MG FA-78 Full Armor Gundam Ver. Ka (Gundam Thunderbolt Ver.) 1/100

Quantity over Quality

Usually a Gundam will go through a story and change, gaining equipment and sometimes a 'Full Armor' set. The FA-78 Full Armor Gundam, is named that way because that's how it was born. Equipped with a high mobility system to take advantage of moving in space and navigate through debris fields, it is piloted by Io Fleming, a non-Newtype but talented and aggressive pilot. Aesthetics: The FA-78 is an oddity in the way it looks, due to Yasuo Ohtagaki being the writer and designer for Thunderbolt. The Gundam features a grittier dark color scheme with navy blue and maroon while only keeping yellow for the tiny V-fin logo. Additionally it uses large geometric details like beveling and the frequent use of rectangular details or thrusters to break up the surfaces, rather than tick marks or panel lines. As such, you will be hard pressed to detail up the kit in this manner, but it comes pre-defined by the use of its color separated detail. That being said, it does have a lot of large flat panels and it relies entirely on the use of water slide decals for this purpose, to break up the monotony. Overall, the kit can come off as a simple looking 'chunk of plastic'. The kit also uses 8 pieces of vinyl tubing that you wrinkle, in order to cover up arm and leg joints. These are meant to be used, but they are optional and can be skipped. The way they look depends on how the material wrinkles and it can either look scale appropriate or like a mess. They also can get in the way of panels when building. Personally, sometimes, I think they're too ugly. The kit comes with a Ver.Ka water slide decal sheet and a sticker sheet with foils, as well as metallic mesh stickers for the inside of thrusters and the ankle cover slits - The thrusters are already color separated, so the stickers are entirely optional. Mechanics: While the articulation is good and I especially like the shoulder joints for their mobility, in some ways the kit feels like a mid-step between an HG and an MG. The Gundam is very simple in its core state, especially due to its Core Block emergency pod, that disables all torso movement. The way the armor pieces layer on is extremely simple compared to other 'FA' kits, and only has a bit of functionality from the various hidden rocket pod compartments. The sub-arms fold out from the backpack using the beam saber slots as locking pegs. They are functional but very simple in their construction and require you to take them off mid-way in order to turn them, which is good for stability, but has limited range and comes off as primitive. It should be noted that the handles on the shields can feel loose and cause them to dangle from the sub arms, in their otherwise fairly secure grip. Equipment: 1 Core Block escape pod w. pilot (but Io Fleming mini-fig absent) 1 Set of 'Full Armor' with optional chest vent covers that fall off 1 Twin Beam Rifle 1 Rocket Launcher (left arm) 3 Beam Saber Hilts w. 2 light pink effect parts 4 Shields mountable on both arm weapons and can be carried by the two sub-arms 8 Swappable Fingers - Fists, trigger fingers (left hand is spare, nothing to 'trigger'), holding hands and spread open hands 1 Backpack with folding sub-arms, weapons and propellant canisters/thrusters which can move side to side 1 Display Stand - Can feel wobbly, but I've found it to hold the kit just fine Conclusion: Overall the kit is competent, it functions and it does have its own gloomy and menacing look to it, but it also feels very simple when it's done, like that mid-step I mentioned earlier, or a 1/100 kit, not a "Ver.Ka", despite the frequent use of tiny parts here and there. I don't know what Katoki's contribution to this kit is besides the decal sheet, which you *should* use to get the most out of the appearance on this thing. I think it's fair to say that with all the stuff it has, it does very little.

MG FA-78 Full Armor Gundam Ver. Ka (Gundam Thunderbolt Ver.) 1/100