My First KOTO kit.

Release Date: March 2011

Retail Price: MYR 35.00*(USD $ 8.95*)

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

Hello and welcome to another Short Review! Kimi here, and I’m back again doing another edition of this short review series. As you can see with my previous post (in Reddit, FB or in Insta) we still haven’t yet manage to complete the MG Sazabi Ver.K.A, it is taking so much longer than I expected with my old nipper died on me, because of that I had to go on a hunt for a new nipper that resulted to more time taken off from building the Sazabi. Honestly, it was quite depressing to be away from the Sazabi this long. Thankfully I managed to get a new nipper and not am back on the building business, though now I have to release another short review as I work on the Sazabi yet again.

Funnily enough, because of the nipper hunting, I managed to snag a few new awesome kits together with the brand-new nipper and one of them is this; the Kotobukiya M.S.G Weapon Unit MW20R Gatling Gun. The reason why I decided on this, is really due to last week’s Reddit comment on the Koto kit. After going through I was quite honestly curious to try this brand out.

So, when I saw this and another Kotobukiya kit on a shelve, I just knew that I had to try them both to see how good Koto kits really are. Since the Sazabi is taking longer than expected, why not test the new brand spanking new nipper/cutter on the M.S.G Weapon Unit MW20R Gatling Gun first?

You might be thinking to yourself, why do I decide to build a weapons set instead of doing a full feature on an actual Koto kit? Well, my reasons are that, one I’ve been seeing this doing rounds in a lot of gunpla forums in Malaysia and in some Malaysian FB gunpla groups and second is because it won’t take long for me to complete and for me to churn out a review out of. Plus if I wanted to make a full-length feature on a full kit, I want to properly give it the love it deserves. So hence I start with something that I thought that wouldn’t take as much time, but honestly though after finishing up with this, I’d wish that I have more of this make.

Haha, before we get to that, Lets first talk about the bo….packaging…. or the lack thereof. Well by all the plastic models that I have made all through my life, never have I came across a kit sold in a plastic bag till I got myself this koto kit. Honestly, though looking at this I wasn’t impressed by the way this look, wrapped in a plastic bag with the one colored parts being quite visible. they don’t even bother to make this look appealing, Kotobukiya really go all the way simple on this kit.

As well not to mention that they as well included the building instructions on the packaging, so you’d better not mistakenly throw them away with the plastic packaging. Really, you get nothing here, no lore, no explanation, nothing. Honestly, at this point, I was wondering where my RM 35 went to, it really started off bad with me as I ‘unpack’ this from its pathetic packaging.

But then I started building this and finally realized why this kit is priced as such.

As simple as the packaging may look, building this doesn’t feel simple at all. I really find this to be quite sophisticated, a surprise really since this is priced as such. Every single part works and fits accordingly, as well not to mention the details you get on this weapon, it almost reminds me of Bandai’s discontinued excellent Weapons system kits, it is really quite impressive for something this small. This kit as well comes with a small wind-up motor system so you can make the barrel spin like real Gatling gun, not to mention the motor as well makes a nice rotary sound with each and every spin.

I was having a time of my life with each and every snap.

The best bit is really when this is fully completed, I honestly have seen this before in the Gunpla forums (Malaysian Gunpla blogs and international) and from Reddit but to actually see it, hold it, I can really say now that I am really impressed with how this looked. You would notice there aren’t much obvious seam lines here and as well for something that is really cheap, this looks and feels quite solid. There are no parts that felt loose or felt like it would fall off anytime soon, everything just felt solid and reliable.

Even the motor system works well for me in this build. I would even say things have been quite perfect for me here. Since this is my first stint with a Koto kit, I have to say I’m genuinely quite impressed by this. I could say that this weapon system is the best I’ve made to date and I would even go as far to say that the experience I get from building this, rivals those I get from building the MG and the RG kits.

It is really that good.

The only issue I had with this is really is the weight, looking at how big and solid this gun is, I really can’t imagine any kit is able to hold this weapon without tumbling itself over. Due to the huge trigger handle, none of my HG kits is able to hold this weapon so instead, I had the MG Zaku II Ver.2.0 Johnny Ridden custom try to mount this weapon on its Ver.2.0 Manipulators. Unfortunately, due to its weight often times I do struggle to have this mounted on the Zaku, oftentimes I wouldn’t able to hold the weapons due to its weight and on the times that it did manage to hold it, the weight of the gun would make the Zaku tumble itself carried to its doom by the Gatling Gun.

However, I did manage to somehow have the HGBF mount this GatlingGun on one of her shield mounts. This is made possible after trying out with many of my HG, RG and MG kits. As well it was possible due to the fact that there are holes on the Gatling that made mounting it to the HGBF Super Fumina possible, but again due to the weight it is pulling my Fumina down, I guess if I can get another one it might be able to offset the weight issue, then again that is a good custom idea that I can really use on my next build. hohohoho.

So again that is another plus point for this kit. As I was sitting down here collecting my thoughts, I remember at the start of this I asked my self why is this simple thing is priced at RM 35. Now, however, I end up asking, why is this awesome complicated thing is priced at RM 35.

I’m REALLY starting to really see why people are leaning towards the Koto kits now, You could say now, that I’m starting to believe the hype. Oh, remember at the start of this I said that this is not the only Koto kit that I got? Oh, yes there is another and after building this, now I can’t wait to start getting into the next one indeed.

With that ends my short review for the Kotobukiya M.S.G Weapon Unit MW20R Gatling Gun and as well my first Koto kit review for this blog. What do you guys think of this kit? Another non-gunpla kit that we covered this year, it really looks to be like we are covering more non-Bandai related kits. Hopefully, as the year goes by, we will be able to cover more non-Bandai related kits and maybe take on kits that we here never usually take the time to consider. Hopefully, this year be an awesome one for all of us here.

Regardless, will be back with more Let’s Talk Gunpla Segment on the next coming Wednesday and we will be back as well this Sunday with hopefully the Review for the Sazabi. Please god just let me have an accident free week, haha.

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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!