Our first P-Bandai review

Release Date: January 2017

Retail Price: MYR 274.00*(USD $69.02*)

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

Hello and a very good morning to all our wonderful readers here in the blog, Kimi here and I’m back with a new unboxing and first impressions. Today we will be covering something that we have been meaning of doing for a while, to finally do a review of a P-Bandai kit and what better kit to cover if not a P-Bandai MG kit.

The best thing about this particular P-Bandai is that this is one of the rarest 2017 P-Bandai MG kit around and one that I have been struggling to find since it was first announced. I was lucky to have found this last kit lying and untouched in one of the many Gunpla shops in KL. Even though when I saw the price for this kit I really find it hard to justify, but seeing that last GMII box I felt that I shouldn’t be taking any chances with missing this one up I decided to just get this kit. Though it is quite an expensive kit (you can actually get a Nu-Gundam Ver.K.A with this price), but in my eyes, the admission fee is worth paying for…… at the time anyway.

Well, I really hope that this one would be good at least, then the money spent wouldn’t be gone to waste…..

Anyways let’s back to the meat in hand, shall we? To start let’s first get into the box itself! I think to most of you here that have been buying the P-Bandai kits, we all know the box is really serves as a conduit to carry the parts around, but to those that are new to this hobby looking at the box you may find it hard to believe that this is a premium item. Heck if you were to take a look at it they don’t even bother to make a colored CG of for P-Bandai kits not to mention there are no further details that you would find if you were to check the sides. Even to the most hardcore of the gunpla nuts (including me) out there would find it hard to defend this box art design.

Strangely though, I do find the P-Bandai box to be quite appealing. Why you may ask? Easy, first is that despite the absence of the CG boxart, they really showcase how’d the kit actually look like (though it is uncolored of course). Secondly, usually when you get a retail release you usually would have a rough idea of what you’ll be getting with the kit by catching the details from the box really good for those that are just starting with the hobby, but with the P-Bandai kits you have to know what you are getting, and even if you don’t the feeling of opening something that you have no idea of what to expect is really exciting and you get that with that in spades with this GMII box. I really had no clue what to expect when I saw the box.

It really felt at the time like opening a loot box and no it’s not like opening a Star Wars Battlefront loot box or the silly Shadow war loot box. Opening this is more akin to opening a treasure chest. Yeah, that is more how I’d feel when I opened this box.

So yeah, it was quite an experience unboxing this for the first time, when I first got this I was expecting this to have as many parts then the GM Sniper Custom (since I did get this at the same time with the GM Sniper Custom), but it wasn’t the case here. You get less then what you get with the GM Sniper Custom but the one thing that I can commend is the quality of the parts included in this P-Bandai. All of them looked well-made and is a lot more rigid compared to the retail GM Sniper Custom release. I did try to find faults with this but really, I can’t find any, I’m actually quite impressed by the P-Bandai’s handiwork here.

Another thing I didn’t expect when opening this kit is the 3-outer frame that is included for the kit, you’d have the outer frame of the RX-78-02 Gundam Ver.2.0’s outer frame, the GM Ver.2.0’s outer frame and you’d have the GM II’s outer frame. There is just so many outer frames here for you to play around with! As well if you do have already owned the RX-78-02 Ver.2.0 to have the GM red outer frame is a really interesting thing to be messing around with, to be honest. The decals included here is as well quite impressive as well, they even went as far as to include the Unicorn version decals here too (that is if you guys can’t the unicorn version of this). They even included some stickers here for some of the uncolored parts and for the clear part, but honestly, I really don’t intend to use the stickers since I have all the paints that I needed to paint the unpainted parts. I just hope that it wouldn’t look shit when I apply them to this

The only thing that is not as impressive as the rest is, unfortunately, is one of the components of the kit that I was really looking forward to getting my hands into; the manual. For you guys that have been following me here you guys know how much I love reading the MG manuals, the lore that is included with each and every MG kit enriched the experience of me building this kit. Sadly, if you are like me and looking forward to reading the details and story here, don’t bother. Because there isn’t anything of that sort here at all. No MS development section, no lore, no nothing.

The absence of any lore and details really kills it for me, for me the lore is what I bought this kit for. I’m disappointed with this of course but overall, I can’t dismiss the fact that building this is what interests me more, and from the initial build impressions, I’ve made I could say this is looking quite promising. Not to mention the building instructions are both in Japanese and English, so that is good at least.

Overall I do am looking forward in completing this and comparing this to the retail release of the GM Sniper Custom, even with the manual being a bit of a disappointment I can’t deny I’m actually quite impressed by the overall quality of this kit. This kit is really close to being perfect for me, but the price and the lack of lore were what stopping me from recommending this to you all.

Then again, this is my initial impressions maybe it will change as soon I finish this kit. Let’s see how it goes by the end of this week, shall we?

With that, ends this edition of the unboxing and first Impressions for the P-Bandai’s MG 1/100 RMS-179 GMII. What do you guys think of the Unboxing for this P-Bandai MG kit? By reading this do you think that it was worth it to spend RM274.00 (USD $69.02) of my hard-earned cash for this kit? Do let us know your thoughts of this post and of the kit in general! As ever we do look forward to reading and responding to your comments and thoughts! So, don’t be shy to type away!

We will be back with more Let’s Talk Gunpla Segment on the next coming Wednesday and we will be back as well on the coming Sunday with a new review! 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!