My Anime Loot – Figures and Gunpla

So, for the final part of the loot posts, I’ll be covering those coveted pieces of plastic that we call figures. Both of the Gundam Plastic Model (Gunpla) variety, and the regular variety.

The above picture, of the 1/1 scale Gundam statue, was taken in Odaiba in Tokyo, an artificial island connected to the mainland via the Rainbow Bridge, which contains many shopping centres, including what is called the Gundam Front.

So, that’s where I ended up buying some of the Gunpla. What about the figures? Well, most of them were purchased in Akihabara, in Mandarake and other stores, and also a few were acquired in China in a shopping centre that had a floor dedicated to anime-related goods.

Contents

1. Miscellaneous goods
2. Art books
3. DVDs, Blu Rays and Music
4. Figures and Gunpla

Gunpla

Inside the Gundam Front, the Gunpla shop was lined with models on every single wall, and some larger displays too:

And the shop itself, there wasn’t just only robots on sale, some character figures too!

There was also a museum exhibit, but it was closed at the time when I was there. Would have been nice to take a picture of that full-series timeline in more detail…

Though I did get a nice look at these very cool schematics for the RX-78-2.

So these are the kits I ended up buying: The Strike Freedom Gundam from SEED Destiny, the Gundam Barbatos from the currently airing Iron-Blooded Orphans, and the Zeta Gundam, (a larger kit, which comes with the waverider.)

Building the HG Strike Freedom Gundam

So, I’ve only built this one so far, and this is my first time building a Gunpla, or any plastic model kit for that matter, so I thought I’d take some in-progress shots. These are the plastic sprues the various components are attached to.

The manual is completely in Japanese, but I made do. It’s actually quite simple, as everything is clearly laid out in the detailed diagrams, the symbols are fairly intuitive, and the steps are bite-sized, just like building a lego kit.

The tools of the trade, the nippers are for cutting pieces from the sprues, it has a flat edge for greater accuracy. The various tweezers are used for all sorts of things, from placing stickers to gripping pieces to prying connected pieces apart. Not pictured here is a hobby knife which I used to cut the remaining plastic nubs off the parts.

Some early progress. At the very beginning I was very slow, since I kept stressing over accidentally breaking or damaging pieces as I removed them. However as time went on, I got better at it. Though I did accidentally cut myself a number of times (nothing serious, don’t worry!)

The first time I felt I was at a stage where what I was making was finally beginning to take shape.

One of the most distinctive features of this kit, are these ‘wings’ known as Dragoons, they can move fairly freely, to fold or fan out, they look especially great with the gold highlighting of the stickers.

The completed model! As you can see, it can be posed in a variety of ways, and can wield both rifles and beam sabres.

Unfortunately, the handheld and hip-mounted rifles are a plain plastic grey, unlike the rest of the kit, these really do require paint, as they should be of the same white/blue/red colour scheme as the Gundam itself.

Dragoons in both folded and spread states.

Here’s a variety of cool poses and configurations I tried out! I plan to build the Barbatos next, and then top things off with the large Zeta Gundam. I may do a more detailed documentation of the build process for those in future.

Tired of robots? Check out the next page for the cute and lovely anime figures!

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