), but has sturdy joints that allow it to stand well and can recreate a ton of cool poses. There are even details down to the “kneecaps” of the unit being an individual unit that can be adjust independently.
-No glue, no paint. It all snaps together, and the included stickers do a good job of making this kit look great, and if you want to paint all you’ll have to do is detail work. The kit looks excellent as is.
-All the weapons. The Seven Swords Gundam is in full swing here. The large E-carbon blade folds down to reveal a submachine gun, or folds out to turn the unit into an almost traditional-looking sword. The two GN Blades have removable hip mounts, so you can leave them off without affecting the looks of the kit whatsoever. There are even blades for the Beam Sabers (which were mysteriously absent from other kits). The only small concern is that there are only two Beam Sword blades, meaning you can’t recreate the Beam Daggers from the show. Really a small concern overall, as there’s more equipment here than you find in most other 1/144 kits.
The rough bits:
-The GN Blades don’t fasten very securely, and if you’re posing the kit, I’d recommend pulling them off until the final step. They rest just fine, but they pop out very easily while posing. Or remove them and their mounts entirely to make the unit more streamlined- the kit can do that.
-As mentioned, you get hilts for the Beam Daggers but no blades.
Overall, this may be the best of the Gundam units from the HG 1/144 line. It has virtually every piece seen in the show, and they’re all fantastic. Highly recommended. I’d also suggest getting the actual action stand for this kit, only because the mass of weapons it can mount deserves an appropriately cool pose.
I’ve been meaning to review this thing for awhile now, but just haven’t gotten around to it. To be frank, it’s a very fine kit for its rather low price, although the accessories might feel a bit underwhelming due to Bandai’s cost cutting measures. On the flip side, we do get to see clever engineering that utilizes the machine’s design for great stability and looks!
Head - First off, the head requires a LOT of paint. Stickers will only cover the front head camera in the middle of the V-fin (or monitor…it’s supposed to be colored black, apparently), the two black circle monitors on the side of the head and the eyes, as usual. Black is needed for panel lining the head, eyes and the monitors. Green for the eyes, and dark grey for..the.. Man, what the hell do you call these, the “outer” edges of Exia’s mouthplate. It’s molded in all white, although the chin is molded in red. Yellow is needed for the side vents, light blue is needed for the lines above the head side-monitors and that covers it all.
As for construction, it’s simple yet the pieces are separated conveniently for painting, and to disguise the seams as well. The only exception is the single seam that runs on the top of the head from the head camera all the way around, but it looked good for me either way, so I kept it unsealed. V-fins have the usual lumps in the end that can be snipped off if desired. The clear pieces looked great. Well, they’re clear pieces. They look great…and unfortunately a little vulnerable to cracking. They won’t shatter like glass, but do take care when snipping them off the runners. All the parts fit snugly and great with nice stability.
Unpainted, stickered head courtesy of Dalong:
Torso - Construction of the chest is very satisfying, as I was sticking color-injection parts into a grey inner torso. So let’s talk about the grey inner torso first. In particular the shoulders. These guys have an odd inner shoulder joint that apparently is meant for a different purpose, rather than HG 1/144 Red Frame or HGUC Ground Gundam’s shoulder joints. Theirs were made for better arm articulation, while these are specifically for the articulation of Exia’s side-chest plates which contains the vents and additional side armor. It’s a very cool piece of engineering, and while the stability is questionable at times, it does make for some very cool posing. The inner shoulder plates attached to the grey inner torso are molded in blue and require some dark grey painting for their lower halves. Yellow for the chest vents.
The chest orb/monitor itself is the same as the head orbs/monitors, a white piece that needs to be painted black/stickered black before the clear piece is fitted over them. Other than that, it just needs to be stuck onto the grey inner torso and it’s done. It’s also part of the Exia’s clavicle fins, which are simple affairs that are just clipped on. The back of Exia’s torsos have the GN Drive, mounted on Exia’s back armor which is molded in all blue, while the GN Drive is molded in all white. As far as construction goes, they’re pretty simple, so I’ll get ahead to the painting on these parts. A little bit of white is needed for the back armor piece that’s right above the GN Drive, and a bit of black is needed for the GN drive itself for lining and coloring the strips mounted on it.
