Picture it - Christmas Eve, 2016. I open a gift from my younger brother. It is roughly the same size package as the Master Grade Proto Zero I got from my older brother a few weeks prior. And it comes in the same kind of gift wrap. Could it be … ?
…. ohhhhhhkay, that is definitely not what I expected. Is it conspiracy or coincidence that the Proto Zero’s arch nemesis, the Gundam Epyon, appears before me? I don’t remember either of my brothers being a huge fan of the Epyon (little bro was always a Heavyarms guy through and through). And yet here it is.
After the initial feelings of surprise washed away, I was left with three thoughts.
- Just like with the Proto Zero, regardless of the intent of this gift (or my feelings on this particular mobile suit), it leaves me with warm and fuzzy memories of the past, so for me they’re both winners.
- This is another Katoki Hajime redesign, and once again he works his magic. I used to hate the Epyon. It was my least favorite mobile suit design in all of Gundam Wing. But this? This looks kinda cool.
- Seriously, where am I gonna store these two models?
For those unfamiliar, the Epyon is antagonist counterpart of the Wing Zero, a late-season upgrade for enemy pilot Zechs Merquise/Milliardo Peacecraft that promises to threaten our heroes’ hopes for victory. One of the signature traits of the Epyon is that it has no projectile weapons whatsoever, not even vulcan cannons in its head. It relies entirely on a beam saber and a giant chain whip (I’m also assuming that it is a particularly fast mobile suit, one that can strike before its enemies have time to react). The in-universe explanation for its choice in arsenal is that the suit’s designer considered ranged weapons to be cowardly, which never jived with me. You don’t worry about things like that when war comes around, and it is one of the reasons why I disliked this mobile suit so much as a teenager.
My other problem was with the Epyon’s overall design. If you asked me to picture the Epyon in my head (before receiving this kit), I would imagine something that could best be described as “a pile of spikes”. That’s partly due to it being years since I’ve seen the anime, and partly because that’s what it looked like to me. The Epyon has spikes on its legs, spikes on its skirt armor, and claws on its wrists. It also has big sharp wings that tend to overwhelm and drown out the suit when folded up, making the whole thing look like an amorphous blob (that’s still somehow spiky as well). Additionally, it is one of the few enemy mobile suits that uses a Gundam-style head, and on a unit with such an untraditional color scheme, it always looked to me as a deliberate bastardization intended to mock its foes. All told, I considered the Epyon as kind of dumb, and felt that the show’s attempts to pump it up as such a big threat felt hollow and forced.
Now let’s talk about Katoki’s redesign. Personally, I think he changed more on the Epyon than he did on the Proto Zero, though neither design is a dramatic departure from their original forms. One of the most noticeable changes to the Epyon is the wings. When “at rest”, the wings are angled nearly perpendicular to the body, rather than parallel. This creates a clear separation between the two sections of the unit, and allows you to observe them either separately, or as a whole.
The other major tweak is in regards to the Epyon’s paint job. Its signature maroon still dominates, but Katoki added some strong shades of blue and grey to the torso. This adds a level of color separation that the original version desperately needed. At the very least it helps make each section of the kit stand out more, but in my opinion its effects are even greater. To me, this version of the Epyon actually looks like a traditional Gundam design with an inverted color scheme and a sick set of wings, an “evil Gundam” if you will. I think this was probably the idea all along, but this is the only version of the mobile suit that manages to sell me on it.
PS - I might try and cut down on the number of posts for this build. It takes a lot of work, and I’m starting to question the usefulness of such detailed play-by-play of every single build.