GKgundamkit Professional Modeller Blog: MG Sazabi Review Part 2 (proportion, articulation, pose and video)

I remember someone told me that kotobukiya 1/144 Alteisen from SRG was a flying brick because it can't really pose and i feel this MG Sazabi will have the same title especially both also red. It depend on what type of kit you want and how you want it to be. If you start this hobby or collection less than one or two years with the most recent Master Grade, you might have higher expectation on every MG and this kit might disappoint you. Well, all i can say is there are many thing we need to understand on why some kit design to be like this or that, when is the kit release, the technology, trend , concept of the model kit during the time of kit design and release. From there, we will actually able to see a lot of good stuff from the kit itself instead of complaining this or that when it compare to the current Master Grade kit. I think there might be some people asking for a MG Sazabi "Ver.2" but i think there are also many great modeller have bought the resin, conversion or G-system version MG Sazabi which have better proportion and articulation.

Proportion

So, I'm going to discuss about proportion, articulation and the pose that this kit can make in this post. First, i will start of with the proportion design. For me, i got no complain and everything was almost same in the anime and even looking from a model kit perspective, i think the proportion design is great but there are still room for improvement. I saw many modeller tend to sharpen many area on this kit. If you look at Keita's Sazabi, he sharpen the face plate, slightly extend the chest armor, etc... and it will look even greater.

Articulation

As for the articulation, i think you will know what i'm going to said when i said this kit also share the title of "flying brick". If it build with the straight build kit as the end result, it can be tough for it make different pose. From the previous review part 1, i mentioned that most of the major joint (for the entire hand to the chest and entire leg to the waist) was using ball joint. Ball joint is suppose to be flexible but not durable. What happen to this kit is those joint can't really hold the main part properly due to the size and weight. As a result, those main parts such as legs and hands can easily detach but i might due to those PC part are still new and not soft enough to hold the main part. It should be alright after some time when those PC part get softer after connecting with the ball joint from the main part. Like what i said, ball joint is flexible but not durable. In order for this kit to have durable ball joint, those female part of the joint which is made by rubber (PC runner) was design as deep as possible. Good thing is it help the joint to hold the main part properly but the bad part will be the flexibility of the ball joint decrease. Most of the main part will using the similar concept and i think that is why that this kit can't pose well or i can say that this kit can only do standing pose. You can said the articulation is bad for this kit but it wasn't design with the articulation technology or concept that we have recently in its time.

Pose

It can use "forget about it" when it come to posing this kit but standing pose is still a pose. From what i said on the joint, more or less you will know how much can this kit pose. Most of the joint of this kit is consider as a dead joint which mean it only use to connect one part to another and there are not much movement can provide from those joints. So, ground pose is definitely not suitable for this kit ( it can't recreate those pose in the anime when char do those jumping pose this mobile suit on the asteroid while fighting with amuro). Usually i will try to make some take some shots for the kit with the stand to create some pose on the air and try to get some dynamic shots from there but the size, weight and there is almost not room for the stand's connector to hold this kit, i totally give up on it.

This will make it look standard.

I think the back look better than the front.

How the articulation of the leg and arm look like ( since i took this without stand, the kit is actually lying)

The best shot i try to make.

Although this part will share a lot of my negative thought on this kit but it doesn't mean i don't like the kit or this kit is badly made. I think the first paragraph of this post explain it and my previous post also mention that it is a potential kit for customization. Therefore, i can't conclude this is a bad model kit. It was a legend after all.

Again, i lazy to choose the right music for the video. All i do was choosing some sound track from that series and do some sound editing, cut there, paste here and combine. I added some scene reviewing the box, packaging and building process together with the complete unit scene.