Then we have miscellaneous pieces, such as the upper front blue armor and the lower front blue armor. These cover/armor the main monitor chest orb and I could spend a few paragraphs gushing about how cool they are, but I’m already typing a ton as it is. They’re molded in blue, but that’s already show accurate as it is. The abdomens of Exia are molded in red and are simply just attached to the grey inner torso like everything else, although some parts above the red requires light blue paint. But hey, who would ever look at the space underneath your Exia’s armpits?
Unpainted, stickered Exia torso front:
Unpainted, stickered Exia torso back (check out those ass sabers):
Arms - Now we’re cookin’. Shoulders and upper arm are standard HG affairs, with polycaps for primary shoulder articulation and a peg for attaching the lower arm, with the exception of the lavender rubber piece. I’ve been afraid of the lavender rubber piece ever since I’ve heard of it, considering my traumatic time when I built the OLD Patlabor model kits with their rubber joints… but I’m glad to say that the Exia rubber shoulder pieces are completely okay. Pretty cool to wiggle and pull, and fits snugly with a tight construction that does not impair movement in any way. The beam sabers should also fit nicely and snugly, although I’ve got my own complaints about the beam sabers that will be addressed later.
Lower arms have completely moved out of polycaps, with ABS jointing all the way. An unfortunate disappointment is that the ABS joint used for the elbows are rather simple and while they look good, does not allow the lower arm to bend up as far as HGUC Quel/Hazels/Ground Gundams, as it’s composed of only one piece. My disappointment is somewhat alleviated by the show-accurate and functional peg hole on the lower arm to mount the GN Sword or Shield on, but I’ll talk about these in accessories. The hands themselves are reminiscent of the HGSEED and Destiny models, with a lower grey hand and an upper backhand being molded in two colors in a simple fist to hold anything. No practical problems with these, although I wish they had kept the manipulators from the AoZ HGUC series, as those looked great. As with the GN Sword and Shield, I’ll talk about how these hands handle Exia’s seven blades on the accessories.
A pair of normal fists are included, with a left spread open hand.
Exia side shot to show off the arm:
Hips - Well, this is a pretty new one for Gundam. Rather lacking in skirt armor, the Exia doesn’t really cover much of its hips which can be a blessing. For one thing, it’s very nice that the upper leg isn’t hampered as much and can show off its lovely circles and curves, but for now I’ll restrain my talk to the hips. The front skirt armor is joined together with two ball pegs on the runner, but they should be separated prior to assembly. Other than that, they need some grey paint for the front skirt armor areas that’s situated parallel to the red codpiece. Just refer to the lineart.
Connection to the chest is made via the chest’s polycap to the hip’s peg, so it’s still standard stuff until we get down to the actual crotch joint. It’s a new three-ball jointed crotch, with the outer two balls plugging into the legs and the inner ball being situated in the middle, giving additional mobility to the crotch joints, more than the ones we’ve seen in Strike Noir and the Ground Gundam. It’s great for posing, more than I thought it would be, although stability is a bit questionable.
The ass-saber plugs are not much to speak of, but one of the plugs are rather loose for my Exia kit. If yours suffers the same problem as well, just coat the plug lightly with some superglue to increase the surface area and give a tighter fit.
Legs - Now we’re cookin’ with GAS. The legs are honestly the best parts of the kit for me, moreso than the phallic huge GN Sword. The upper leg still uses a polycap/balljoint connectivity, but the outer part of the leg is detachable, as it can be fitted with an extra part to hold a GN Long Blade/Short Blade with. It looks so damn cool that I’m not even going to wait until the end of the description to plug the image in.
The rest of the upper leg is connected to an ABS joint into a big decorative circle on Exia’s middle leg…but wait, that’s not a decorative circle! That’s another joint! Two ABS joints that provides excellent articulation with style? I’m very impressed, Bandai. I’m very impressed. To tell the truth it’s rather hard to describe for me without opening up the Exia and showing how it works in youtube, but it’s not like anything I’ve seen before in a Gunpla kit, and not even Dalong images will do it justice, as it looks incredibly natural in itself.
Allright, enough gushing about the mobility of the legs, time to move on into construction. I’m very impressed here as well, as care had been taken to minimize the seams on the front of the leg. And even then, the rear leg’s seams are difficult to notice. The feet is connected to the lower leg via a ball/polycap joint with good mobility, and the foot armor above it is clamped on like Exia’s clavicle fins. Lookin’ good, Bandai.
