March 26, 2002 CURRENT RUMBLE andai's Gundam F91 is an interesting specimen. Toted as a model/toy hybrid, it is very much a toy. When was the last time you received gunpla encased in a stryofoam cocoon? The arms, legs, head and main fuselage all come pre-assembled and sleep in styrofoam next to a large box of parts on sprues. The only obvious 'model' characteristic is the fact that you have to break out the sprue cutters or x-acto knife and build about half of the beast yourself. What is more interesting to me is the nature of the piece itself. It represents a catharsis from the mecha toys of the 80's to modern toy design. It has some of the old 80's mecha funk with a dabble of more modern engineering techniques. It is constructed almost entirely out of ABS plastic. Screws secure all the major functional joints and the bulk of robot. All of the ancillary parts are of the 'snap-on' variety. This is actually quite a fine piece, nice, heavy ABS construction, lots of cool gimmicks and a decent sculpt all pull together to make this a very playable 'Master Grade' toy. The good points of this toy are quite numerous. Post construction, the piece is very solid and has a nice feel to it. My only complaint here is that they could have added a touch of diecast to assist in posing balance. The F91 also brandishes the famed HCM style finger articulation, not nearly as cool as the Perfect Grade Gundam fingers, but much nicer than the square hole in the sculpted fist approach. I opted to leave the stickers off, but there is a large sheet rich with all the customary Gundam markings. The legs have a spring-loaded gimmick similar to the Turn A Gundam. Push down on the ankle and the heat sink plates on the back of the calf pop open. The panels on the shoulder retract, and the cockpit hatch slides down with an utterly non-spectacular view of the fuselage. Now for the goodies, the accessories: F91 sports the standard Gundam arsenal…Hyper Bazooka, beam rifle, shield and two beam sabers. The saber hilts can be stored in a rotating panel of the left hip armor. The right hip armor stores the shield generator. The only real problems with the toy are few, and for the most part, inconsequential. First ,the elbows. While there is the standard hinge type articulation here, for some reason they only bend about 30 degrees or so. I can't really figure this out, and I just wasn't up for taking the pre-assembled arms apart to discover why. Second those bastard 'retractable' plates on the shoulders are square plastic pegs in a curved plastic track. This makes for a most stubborn chore when you want to push them in (and you really hace to to fit the shield on properly). All in all, this is a kick-ass toy. If you aren't too put off by the idea of having to build about half of it yourself, it is one of the nicer large format Gundam toys around. Detail superior to most of the DX Gundams and quality superior to a MG kit. Price point is nice, ¥6000 to add this eleven inch chunk of goodness to your mecha collection.  RUMBLE INDEX  |  CURRENT RUMBLE