MSA-003 NEMO

HG GUNDAM HGUC

And now for something completely different. Previous reviews on the site have been based on finished action figures, purchased by me, fully assembled elsewhere, in processes unknown to me. Not today. No, today, I’ll be taking a look at a figure I built all by myself. Well, not all by myself. There were instructions, and the basic parts were supplied for me. But, I did most of the heavy lifting this time.

Today’s figure comes from Bandai’s line of Gundam model kits. They’re based on designs from the various Gundam anime and manga, and are made up a large assortment of pieces that can be snapped together to form a fully functioning action figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The figure I’m looking at is the MSA-003 Nemo, which is apparently a “massed-produced mobile fighting suit.” From what I can tell, it’s an army builder. Anyway, Nemo is figure #150 in Bandai’s HG GUNDAM HGUC model line (I think I got all that right, but it’s a bit difficult to tell with most of the info on the box being in Japanese.) The figure is in 1/144 scale, which means he stands about 5 inches tall. He also features 35 points of articulation, which is certainly impressive for a model. From what I’ve been able to find online, the sculpt looks pretty faithful to the Nemo design, which is a good thing. It’s a nice and clean sculpt, with some pretty great details worked in. Above all, all of the pieces fit together pretty much perfectly, which is the most important part of the kit. The figure features no actual paint work, though it makes use of parts molded in five different colors in order to give the figure the proper color scheme. What can’t be feasibly handled with a solid molded piece is handled via decal. The decals go on without too much trouble (though I did have to put out the tweezers), and stay in place very well. Perhaps my favorite part of the figure is the combination of a silver decal and a piece of translucent orange plastic in order to create Nemo’s visor. It really gives it a great amount of dimension. Amazingly for a model kit, Nemo also includes five interchangeable hands, two beam swords, a machine gun, and a shield. All of these pieces can be used to great effect and offer a lot of variety in display choices.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked up Nemo from a local hobby store while on a trip there with my Dad. I’ve never been much of a Gundam fan, but I saw Nemo amongst the assortment of kits they had and he just called to me. I liked the color scheme, and I’m a sucker for a cool robot design. I had heard of the Gundam kits, but I didn’t actually have any experience with them. I figured I’d give this one a shot, and I’m glad I did. Putting this figure together was quite a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed getting the insights on how such a figure is assembled. And, at the end of it all, I get an awesome robot dude that’s fully poseable! How cool is that?