Kimi The Builder

This is not even funny anymore.

HELLO! We are back!

In today’s 644th edition of our ‘Let’s Talk Gunpla’ segment, we’ll be examining one of the retail side’s latest release teasers from the 2025 All Japan Hobby Show. We were genuinely excited when Bandai announced that they would be releasing a new MG model at this event, and we immediately started speculating about which MG kits we’d be getting.

In the midst of all of the speculation, one of us did mention what if Bandai would announce another MG Astray variant at this event? We all immediately said, ‘No, why would Bandai do that? Didn’t they just announce one recently? Plus, there are a lot of kits that they COULD do an MG of that would be a much better fit to showcase at one of the LAST BIG PLAMO EVENT OF THE YEAR.’

But in the end, it turns out he was right.  

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

[TEASER] MG 1/100 Astray (Gundam SEED FREEDOM Astray Ver.) (MG)

Release Date: TBC

Estimated price: TBC

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

We should’ve learned by now that Bandai is a master at disappointing its fans, especially when it comes down to revealing new kits at big events like the recent All Japan Hobby & Model Show 2025. We really shouldn’t expect Bandai to reveal anything interesting, seeing that in these couple of years we have been getting nothing but disappointments for the MG line.

But we are not trying to throw shade at fans of the MG Astray by saying that. We know that there are quite a lot of MG Astray fans out there, and even among our readers. We also know that fans of the MG Astray never fail to be excited for a new MG Astray announcement. But honestly? We have been getting a lot of new MG Astray release announcements made recently. Heck, it wasn’t that long ago we just wrote about a new P-Bandai MG Astray release announcement. Aren’t you bored hearing about a new MG Astray by now?

Don’t you want to see Bandai announce something other than a new MG Astray at this point?

Anyway, let’s talk about what’s new here.

From the looks of it, this MG SEED FREEDOM version of the Astray does look a bit different compared to the Astray variants that we’ve seen. Since we can see that Bandai made quite a number of changes to this version of SEED FREEDOM’s MG Astray.

For instance, it is clear that we are getting new shoulder armor, a redesigned waist unit, a new arm unit joint system, and we might also see new weapons designed for this version. Even with that said, we admit that we can’t really confirm yet that anything that we see here is set in stone. But knowing Bandai, we wouldn’t be surprised if that is the case here.

Despite making those speculations, we also saw some of the other Gunpla builders’ analysis on this, some of whom (who had a lot of experience building MG Astray variants) highlighted that we’d be seeing some old joints from other MG Astray releases making a return here. Not that we are surprised about it, seeing that Bandai does like to adopt the ‘if it ain’t broke’ motto for most releases, new and old. But to be honest, coming in, we’re not really expecting this to be a Ver. 2.0 release. And even from looking at Bandai’s promotional materials for this kit, Bandai wasn’t planning to do that either.

This might only be a slightly improved MG Astray, with some new crazy bits (we hope).

All in all, despite our initial disappointments, we admit that this does look like a really good kit. We might not like the idea of getting another MG Astray, but even we have to admit that this looks like an exciting release for those who ARE looking forward to this.

The only thing we hope for is that Bandai will actually have something that is properly new, different, and exciting for the next new MG line release announcement, instead of hearing about another new MG Astray/OG Gundam/Unicorn release.

This concludes the 644th edition of the Let’s Talk Gunpla segment. This was one of the most disappointing release announcements that we’ve seen from Bandai. We were all expecting to see something different. But we ended up seeing more of the same again.

Yes, it is nice to see the MG Astray fans are getting a lot of love here, and yes, it is nice that we are getting more Retail MG releases, but we were really hoping to see an actual new, different, and exciting MG release teaser announcement. The one that would make us all sit down speculating and dissecting the teaser for hours and days. The one that would make us once again, really excited for the MG line’s future.

We know why Bandai is doing this; it’s because they are trying to play it safe. But right now, they shouldn’t be doing safe; they should be taking risks, especially in light of the level of insane, cheap kits the Chinese model kit companies are releasing to the public.

Right now, Bandai might still have an edge in terms of tech, but if they keep at the pace that they are going right now. We wouldn’t be that surprised if we see those Chinese model kit companies surpass Bandai in that department too, sooner or later.

Oh, well, time will tell if Bandai will be taking this seriously or not.

Anyways, we will return soon-ish with a new blog post, so do look forward to that!

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!