Kimi The Builder

An old hero, that I finally met and not disappointed by

Honestly, I like building old, retro kits.

There is something about them which do I find to quite appealing and charming. Plus I do find that when one works on old kits it kind of helps you to see how much gunplas, in general, has evolved throughout the times. Though most of the times you might be encountering some frustrating ones, however occasionally you will find yourself coming across some awesome ones if you are lucky enough.

And this week I found myself to have experienced building one of these old, but gold kits.

Oh, before I forget, Kimi here and this week I would be reviewing the surprisingly awesome No Grade 1/100 RXR-44 (F-50D) Guntank R-44 kit!

But before we get to them juicy bits….we will be first talking about the lore and history of this particular MS that the kit was based on. So without further ado let us get into it, shall we?

The History and Development of the RXR-44 (F-50D) Guntank R-44

Model name                      : RXR-44 / F-50

Classification                     : Prototype Transformable Artillery Mobile Suit

Weapon systems             : 20mm Cannon, 4-tube Missile Pod, Finger Launcher Gun

Height                                  : 10.3m

Armour Material              : Luna Titanium

Powerplant                        : Minovsky Ultracompact Fusion Reactor (1050kw output)

Total Thrust                        : 14,000 kg Total

Effective Sensor Radius : Unknown

Crew                                     : 2 pilots and 2 Gunners

The Guntank R-44 is probably one of those MS that was rather quite mysterious, mainly due to the fact we don’t know a whole lot of things about this Miniature Transformable Mobile Suit. The only reason why we know it exists is because it was seen engaging the Crossbone Vanguard forces and it was said that it was even used to ferry civilians out from Frontier IV during the earlier stages of the conflict.

It was so infamous that it was even rumored to have been a part of the kidnapping plot of the heir to Crossbone Vanguards organization. It was said that it almost made it out from the conflict zone before it was taken out by the Elite MS unit of the Crossbone Vanguard. Though I do not know how true is this particular tale is but when the wreckage of the Guntank was recovered it does seem to have evidence that it was ferrying people and it was seen to have incurred quite a substantial damage to it. Though there were no bodies recovered within or around the wreckage, however, it was assumed that nobody would have been able to survive the ordeal with the kind of damage that was seen on the MS itself.

Regardless, we are not here to be talking about rumors and gossips. But we are here to talk about what we do actually know about the Guntank R-44!

Before this particular Guntank R-44 was handed over to the Roy Jung, the curator for the Frontier IV’S War Museum this particular MS was developed by the Anaheim Electronics in a bid to replace the excellent convert ops  MS the Loto. However, due to the many problems that were encountered by the Anaheim Electronics during the development cycle of this particular MS and added with the fact that the Earth Federation themselves finding no reason to have a new Stealth/Infiltration based MS during peacetime, kind of helped to kill the project up.

Because of that, The Guntank R-44 didn’t pass the prototype stage and eventually one of the prototype units ended up in Roy Jung’s war Museum in Frontier IV. Though it should be noted here that, due to its unfinished nature of the Guntank R-44 many of its features were added in by Roy Jung during its restoration process and because of that it was given the R-44 designation. With the R being the Restoration and 44 being the age Roy Jung was when he received this Guntank prototype.

Sadly, Roy Jung was killed during the final stages of the Crossbone Vanguards Invasion on Frontier IV and his prized Guntank R-44 was destroyed during that same conflict.

With the history lesson done, let us now move on to the review, shall we?

The Review

I remember looking at this kit for the first time well back when I was a much younger lad then how I am now (ha-ha), if I’m not mistaken it was back when I was out shopping with my cousin’s family in Penang. The one thing that I can really remember vividly was on how much I was in love with how the box art looked and at the same time, I was really quite impressed by the gimmicks that are present. I was quite impressed by that since there isn’t anything in the market at the time that could transform like that and still look like a badass (unlike some of the kid’s toys that were present at the time and this was well before I knew that the Zeta Gundam Exist).

However, I wasn’t able to get this particular kit at the time due to my financial situations at the time, since I was still in primary school at the time. But I did try to do my very best to get this kit, but unfortunately, when I came back to Penang the kit was nowhere to be seen, and never again I come across this kit ever again in my life…..

Up until a few years back, when I finally was reunited with the kit again here in KL and seeing that awesome box I immediately knew that I needed to get this ASAP. While knowing full well that it might not be as good as the newer kits that are out at the time.

