Time to pop open another pretty old Backlogged kit

This is a kit has been sitting on my backlog shelve for a LONG time. It has been one of those kits that I keep thinking of working on but never actually got around to do it. But after staring at it for weeks, I decided why not moving it from being just another backlogged kit that I will someday get to, to a growing list of unboxed kit that is just waiting to be worked on.

Haha. This is why today we would be taking the time to unbox and talk about one of the oldest backlogged kits that I have at my disposal.

Release Date: Sep 2006

Retail price: MYR RM 54.00* (USD $ 12.98* / EUR € 11.72*)

*The price is subject to change, depending on the situation

But before we get to unbox it, let us first talk about the packaging of this HGUC Advance of Z kit.

One of the many great things I really liked about this kit is its boxart. Because unlike the modern boxarts where the artist tries their very best to create a scene with each and every Gunpla Packaging, with the older boxarts though, all they do here is just illustrate the MS and just have the background to be the actual picture of the kit in question…in illustrated dioramic action.

It’s something that I do quite like with the old HGUC kits boxarts, the fact that they managed to create it in this simple no-nonsense boxart format. I as well liked the fact that the art here looked like it was drawn by hand. Admittedly I have always been a sucker for hand-drawn art, especially when it looked this well done.

Even though I am a fan of the HGUC Hazel II’s box art, but there is something with the old packaging format that I wasn’t a fan of, Its side section area. Because unlike the new format that was used on the newer boxarts, the ones that we see here is a bit……lacking. Because with the new format it really gives any potential buyers on what one would expect to get with their purchase but this…well let’s just say that you better not expect to see it exactly as advertised. Because you may prolly need to put down quite a bit of paintwork if you want the kit to look as advertised.

But even with that said, I do admit that when I moved on to the actual unboxing. I found myself quite impressed by the level of color separation that is present here. Although the color separation seen on the HGUC Hazel II’s parts are not as well separated as what we see with the modern HGUC kits but compared to the other HGUC kits that was released in this time period, this is might be one of the best that I’ve seen.

But the color separation seen on this HGUC Hazel II isn’t the only thing that I was impressed by, I was as well quite impressed by the level of detail seen on some of the HGUC Hazel II’s individual parts. Although it might not be as detailed as what you get with its modern standards, however, for something that was released back in 2006? I have to say, I am quite impressed by what I see here.

My unboxing experience was further improved as I got to the HGUC Hazel II manual because even though there are alot that I experience here that made me compare this to its modern standards, there is one thing that noticed with the older kit that made me wished that its newer standards had retained.

Which can be seen on the HGUC Hazel II’s lore section.

Why? Well, because unlike its newer counterparts it was nice to see them dedicate a whole middle section of the manual just for the lore, which is something that we don’t normally see done with the newer mainline numbered HG kits nowadays. But just dedicating a whole middle section for the lore is not the only thing that they got right, they as well managed to make it interesting for one to go through as well.

Even though it might not be translated like what we would find with the newer HG manuals, or have substantial lore lined up in the middle section of its manual like what we would get with the MG manuals, I do find it quite impressive that they still managed to make it interesting still. Although it may be something to do with the way they made full use of the space that was provided and the way they arrange the content for one to go through.

Looking at it does make me admit that this was definitely something that I miss seeing with the newer mainline numbered HG kits nowadays.

Looking at how well the lore section is done on this manual does make me wonder out of all the things that they remove out from the old format, why did they decide to remove this particular lore format out from the newer main numbered HG manuals? I feel if they have kept this and as well have the manual translated as well, it would’ve made the experience of building HG kits better.

I guess I will never know why they decided to do so, but I do hope that one that we would see the return this kind of lore format with future HG releases.

Despite the impressive lore section, the overall visual format of the instruction section of the HGUC Hazel II is more akin to what we would see from this time period. From what we are seeing here, it does look pretty easy to understand. But there are still a few sections here and there that can be a bit confusing for some builders.

However, still, I don’t want to be making any judgments yet on how the manual would perform. So I will wait till I start work on it to see how it would perform, It may not be as bad.

Overall, I would say that I had quite a fun time unboxing this kit. More specifically that I was quite surprised to find that for an old kit, there were many unexpected things that I experianced while unboxing this HGUC kit.

Which does make me wonder, if I already have this much fun unboxing this kit now, I really can’t imagine the amount of fun that I would experience as soon as I start work on this HGUC kit.

I seriously can’t wait to work on this!

With that ends this week’s Unboxing and First Impressions for the HG 1/144 RX-121-2 Gundam TR-1 [Hazel II] (HGUC). What do you think of this week’s HGUC kit that I just unboxed? Do you yourselves have the same experience as I did with this HGUC kit? It’s really nice to just take the time to unbox a very old HG kit and just experience the awesomeness as you slowly go through it.

It’s not every day that I get to do experience something like this with an old kit…which does make me look forward to unboxing another one from my large collection of unopened HGUC kits.

Anyways, we will be back again with more new blog posts on the coming Wednesday and Friday. Kimi as well will be back again on this coming Monday with either a review or an unboxing blog post, So do look forward to that!

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Anyways, we shall see all of you again next week, and we hope that you all have an awesome week and weekend ahead! Have an awesome Gunpla building time there as well and until next time!

Ciao!