Kimi The Builder

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HELLO! We are back!

In today’s 641st edition of our Let’s Talk Gunpla segment, we’ll continue where we left off with our P-Bandai discussions, one that we are sure most Astray fans are looking forward to most this year!

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

MG 1/100 MBF-P05LM2 Gundam Astray Mirage Frame 2nd Issue (MG)

Release Date: November 2025

Estimated price: JPY 6,600 (MYR 186.71* / USD 44.35* / EUR 37.77*)

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

Honestly, we feel that it takes a lot of balls to announce this.

For one, we here think that this is by far one of the weirdest and funniest Gundam Astray variants out there. Secondly, and most importantly, we thought no one would be interested in getting this.

Heck, when they first released this version of the Astray as a no-grade 1/100 kit, we remember vividly how it was not selling as well as other SEED Astray releases, and worse, we also remember seeing these sitting on discount bins in some Gunpla stores in Malaysia, and if I’m not mistaken they were sitting there for quite some time before it was eventually cleared off.

But it turns out we are very wrong. How do we know this? Well, that is because of P-Bandai’s shopee page, the preorder quota was fulfilled within minutes, even before one of us could place an order. So yeah, that is already a strong sign that there is a demand for this, and we suspect fans of the Astray series aren’t the only ones who knew this would be a hit.  

But we know what you’re thinking: why is there such a demand for this version of the Astray? Well, to be honest? We don’t really know either. But, we do notice that whenever there is a new MG Astray kit announced nowadays, either by P-Bandai or the Retail side, it tends to end up selling like hotcakes.

But even with that said, we still didn’t expect this to be a hit since, well, like we mentioned previously, this isn’t a popular kit when it first debuted. But then again, it has been quite some time since it debuted, so there is a possibility that people’s opinion on it might have changed a lot since then.

But seeing how well the unpopular Astray kits are received here, we hope that it might encourage P-Bandai (or the Retail side, too, we hope) to be bolder in announcing new kits in the future.

Anyway, enough talking cock. Let’s now talk about the actual kit itself. So the big question now is, did P-Bandai manage to recreate the insane robot dog transformation gimmick that we see with the 1/100 no-grade version?

And from what we can see from its promotional materials? Yes, they did. And it looked insanely badass.

However, despite looking badass, we do not think that the dog mode limbs would work as you’d expect a robot dog to do. Why do we say this? Well, from what we can gather from looking at all the MG Astray Mirage Frame 2nd’s promotional materials, there are no pictures that showcase the MG Astray mecha doggo mode can pull off dynamic mecha dog action poses.

That is a bit disappointing, to be honest. Because we are sure there are fans of the Astray Mirage Frame 2nd Issue who would want to see Bandai elaborate more on this particular feature.

It is clear from looking at the promotional materials for the MG Astray Mirange Frame 2nd issue that there are zero modifications made to the base MG Astray frame, which would enable it to have a more doggo-like articulation to its limbs in mecha doggo mode. But at least we know that this version will retain all the same MG Astray features as all of its previous incarnations.

But even with that said, at least we get some insane detail on the Doggo bits!

Speaking of bits, you’re getting a lot of new bits for this MG Astray variant, like new shoulder beam cannons and the mecha dog head attached to the MG Astray Mirage Frame 2nd unit backpack unit. It also comes with a set of badass claw attachments, both on the arm units and the leg unit. Lastly, instead of a normal Astray v-fin, you’re getting the Astray Mirage Frame 2nd’s iconic beetle horn-like fin attached to the head unit.

But what we liked most about this kit is its purple and pink color scheme. To be honest? Even though we are not the biggest fans of the Astray Mirage Frame 2nd. We do like how the designers of this version of the Astray used the purple and pink color scheme on the MS. But admittedly, one of the reasons why the no grade kit wasn’t popular when it first debuted is because translating those same color schemes into Gunpla is tough, especially the pink. We remember seeing people being turned off by getting the 1/100 no-grede kit because of how bad the pink part made the kit look. The pink part looked so bad that it made the whole kit look like a cheap night market bootleg kit. But thankfully, it seems that this new P-Bandai exclusive MG version doesn’t have the same issues since P-Bandai did a really good job (if these promotional materials are to be believed) in making sure the pink parts don’t look bad here.

All in all, this is probably one that fans of the Astray series wouldn’t want to miss, and looking at how quickly P-Bandai reached their preorder quota on Shopee, that seems to be the case here. Or it could be that fans of the Astray aren’t the only ones that is looking forward to having it in their inventories.

This concludes the 641st edition of the Let’s Talk Gunpla segment. Once again, we see P-Bandai drop another P-Bandai announcement that really puts a smile on people’s (and scalpers) faces.

And next in line, we’re going to cover another P-Bandai side’s latest release announcement, and this time it’s from the HG G-Unit kit! So, please do look forward to that!

Also, we are aware of the one post a week situation. The reason why we are sticking to only posting one blog post a week is that we have been facing a series of PC issues recently, and it has been a pain to deal with.

But thankfully, we managed to find a somewhat permanent solution to our PC issues, and we should be back to our regular post-release schedule by this week onwards (we hope).

Also, you might have noticed a slight change to our posts, which is because we recently added a donation tab to our posts to help keep this site running and also to possibly help fund our future Gunpla-related projects. However, we want to clarify to all of you here that even though we are adding a donation tab, that doesn’t mean that we will be placing any of our existing or future content behind a paywall. All of our content will remain free for everyone to access, regardless of whether you decide to donate to us or not.

But that doesn’t mean that we do not have anything special for those who helped us keep the site running. We do! However, we are still trying to finalize some things, and we will have something special planned for our donors! But for now, with everything that has been happening, we still need some time before we can confirm anything. We hope by November we can start revealing what we have to offer to our donors! So worry not!

Also, the main reason why we decided to add the donation tab is that after managing this blog with our funds for so long, we’ve found that even with ads, it hasn’t been enough to maintain the site without putting ourselves in debt. We have tried our best not to resort to this, since we are doing this blog for fun, and we really didn’t plan to earn money from doing this.

However, since the start of the year, we have been struggling financially to keep this site running, but despite facing a lot of difficulties, we refuse to give up on this site after putting so much work into it. Not to mention, we do not want to disappoint our loyal readers.  

So that is why, for the first time after running this site for so long, we are finally asking for help from you, our readers.

If you appreciate what we do and want us to continue providing this content, we would greatly appreciate any support through donations to help keep us afloat.

If you can’t or don’t want to contribute, that’s perfectly fine! You’re still supporting us by sharing, commenting, and reading everything we post here. We truly appreciate all the likes on our posts and your feedback!

As always, we welcome both positive and negative feedback, so feel free to share your thoughts.

Even on this donation tab.

We are incredibly grateful for your support, and we hope to see you again in the next post!

Once again, thank you.  

Also, we hope to see you again soon!

Ciao!