Kimi The Builder

Unboxing my first and only Kancolle kit

Before I ended up with this post, I was actually planning to do another RG ν Gundam update post, which would be the last update seeing how good the progress of the kit is. But instead of doing that, I figured, why not I do an Unboxing and First Impressions post? Better yet, why don’t I do an unboxing on my most treasured unbuilt kits from the backlogs. So I decided to unbox a Kancolle kit, more specifically the Aoshima Kancolle 01 Nagato kit.

This is why the post was up quite late because I literally had to start everything from a scratch. haha. But enough about that, let us talk about this kit, shall we?

Out of all the kits in the backlog, this might be the oldest one that I have in my collection. How old you might be wondering? Well, frankly this was a kit that I got back in 2013 when Kancolle is still quite popular amongst the Japanese Gamers and anime community. Out of all the ‘ship girls’ that was released under this particular plamo line-up, the Nagato the one that I fancied the most which are why I decided to get her first.

After getting the Nagato, I was kind of planning to start a Kancolle kit collection…..but instead I decided to shift my focus back to Gunplas, because most of the Kancolle kits that was on listing kept going out of stock, and whenever it was restocked it always got sandwiched in between a very interesting MG or RG release. Which why it always ends up having me having to let go of the idea of getting the Kancolle kit that I want and instead I end up buying the hot current gunpla that was released at that time.

This as well wasn’t helped with the fact that the kit is REALLY hard to find in the retail shops around here. There were fat too few shops that carry this plamo lineup and even if I do stumble across one, it would almost always end up being too expensive to get. Which is why I kind of put the idea of collecting the Kancolle kit on hold, indefinitely. Well up until they decided to re-release most of them again that is…

Regardless, I’m still quite glad that I at least managed to snag one and what better one to have than this, the first one in the line-up.

Release Date: Oct 2013

Retail price: JPY 4,940* (MYR RM 189.24* / USD $ 45.36* / EUR € 41.19*)

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

Out of all the kits that I’ve seen its boxarts, this might be the one that had one of the most misleading boxarts that I’ve seen in a long while. Because you are not getting an anime girl to build like the Bandai’s LABO line up, but instead you get a battleship for you to build. To anyone without any prior knowledge, they might be duped into thinking that if they ever see this in the retail shops.

But I get why they decided to have the anime personification of the Japanese World War II Battleship at the front page of this box art. Because of this the exact avatar of the ship if you do have the Nagato in your Kancolle ship line up. But I do admit that I love how they reimagined the Nagato in Anime form.

I do think the Nagato looks glorious and is beautifully illustrated. I can’t imagine anyone looking at this and not finds themselves attracted by her looks. Even I would admit that I was one of those that was enamored by her anime charms, which may be the main reason why I decided to get her…haha. But we know that the designers of this boxart know that too because not content with having her model the front page of the box, you as well have more illustrations of her on the side sections of this Kancolle Box packaging.

Speaking of the side sections, I do find it to be quite bare. Maybe I’m quite spoiled with what I get with Gunplas because there isn’t anything much that I could gather about this kit from looking at its box. However, even with that said, I do admit that they do put in some very nice actual specification on the Nagato and the history of the Nagato here. Although admittedly we are quite disappointed to see that the History part was written in Japanese.

It’s not like its a bad thing since we could just google it. But we do still kind of wish to be able to read the Japanese’s historical view of this battleship.

As I move on to the actual unboxing, The contents of this kit turn out to be something that I was expecting to see. Why? Well because if you are expecting this to have color-coordinated parts…well you will be disappointed as soon as you open the box up. Because the parts none of the parts on the runners are colored at all.

This is something that I believe that most plamo builders are quite familiar with by now since painting is really one of the core processes that you have to go through if you are planning to build a plamo kit. However, to those that are coming from Gunpla building which is as well new to the plamo building hobby, will most definitely find this kit to be quite…intimidating due to massive work that lies in front of you. But since all the parts are monotonous in color does make the effort to be less daunting for beginners since you can choose to go straight to painting the Kancolle Nagato without priming the whole kit.

But truth to be told, there is alot that I see here that looks like something taken from Aoshima’s 1/700 Water Line kits lineup, because many of the same DNA is present here. So you might be wondering as you all look at this, so what is this kits selling point then? Well that might be this

Yes, it comes with a card and a few interesting stickers as well. Which does somewhat justifies fans of this series to get the kit? However for plamo fans…I don’t really think that this is enough to justify the purchase. Especially considering you can get the normal Nagato for a much more cheaper price…well that id if you can get Aoshima to reprint those as well that is.

Regardless, I do find myself loving the Kancolle merch that is included here. it does look quite well produced and I really don’t think fans of this line-up would be disappointed to with these. Though, it would be really nice if they were to include an unpainted figure as well here.

Another selling point of this kit is seen on the Kancolle Nagato’s manual booklet. Because I do admit that it is unlike anything that I’ve seen or encountered before. Well for starters, the manual is filled with illustrations of anime characters ‘helping’ you building this Aoshima kit. It is something that I wasn’t expecting to see because I was kind of expecting them to just use an existing manual that they had after going through the runners.

It was really quite nice to flip the pages and see all the cute anime girls ‘accompanying’ you through the build process of this Kancolle Nagato kit. Looking at this makes me long for Bandai to do the same with their manuals too because it is quite entertaining to see all the cute antics of the girls as you progress.

What’s more despite the fact that the manual is written mostly in Japanese, I was quite surprised to see that the manual is quite easy to understand. The reason being for this because they have had the guide section of the manual to be translated and not to mention too the painting guide is as well coded in numbers, which does make the painting process easier. Even though I was kind of hoping that they would go all the way with the translation, but looking at how easy it is to understand the whole build process….I don’t really mind it that much.

All in all, I do find that the experience of unboxing this to be quite an interesting one. Because this might be the first time I’ve unboxed a much more traditional Plamo kit like this for this blog. Not to mention, it has as well been quite a while that I’ve unboxed one. But even with that said, I was quite surprised with all the nice touches that was done here, especially on what I see on the manual for this Kancolle kit. In which I do hope to see one day to be done on the modern kits.

But I do admit as I come to the end of this unboxing, I am hit with a dilemma.

I’m currently struggling to decide if I want to build this or should I just keep it as is. For one it is something that I do find to be quite intimidating, because unlike a gunpla kit, here there is so much paintwork needed to be done here if you are planning to make it look decent. Plus when you consider the fact that this is a rare kit, it does make the idea of working on this to be more and more less appealing. Because you can’t afford to screwup here since there is no way for you to get replacement parts for this rare kit.

But looking at the fact that I still do have a shit ton of withheld projects still in hand…I may still have time to think about it still. I may yet still change my mind still and take that brave pill and just build it.

Or I could just chicken out and place it back with all the other backlogged kits… Somehow I wouldn’t be surprised if I do.

With that ends this week’s Unboxing and First Impressions for the Aoshima Kancolle 01 Nagato. What do you think of this week’s kit that I just unboxed? Do you yourselves have the same experience as I did with this Kancolle kit? It’s funny to think that I just Unboxed another kit this week that I’m still not sure to do a review on, but yet I do admit it is quite nice to finally see what is inside this box.

Because it has been sitting in the backlog pile for so long, it is really nice to finally open up the old girl.

Anyways, we will be back again with more Let’s Talk Gunpla Segment on the next coming Wednesday and Friday. While I will be back on the coming Monday with another review or an unboxing, So do look forward to that!

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Ciao!