Accessories: Allright, let’s see Exia’s famous seven bl–wait, what do you mean there’s only four?
GN Sword - Pretty sweet stuff. ABS joints connects the shield and the gun together, and a clamping swivel like the clavicle antennae connects the sword to the gun. It can get weak over time due to ABS jointing wearing out rather fast, but superglue can fix that. What I’m a big fan of, is that the primary stability of this weapon comes from Exia’s lower arm’s peg hole. The shield itself attaches to Exia’s lower arm while the gun handle goes into Exia’s hand, giving it superior stability (and coolness) compared to the previous hand-held weapons for Gundam HG kits. The shield is molded in blue and white, so it’ll require some dark grey for accurate show colors. The blade and gun itself is molded in grey.
GN Shield - Same thing except the other arm. This thing’s molded in all blue except for the connector, so you’ll need white paint. Not much special about it except for the absolutely awesome connector which I’ve gushed about in the above paragraph.
GN Beam Dagger - …Where the **** is it?
GN Beam Saber - Well played, Bandai. You’ve included four beam saber hilts and instead of four transparent blades, you gave us one beam saber blade + hilt molded in all white. One.
GN Long Blade/Short Blade - Allright, I just didn’t want to end the review on a bad note, so I’ll talk about these babies now. A white-molded one piece blade + hilt that needs to have the middle area painted grey, with a blue…um…sword cover thing. I don’t know how to call it. It looks cool. What I DO love about them is how they connect to Exia’s hands. They fit in a small inner peg in Exia’s fists, sticking them to one side of Exia’s fists. Looks weird up close, but it looks great far away. Stable too.
Exia’s full layout:
Closing words: This is a fine kit. I won’t lie. The basic body construction is satisfying and while it exhibited definite proof of cost-cutting, some pretty great engineering can be seen here. Not MG class engineering of course, but excellent nonetheless. For 1200 yen, this is a pretty good deal. If Bandai just included two transparent beam blades and two transparent dagger blades, I could really give this a full 5 out of 5. But either way, a 4/5 rating is a very fine start to Bandai’s future HG00 hijinks.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:00 am
The 1/144 scale HG Gundam Exia is simply the best model from its line, and a really fine kit overall.
What you get:
-Good poseability. The suit can’t really crouch effectively (few 1/144 kits can), but has sturdy joints that allow it to stand well and can recreate a ton of cool poses. There are even details down to the “kneecaps” of the unit being an individual unit that can be adjust independently.
-No glue, no paint. It all snaps together, and the included stickers do a good job of making this kit look great, and if you want to paint all you’ll have to do is detail work. The kit looks excellent as is.
-All the weapons. The Seven Swords Gundam is in full swing here. The large E-carbon blade folds down to reveal a submachine gun, or folds out to turn the unit into an almost traditional-looking sword. The two GN Blades have removable hip mounts, so you can leave them off without affecting the looks of the kit whatsoever. There are even blades for the Beam Sabers (which were mysteriously absent from other kits). The only small concern is that there are only two Beam Sword blades, meaning you can’t recreate the Beam Daggers from the show. Really a small concern overall, as there’s more equipment here than you find in most other 1/144 kits.
The rough bits:
-The GN Blades don’t fasten very securely, and if you’re posing the kit, I’d recommend pulling them off until the final step. They rest just fine, but they pop out very easily while posing. Or remove them and their mounts entirely to make the unit more streamlined- the kit can do that.
-As mentioned, you get hilts for the Beam Daggers but no blades.
Overall, this may be the best of the Gundam units from the HG 1/144 line. It has virtually every piece seen in the show, and they’re all fantastic. Highly recommended. I’d also suggest getting the actual action stand for this kit, only because the mass of weapons it can mount deserves an appropriately cool pose.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I’ve been meaning to review this thing for awhile now, but just haven’t gotten around to it. To be frank, it’s a very fine kit for its rather low price, although the accessories might feel a bit underwhelming due to Bandai’s cost cutting measures. On the flip side, we do get to see clever engineering that utilizes the machine’s design for great stability and looks!
Head - First off, the head requires a LOT of paint. Stickers will only cover the front head camera in the middle of the V-fin (or monitor…it’s supposed to be colored black, apparently), the two black circle monitors on the side of the head and the eyes, as usual. Black is needed for panel lining the head, eyes and the monitors. Green for the eyes, and dark grey for..the.. Man, what the hell do you call these, the “outer” edges of Exia’s mouthplate. It’s molded in all white, although the chin is molded in red. Yellow is needed for the side vents, light blue is needed for the lines above the head side-monitors and that covers it all.
