I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for the failure that
is Mobile Suit Gundam F91. There’s a lot
of potential in the characters and setup that never got to meet its potential
due to a lot of behind the scenes mayhem.
Pretty close to the top of reasons why Im alright with the film is the
titular Gundam itself. It’s got a pretty
cool design with a sweet assortment of weapons and capabilities unique to this
Gundam alone. When I saw the F91 Gunpla
on sale for a decent price (and the cool box art), I couldn’t pass it up. However, I wasn’t expecting it to be
so…tiny. I’m not talking like an SD
Gunpla I mean the F91 is super, super small compared to other 1/144 HG Gunpla
I’ve worked on. Is that a strike against
it or is it still as cool as it’s Anime counterpart?
In UC0123 a military force known as the Crossbone
Vanguard launched an invasion of the Side 4 colony cluster, now known as
Frontier Side, quickly overwhelming the Earth Federation defense garrison of
Frontier IV. A small band of young survivors
made their way to the colony of Frontier I, finding refuge aboard the
Federation Training Vessel, The Space Ark.
Here, civilian Seabook Arno is reunited with his estranged mother,
Monica Arno, and discovers she has been using her research to develop a new
prototype Mobile Suit for the Earth Federation, the F91 Gundam. As the Crossbone Vanguard began to expand to
other Frontier Side Colonies, Seabook found himself tasked with becoming the
F91’s pilot to defend Frontier I. A next
generation Mobile Suit in every sense of the term, the F91 sported a new
assortment of features and capabilities never before seen in the Gundam series
at the time. The most prominent of these
features was the Bio Computer, a reverse engineered Psy-Commu design that could
even be used by normal human pilots, not just Newtypes. This enabled Seabook to quickly become
familiar with the F91’s systems and make him a capable pilot in very little
time. The other stand out feature was a
heat dispersal system that enabled the F91 to generate “after images” as it
moved quickly, producing the illusion of several F91’s appearing at once. Seabook would use this ability and more
during a critical battle with the Crossbone Vanguard’s leader, Corozo Ronah,
which ultimately led to the iron masked menaces destruction.
Build Experience
When I got this along with three other Gunpla in one
order (we’ll get to those in a couple of weeks), it was noticeably smaller than
the others. I didn’t think anything of
it until the further I got into building the F91. Holy crap, this is probably the smallest and
slimest Gunpla I’ve ever built to this point.
The more progress I made on the main body, I grabbed the closest
“normal” sized HG Gundam I could find, in this case the AEUG’s Gundam Mark II
for a size comparison. It’s at least an
inch shorter and the F91 also doesn’t have the bulk of the Mark II or even the
OG RX-78-2. It kind of stuns me that
this is even an HG, it feels more like an EG like the RX-78-2. Yeah, it still has decals and some other
complexities but it doesn’t feel as grand or as High Grade as other High
Grades. Speaking of decals (haha my
favorite part), most of them on the F91 were ok. I especially like that the “F” and “91”
decals were easy to place since they were etched into the shoulders. The back cannons that can be drawn at the
F91’s side, those were annoying to figure out the decal details for. I’m not super proud of the job I did with them
but theyre on there, that’s what matters.
Though sometimes maybe it’s ok to leave some decals off to save yourself
a headache (I need to get some of those special tweezers that give you a better
handle on decals too). Still, those
cannons are a cool feature (even if deploying them might mean taking the arms
out for a moment but considering you have to disassemble fists to insert new
weapons that’s not a big deal.
Conclusion/Rating
Like I said, I’ve always had a soft spot for the F91
Gundam but even this feels like an afterthought Gunpla from the manufacturer. I don’t know how much smaller this one is
compared to most Gundams but I feel like the F91 deserves size and reverence
(maybe there’s a Master Grade that does it better justice). It feels like the kid brother of my
collection right now in shape and size.
It does look good upon completion and it does stand proudly with its
aforementioned brothers. I just wish
this High Grade gave a seriously underrated Gundam more respect. Even the Alex is a more solid build than this
one. Do I hate this F91 Gunpla, hell no,
I love it. It just could be better.
6/10
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