However, nothing could prepare me for what it is to come when I started work on this….

in which I found out first hand that it was as good as I imagined it would be and one that made me super glad that I got it.

Let me now explain why.

First of all, is the build of this kit. To be honest, this is a kit with a very simple construction, no-nonsense kit with parts that work as its intended. During my run with the kit, I really didn’t encounter any major issues with the parts and even better all the parts here feel really solid when compared to the previous No Grade 1/100 Den’an Zon that I worked on last year.

If some of you here have gone through my unboxing post previously, you may notice that I mentioned about the quality of the plastic used in this kit is…. well rather shit. But surprisingly enough despite its shit look, I never come across any serious nub’s issues with the parts. Seriously, even though it does have parts that are gated quite badly, which causes me to assume that I would encounter some bad nubs (and mentally preparing myself for em’) but when I do get to them…I realized that nubs were quite…well easy to handle.

Yes, I admit that there are still some bad ones, but honestly even those weren’t at the level that I was expecting. Well, what I mean by that is the issue was not at a level that you need to ‘paint them up to hide the nubs’ kind of thing. Which is to me is good news to those that weren’t planning to paint em up.

Oh, speaking not painting the kit up, I even find that using the stickers aren’t as bad here. Though yes, I admit you still be better off using paints on certain parts of the kit than to just use the stickers. But even if you still insist on using them, I assure you that it would still look somewhat nice-ish.

Plus, there is some more good news to those that are not planning to paint the kit up! That for a retro kit, it as aswell has a pretty decent color separation on the parts. Though there were a few instances here in which I found myself in need of the Guntank R-44’s stickers but overall most of the parts looked as how it was advertised. Which is quite impressive for an old kit, because usually you do need to put some effort to make em’ look nice, but this, even if you choose to take the easier route, you can still do it and the kit would still look nice.

The articulation is as well quite decent here, with the parts all working as intended. The thing that I find quite surprising here is that that the transformation bit for the Guntank R-44 doesn’t really require you to swap or change any the parts up and better still, the transformation process is simple and very easy to execute! Plus even in both modes, the kit holds up quite well, which makes transforming the kit to be quite an enjoyable experience, overall.

However, since it is a kit with a relatively old design, inevitably it does come with some issues to it. Like for an instance, there is a lot of parts which I found to be quite uneven, which in turn causes some of the parts here to have some pretty bad seamlines. Another issue is with well the quality of the plastic that the kit was based on since it was made on a pretty…well, cheap plastic. Makes certain parts of the kit look, well quite distractingly bad.

You as well will find that the arm unit’s articulation for the No Grade Guntank R-44 to be quite limited due well to how they designed this particular part, but then again since the arm unit was just used to mount the Guntank R-44’s huge missile pods…. I figure that, you don’t really need to move it that much. So that isn’t really something bad I suppose.

Regardless, despite its issues. I never find myself to ever be frustrated or disappointed by it. Mainly due to the fact that I really didn’t expect it to be as great as the other newer releases. However, what I was surprised with is that despite my low-looow expectation it still manages to make me quite surprised by how good it is. Yes, it might be not as good the HG Lotto or even the original HG Guntank but it is still managed to be almost as good as the current releases and for a retro kit, I find that to be quite surprising.

This kit is definitely one of the old kits that I highly recommend getting and one that I really can confidently say that you will have a lot of fun with! Though I do admit that finding these now is going to be quite an undertaking but if you find em, don’t hesitate to get it because I can honestly tell you that you will have tons of fun with this awesome kit.

As I did, here and for once something from my childhood made me smile to no end, one that I really hope to see modernized in this day and age.

With that ends the review for the No Grade 1/100 RXR-44 (F-50D) Guntank R-44 (NGF91)! Honestly, this is really one of those kits that really put a smile on my face and one that I really wish I have more of em’ to work on! I do wonder if any of our readers here any experience with this kit, it would be awesome to hear what you think both the kit and my review of it!

Though to be honest, I really wonder if Bandai would ever consider making the MG version of the Loto or this…because it would be really nice to one day see this awesome transformable Guntank in MG form.

Anyways, we will be back again this week more Let’s Talk Gunpla Segment on the coming Wednesday and we will be back as well on the coming Sunday with an unboxing! So, do look forward to that!

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We hope by sharing our love and passion for gunplas here, it’ll inspire you to pick up the hobby or reignite your love for gunpla!

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!