Bandai Hobby BAN230363 Char's Counterattack Sazabi RG 1/144 Model Kit, Red

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One of the least-grounded technologies in Gundam, the psychoframe is a kind of psychically-reactive metal. It’s never explained how any of this works, but the upshot is that if you think hard enough about murder while sitting inside a Faraday cage, you become a wizard. Neo-Zeon developed it for the Sazabi exclusively, but here Char’s evil masterminding runs directly aground on his self-defeating dipshit tendencies. Classic. What happens is that after thrashing Amuro in an early battle, he decides that it would be cool to have a “fair fight”, and just gives him the plans for the psychoframe. This has two major consequences, one that anyone could have seen coming, and another less predictable. To date, this Gunpla has yet to be redecoed into the "GPB Color" version of the unit from Gunpla Builders Beginning G. Beam shot rifle. The power pipe inside is painted metallic red. Since the barrel grip had a parting line on the mold, it was scraped off with the mold and reshaped with a plastic rod. We’ve talked about Amuro Ray, and we’ve talked about Kamille Bidan, and now we have to talk about the connective tissue that binds them together. Other than uhh, the direct connection they have, from working together and knowing each other. Look, I didn’t think this bit all the way through, but roll with me. Rival to Amuro, mentor to Kamille, it’s everyone’s favorite ice cold psychopath from outer space: the Red Comet himself, Char Aznable.

To put that in more concrete terms, the Sazabi at 1/144 absolutely towers over almost all other suits in the same scale. It’s nearly the same size as an average 1/100. I don’t have one handy to compare, but the MG Sazabi Ver.Ka is almost as big as a smaller 1/60 PG. The inside of the funnel container is color-coded by iron color. There is a part that pulls out at the tip, but since the left and right molds also had parting lines, we remodeled it with a plastic plate.There’s just a lot of everything, to be honest, because the Sazabi is a lot of mobile suit. It contains almost twice as much Gundam per Gundam as any other Gundam. The robot, she is quite large.

First, obviously, this leads to Amuro beating the everloving shit out of Char. In mobile suits on an equal footing, Amuro goes absolutely beast mode and stomps him into the dirt. When he tries to eject (the Sazabi has a basketball-shaped escape pod in the head), Amuro just grabs the thing and dribbles it around for a while. There is basically no stupider move in the entire Universal Century than trying to step to Amuro Goddamn Ray, a lesson that Char should have remembered from their showdowns over the years, but evidently needs to be re-taught regularly.There isn’t anything bad to say here. The RG Sazabi looks great, poses better, comes with good accessories, and is big as hell. It’s an amazing piece of GunPla, managing to be an easy (if somewhat lengthy) build, despite the sheer volume of parts. It’s just a great kit, and was probably the best Real Grade until the Nu Gundam came out and immediately overthrew it. Some things never change. Just FYI, water slide decals WILL betray you when you’re trying to take panels off to top coat, and this behemoth of a kit has A LOT of panels. Interior / joint parts (light gray): (Base: Suff) Star Bright Iron 30% + Neutral Gray IV 40% + Flat White 15% + German Gray 15% (all Gaia colors) Each part of the rear armor is also painted with an iron color. The small vernier on the side has a twin pipe embedded inside. Some of the smaller sunken details showing exhaust ports or implied light lenses are almost impossible to clean up any wash that didn’t stay neatly in the lines leaving a sloppy look to those small areas.

Topcoat (Mr. Hobby recommended) can be used to protect applied decals. (Water-based topcoat is recommended due to the kit having PP parts) The Hasegawa hologram finish sheet is attached to the forehead sensor, and it is painted in clear green from above. The detail of the mono eye is improved with the aurora and SP plate of the GEM dome which is a high queue part. Since the funnel can be fixed on the 3.0 mm axis, it is easy to display. The injection state can be freely produced. Since the interior is painted metallic, there is little interference and it can be easily deployed and stored.Now that RG SAZABI has been completed, I will introduce the painting recipe and a photo review after completion.