Model Kit Quick-Review: HG Gundam Astaroth

Welcome back to another quick-review of a new member to my collection, HG Gundam Astaroth. The kit has been released since few month ago with only ¥1000 in price or around Rp140,000 or even lower if you get a good bargain. I might be late to join the Iron Blooded Orphans hype-train but yet, but never late than never. Let’s get on with the review.

The kit comes with a rather small yet average HG box. 

It has a nice box-art showing the Astaroth in action with some secret bits on the background; you could find several weapons used in the anime if you look closely enough. The Kanji of the series looks sharp and it seems to fill well with the fresh yet bold theme of the anime.

Inside you will find some plastic runners and the manual. Nothing to special and the runners even come in less numbers for your typical HG—as it is only a ¥1000 kit.

This is my first time in actually building the infamous Iron Blooded Orphan HG inner frame and I have to say that it is quite interesting both to see and to build. The frame, obviously, looks less intricate compared to a Master Grade but the satisfactory feeling that I got when assembling the outer armor is not that different with when I was a building a Master Grade. I might say it is a bit too much but this new feature of the IBO line up is indeed a definite selling point for us fans. The frame may look a bit weird when presented solely but it is just amazing to know how technology have brought us such nearly complete building experience with such a low cost budget.

The finished look, along with some minor customs and sloppy detailing that I made, appears to be better than I was imagined. I admit, I was quite hesitant in deciding to buy the kit at first but now…no regrets were made. The asymmetry looks cool while keeping the balance of the overall proportion. The legs may be a bit bland due to the too much white color so it would be better to add more flare to them.

In terms of Astaroth’s size, the kit won’t tower much other high grades; especially my Lightning Zeta. The one with similar high would be your other 18 m HG kits like my Gouf R35. Let’s just say that the kit is not really there for its size.

The kit allows you to customize its assembly in a sense that you can switch the arms however you see fit. You do even able to make a non-asymmetric Astaroth by buying two of the kits and use the available parts two make it having two blue bulky arms or two slender white arms.

Articulations

The head could go up, down and side to side without any significant difficulties.

The shoulder is not designed to be moved forward or back but upward movements are great due to the cut on the top side of each connections. The shoulder armors are attached separately thus the arms can be stretched without any issue. The elbow can only be bent at one point of articulation yet the seemingly limited range does not really hinder the posing due to the nice shoulder and arm connections.

The torso of this kit is quite excellent. The body can be swiveled to the side easily while there are some upward and downward crunches for some extra movability.

The skirts are nicely articulated as well. The front and the side skirts can be moved easily yet the size of the side ones may cause some trouble in posing.

The legs are following the same pattern as we can easily do the split with the kit. The forward kick was nice and the HG seems to be having a nice balance as well. The knee bend at two points but due to its size, range is quite limited. Each of the feet are attached via hinges and the ankles are as flexible as the one installed in the old 00 Gundam kit. No problem at all in posing them in such ridiculous positions.

There are three weapons in total which are included in this kit.

The main one is the Demolition Knife. The blade can be transformed into its storage mode and an extra adaptor is given to attach it to the backpack. No harm done. Weight doesn’t seem to be an issue either but some fiddling will be needed if you want to get some more variation in posing.

The next one is the machine gun. The color may become bland so extra detailing is encouraged. Nothing too special about the gun but the kit can hold it fine.

The last one is the knife. The weapon is obviously simple and some detailing and color variation is also encouraged to add more flare. The kit can hold this one fine as well.

As an addition to the weapons, you will also be getting the extra “hand” on the kit left arm. Each fingers on the extra armaments can be moved while the “shield” can also be adjusted for some variation. The hand, strangely enough, doesn’t seem able to hold anything besides giving the kit, literally, an extra hand.

Conclusions

I will be giving the kit a solid 8. Before we go to the positive, let’s point out the negatives first. 

The plastics feel a bit cheap in a way that it can get damaged easily when I try to sand or cut the nubmarks from the parts. It might be caused by the cheap pricing but I don’t know for sure. There are some big stickers for the kit, especially on its feet and one of it legs. You could paint them if you want but it could be a bit tricky for beginners.

In terms of the positive, the cheap price could easily be a selling point as it will attract not only us enthusiasts but for beginners or newcomers who are looking to start building gunpla. The parts and the frame are also a big part for that regard as the concept is indeed fresh for those who have been building gunplas and interesting enough for those newcomers as well. The design is less problematic compared to Zeonic-based mobile suit or perhaps villain-piloted ones as the gundam aesthetic could easily become another selling point, in addition to the stylistic asymmetry that the Astaroth does have. Same thing goes for its armaments. Who doesn’t love a big-ass sword that can fold and look awesome at the same time. The articulation is quite good for what it is as most of the hindrances are caused solely by the design. I haven’t tried it myself yet but you are able to combine the parts with other gundam-frame mobile suit in the IBO lineup as well. That’s adding a lot to the kit’s play point.

That’s it for the review. Spoilers: I have another “Astaroth” in store for me to build, customize and review. See you then!