Kimi The Builder

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HELLO! We are back! 

In today’s 433rd edition of our Let’s Talk Gunpla segment, we’ll take the time to discuss another P-Bandai’s latest Gunpla release announcement. Seeing all these new P-Bandai announcements makes us think that P-Bandai is making up for the lost time by going all out with new Gunpla announcements! Also, we feel like P-Bandai is preparing us for what to expect in 2023.

Admittedly, seeing all these awesome Premium Gunpla announcements, we feel P-Bandai did manage to make us excited for next year.

So, without further ado. Let us get to it, shall we?

MG 1/100 ZGMF-X12D Gundam Astray Out Frame D (MG)

Release Date: April 2023

Estimated price: JPY 6,380 (MYR RM 208.41* / USD $ 47.50* / EUR € 45.08*)

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

When P-Bandai announced the MG Testament Gundam in 2020, many of us were sure that P-Bandai would follow it up with the MG Gundam Astray Out Frame D’s announcement.

Why wouldn’t we expect that especially considering that the Gundam Astray Out Frame D is just the Testament in a different color scheme? So we reckon it should be easy enough for P-Bandai to make that conversion. Right?

But it doesn’t seem to be the case since it took them two years to give us the Gundam Astray Out Frame D. Frankly, we first wondered why it took P-Bandai this long to announce this.

But after we looked at this MG kit, we feel like P-Bandai spent the time well to make this kit as accurate as its illustrated counterpart and, at the same time, look good.

We are aware that after hearing of our earlier assessment of this being the same kit as the previously released MG Testament, you might wonder, what is new here?

Well, to be honest here, quite a lot.

For example, you’re getting a new head unit, chest unit, backpack unit, and a new set of equipment & weapons exclusive to this version. And since they didn’t make any changes to the arm units, and you still come with the same standard connection the MG Testament had for the Gundam Astray Out Frame D, you can easily mount the MG Testament’s weapons and backpack unit.

Also, it comes with different mounting ports for you to mount any backpack units from other MG SEED kit releases that you fancy..

In terms of articulation, we can see that it inherits the same pose-ability as the MG Testament, and we do not think this will feel that much different to build if you have already worked on the MG Testament.  

But we don’t think that is a deal breaker since we heard that several Gunpla builders that we talked to find working on the MG Testament fun. However, since we haven’t worked on one, we can’t say that for sure. But we admit that hearing that most worked on the MG Testament give it a good rating, we feel that the upcoming Gundam Astray Out Frame D will be a fun kit to build.

As you can already tell, we are a fan of this MG kit. And you’re right. We can see ourselves preordering this if we have no budget limitations. But unfortunately, we have to give this one a pass this time because this announcement comes at a terrible time. 

But we are sure fans of the Astray series and the MG Testament will be out and about to try their hands at getting this badass MG kit. And we wish that we are one of those.

But maybe we’ll try our luck next time. And we wish those partaking in the preorder for this all the best.

And that concludes our 433rd edition of the Let’s Talk Gunpla segment for today. We know the MG Astray Out Frame D isn’t the only P-Bandai MG announcement made recently.

But worry not, dear readers. We will cover that one in the next Let’s Talk Gunpla post! 

But to be honest, it is interesting to see P-Bandai going all out with new Premium Gunpla release announcements lately.

Not that we are complaining since we enjoy talking about all these new kits, but at the same time, we wish that the retail side have something to announce instead of letting the P-Bandai hog all the glory. 

Anyways, we’ll be back again next Thursday (hopefully) with a new blog post. So, please do look forward to that! 

Oh, one more thing before we go, it would be a tremendous help to us all here in the blog if you guys were to leave a like on our posts and subscribe to the blog if you find yourselves enjoying our gunpla/plamo-related posts. We would appreciate it if you guys would take the time to show your support by leaving an upvote on our R/Gunpla posts and by leaving a like on our Facebook and Instagram posts or pages! 

We are also open to any good and bad feedback, so feel free to write away.

Hopefully, by sharing our love and passion for building and writing about gunplas or other plamos here, we sincerely hope this post will inspire you guys to pick up on the hobby. Or better yet, reignite your love and passion for the hobby.

We shall see all of you again soon, and we hope all of you here have a splendid day and week ahead! Oh, before we go, please have an excellent time building your awesome gunplas there and until next time.

Ciao!