As for construction, it’s simple yet the pieces are separated conveniently for painting, and to disguise the seams as well. The only exception is the single seam that runs on the top of the head from the head camera all the way around, but it looked good for me either way, so I kept it unsealed. V-fins have the usual lumps in the end that can be snipped off if desired. The clear pieces looked great. Well, they’re clear pieces. They look great…and unfortunately a little vulnerable to cracking. They won’t shatter like glass, but do take care when snipping them off the runners. All the parts fit snugly and great with nice stability.
Unpainted, stickered head courtesy of Dalong:
Torso - Construction of the chest is very satisfying, as I was sticking color-injection parts into a grey inner torso. So let’s talk about the grey inner torso first. In particular the shoulders. These guys have an odd inner shoulder joint that apparently is meant for a different purpose, rather than HG 1/144 Red Frame or HGUC Ground Gundam’s shoulder joints. Theirs were made for better arm articulation, while these are specifically for the articulation of Exia’s side-chest plates which contains the vents and additional side armor. It’s a very cool piece of engineering, and while the stability is questionable at times, it does make for some very cool posing. The inner shoulder plates attached to the grey inner torso are molded in blue and require some dark grey painting for their lower halves. Yellow for the chest vents.
The chest orb/monitor itself is the same as the head orbs/monitors, a white piece that needs to be painted black/stickered black before the clear piece is fitted over them. Other than that, it just needs to be stuck onto the grey inner torso and it’s done. It’s also part of the Exia’s clavicle fins, which are simple affairs that are just clipped on. The back of Exia’s torsos have the GN Drive, mounted on Exia’s back armor which is molded in all blue, while the GN Drive is molded in all white. As far as construction goes, they’re pretty simple, so I’ll get ahead to the painting on these parts. A little bit of white is needed for the back armor piece that’s right above the GN Drive, and a bit of black is needed for the GN drive itself for lining and coloring the strips mounted on it.
Then we have miscellaneous pieces, such as the upper front blue armor and the lower front blue armor. These cover/armor the main monitor chest orb and I could spend a few paragraphs gushing about how cool they are, but I’m already typing a ton as it is. They’re molded in blue, but that’s already show accurate as it is. The abdomens of Exia are molded in red and are simply just attached to the grey inner torso like everything else, although some parts above the red requires light blue paint. But hey, who would ever look at the space underneath your Exia’s armpits?
Unpainted, stickered Exia torso front:
Unpainted, stickered Exia torso back (check out those ass sabers):
Arms - Now we’re cookin’. Shoulders and upper arm are standard HG affairs, with polycaps for primary shoulder articulation and a peg for attaching the lower arm, with the exception of the lavender rubber piece. I’ve been afraid of the lavender rubber piece ever since I’ve heard of it, considering my traumatic time when I built the OLD Patlabor model kits with their rubber joints… but I’m glad to say that the Exia rubber shoulder pieces are completely okay. Pretty cool to wiggle and pull, and fits snugly with a tight construction that does not impair movement in any way. The beam sabers should also fit nicely and snugly, although I’ve got my own complaints about the beam sabers that will be addressed later.
Lower arms have completely moved out of polycaps, with ABS jointing all the way. An unfortunate disappointment is that the ABS joint used for the elbows are rather simple and while they look good, does not allow the lower arm to bend up as far as HGUC Quel/Hazels/Ground Gundams, as it’s composed of only one piece. My disappointment is somewhat alleviated by the show-accurate and functional peg hole on the lower arm to mount the GN Sword or Shield on, but I’ll talk about these in accessories. The hands themselves are reminiscent of the HGSEED and Destiny models, with a lower grey hand and an upper backhand being molded in two colors in a simple fist to hold anything. No practical problems with these, although I wish they had kept the manipulators from the AoZ HGUC series, as those looked great. As with the GN Sword and Shield, I’ll talk about how these hands handle Exia’s seven blades on the accessories.
A pair of normal fists are included, with a left spread open hand.
