GN-001 GUNDAM EXIA

Gundam Exia comes from the animated series Mobile Suit Gundam 00. In the anime series, this mecha was developed primarily for closed combat battles.

What you're seeing here is Gundam Exia from the Entry Grade kit. It is a basic 1/144 scaled mecha. I've attempted to add some color to this mecha by putting on marker ink.

The only weapon that this robot comes with is the GN long blade.

View of Gundam Exia from other angles with the GN long blade.

Articulation is very tight as the joints of the leg ar being obstructed by the hips. In terms of the arms, there is only one way movement.

I have stopped collecting Gundam from a couple of years as I no longer have the luxury of time in assembling these model kits. The other main point is that there's hardly any resale value for these plastic injection kits.

Here's a sample image that I found of how this figure would look like if you were to put your heart & effort into air brushing and painting it. One thing about me, I have zero knowledge in such works.

EXCELLERATOR 3.5

This is going to be a very short & blunt review of the only paintball marker that I currently own. The JT USA Excellerator 3.5. I'm not a fan of paintball & I don't really know much about it, but I'm just posting this in my blog as part of my online archive of collection.

This marker was given to me by a friend a few years ago. He brought in a couple of markers for sale but wasn't able to sell them as he didn't have the proper paper works.

Since I don't participate in paintball games, I might as well dismantle this baby to see what it looks like. As you can see from above, I was able to pull apart seven separate parts from the main body.

I've not had the opportunity to test live rounds with this marker to further comment on the accuracy, speed & reliability of it though.

The only thing that you need to be careful off is when removing the small metal pin from the rear of the marker. Do make sure that the rear of the marker is pointed away from you, or somewhere soft as the spring will fire out the rear metal cap & you may hurt yourself.

FRACTAL ARMOR BATMAN [SPECTRUM OF THE BAT]

This Batman series known as Spectrum of The Bat was manufactured in the year 2000. Although I'm not a big fan of Bruce Wayne, this looked like a cool figure to me.

 
Do not mistake this figure for Fractal Armor Batman (Total Justice), from the Justice League of America toy line.

Here's the view of the figure from various angles. This Batman is known as Fractal Armor Batman.

This figure can't do much in terms of movement. Back  in the late 1990's & early 2000, toys did not come with much articulation.

Here we see the so called Fractal Armor.  There are two weapons that come along as accessories.

The first is a disc launcher. All you have to do is to press the middle lever to fire the orange disc. The disc fires up to just under a feet in distance.

The next weapon we have here is a grappling hook. You'll have to coil the rope up manually once you're done playing with it.

Lastly, here's Batman equipped with both the weapons. Not much can be said about playability but it would look good as a display piece in your cabinet.

RX-78 GUNDAM

   

Sometime in late 2011, Bandai came up with a new Entry Grade series of Gundams. In this review let us take a look at the original version of the Gundam series where it all first started, the RX-78 Gundam.

 

 

Being an entry level, this 1/144 scaled kit doesn't come with many pieces. Assembling it is as easy as a BB Gundam kit. There are only three color schemes to this mecha, which is white, blue & red. The good things about the kit is that it comes with a sticker sheet, which makes the toy look a bit more attractive, as compared to the original RX-78 that came out over two decades ago.

RX-78 comes with two accessories which are the shield & beam rifle.

Since this is an Entry Grade mecha, don't have any expectation for it to be as poseable as your ordinary 1/144 scaled Gundams. There are only five points for you to move this Gundam about.

MOTOKO KUSANAGI "DIVER DOWN"

Here we take a look at Motoko Kusanagi from the acclaimed anime series Ghost In The Shell. The PVC figure has a couple of different variants. Besides the red diving suit, there is also the blue & limited edition turquoise diving suit.

The only accessory that comes along with this figure is the silencer handgun. In terms of stability the dive suit does help in keeping the figure from falling down.

The view from different angles here show that the color is nicely done on all parts of the figure with a slightly glossy finish. This is just a simple & straight forward PVC figurine with no points of articulation. I'm not too certain about the head though & I'm not taking the risk of popping it off by accident.

An up-close & personal view of Motoko Kusanagi. Overall, this makes for a very nice piece of display unit.

SMALL HAUL

Here's what I managed to pick up while I was in downtown Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Both the Kre-Os were going at a very good price so I had to get them. The Danboard was on promotion from Toy Garden / Toywiz, for the month of November at one of the local toy stores.

Finally, I completed my McDonald's Transformers Prime series with an extra Megatron to trade around or sell.

SEARCHLIGHT WITH BACKWIND

This Autobot came as a bonus pack with the PCC Skyburst & Aerialbots. Searchlight's vehicle mode is a transport helicopter.

Both the rotors are aligned fairly well, with the front rotors lower than the back. That way both rotors don't clash with each other. The only thing that i dislike about this Autobot is the arm joints, at the third picture. I prefer my bots to have solid and symmetric structures. This is one main reason why I was never a fan of Beast Wars. Hence I doubt I can call myself a faithful Transformers fan.

In vehicle mode, Searchlight can attach his assistant Backwind to the bottom of the chopper. The connecting peg on Backwind is identical to any other Mini-Con.

Here's how they both look like in robot mode.

As you can see, both bots are quite flexible.

Backwind has two alternate modes. In the first mode Backwind transforms into what looks like a Breastforce. It attaches to the chest of Searchlight & forms a chest plate.

Alternatively, Backwind can also transform into a hand blaster. However, I much prefer Backwind in Breastforce mode.

Searchlight has an alternate mode as well. This bot can transform into a combiner. Here's what it looks with the Aerialbot drones. In combiner mode, articulation is just as bad as with Skyburst. Only the torso and knee joints bend.

Here we see Searchlight & his assistant, in combiner mode. Somehow this combiner mode stands better, than with Skyburst.