Exia side shot to show off the arm:
Hips - Well, this is a pretty new one for Gundam. Rather lacking in skirt armor, the Exia doesn’t really cover much of its hips which can be a blessing. For one thing, it’s very nice that the upper leg isn’t hampered as much and can show off its lovely circles and curves, but for now I’ll restrain my talk to the hips. The front skirt armor is joined together with two ball pegs on the runner, but they should be separated prior to assembly. Other than that, they need some grey paint for the front skirt armor areas that’s situated parallel to the red codpiece. Just refer to the lineart.
Connection to the chest is made via the chest’s polycap to the hip’s peg, so it’s still standard stuff until we get down to the actual crotch joint. It’s a new three-ball jointed crotch, with the outer two balls plugging into the legs and the inner ball being situated in the middle, giving additional mobility to the crotch joints, more than the ones we’ve seen in Strike Noir and the Ground Gundam. It’s great for posing, more than I thought it would be, although stability is a bit questionable.
The ass-saber plugs are not much to speak of, but one of the plugs are rather loose for my Exia kit. If yours suffers the same problem as well, just coat the plug lightly with some superglue to increase the surface area and give a tighter fit.
Legs - Now we’re cookin’ with GAS. The legs are honestly the best parts of the kit for me, moreso than the phallic huge GN Sword. The upper leg still uses a polycap/balljoint connectivity, but the outer part of the leg is detachable, as it can be fitted with an extra part to hold a GN Long Blade/Short Blade with. It looks so damn cool that I’m not even going to wait until the end of the description to plug the image in.
The rest of the upper leg is connected to an ABS joint into a big decorative circle on Exia’s middle leg…but wait, that’s not a decorative circle! That’s another joint! Two ABS joints that provides excellent articulation with style? I’m very impressed, Bandai. I’m very impressed. To tell the truth it’s rather hard to describe for me without opening up the Exia and showing how it works in youtube, but it’s not like anything I’ve seen before in a Gunpla kit, and not even Dalong images will do it justice, as it looks incredibly natural in itself.
Allright, enough gushing about the mobility of the legs, time to move on into construction. I’m very impressed here as well, as care had been taken to minimize the seams on the front of the leg. And even then, the rear leg’s seams are difficult to notice. The feet is connected to the lower leg via a ball/polycap joint with good mobility, and the foot armor above it is clamped on like Exia’s clavicle fins. Lookin’ good, Bandai.
Accessories: Allright, let’s see Exia’s famous seven bl–wait, what do you mean there’s only four?
GN Sword - Pretty sweet stuff. ABS joints connects the shield and the gun together, and a clamping swivel like the clavicle antennae connects the sword to the gun. It can get weak over time due to ABS jointing wearing out rather fast, but superglue can fix that. What I’m a big fan of, is that the primary stability of this weapon comes from Exia’s lower arm’s peg hole. The shield itself attaches to Exia’s lower arm while the gun handle goes into Exia’s hand, giving it superior stability (and coolness) compared to the previous hand-held weapons for Gundam HG kits. The shield is molded in blue and white, so it’ll require some dark grey for accurate show colors. The blade and gun itself is molded in grey.
GN Shield - Same thing except the other arm. This thing’s molded in all blue except for the connector, so you’ll need white paint. Not much special about it except for the absolutely awesome connector which I’ve gushed about in the above paragraph.
GN Beam Dagger - …Where the **** is it?
GN Beam Saber - Well played, Bandai. You’ve included four beam saber hilts and instead of four transparent blades, you gave us one beam saber blade + hilt molded in all white. One.
GN Long Blade/Short Blade - Allright, I just didn’t want to end the review on a bad note, so I’ll talk about these babies now. A white-molded one piece blade + hilt that needs to have the middle area painted grey, with a blue…um…sword cover thing. I don’t know how to call it. It looks cool. What I DO love about them is how they connect to Exia’s hands. They fit in a small inner peg in Exia’s fists, sticking them to one side of Exia’s fists. Looks weird up close, but it looks great far away. Stable too.
Exia’s full layout:
Closing words: This is a fine kit. I won’t lie. The basic body construction is satisfying and while it exhibited definite proof of cost-cutting, some pretty great engineering can be seen here. Not MG class engineering of course, but excellent nonetheless. For 1200 yen, this is a pretty good deal. If Bandai just included two transparent beam blades and two transparent dagger blades, I could really give this a full 5 out of 5. But either way, a 4/5 rating is a very fine start to Bandai’s future HG00 hijinks.