Gunpla Build - High Grade Xi Gundam

My anniversary was few months ago, and let’s just say Mrs. Wolfe knows how to get to my heart:

And she just so happened to go big. Really big:

Let’s build the Xi Gundam from the Hathaway’s Flash film adaptation. With love of course.

About the Mobile Suit

I actually talked about the Xi Gundam a bit back when I built the Victory Gundam, since they share a key piece of technology. But for the sake of thoroughness, I’m going to reiterate some of that discussion, as well as add some additional insight and commentary.

First, let’s look at what the instruction manual tells us:

The RX-105 Xi Gundam is the Mobile Suit procured by Mafty, an anti-Earth Federation movement, for the attack on the Adelaide conference. It and the RX-104FF Penelope are classified as fifth-generation MS and are said to have been developed and constructed by Anaheim Electronics.

It is a unique MS with a built-in Minovsky Flight Unit and is equipped with the latest Beam Barrier system. Since the Penelope relied on optional units to obtain similar functions, it can be said that the Xi Gundam was a truly completed fifth-generation MS that can function independently.

Furthermore, it is armed with standard equipment such as a Beam Rifle and Shield, as well as Funnel Missiles that made it a unique, heavily armed unit. The large arms were also one of its iconic external features and the forearms also fas unctioned as containers for Triple Missiles.

The Xi Gundam was an MS of an extremely high degree of perfection which fought against the Penelope and the Circe Unit with Hathaway Noa as its pilot.

The Minovksky Flight Unit referenced above is a version of the Minovsky Craft System, a special drive that uses Minovsky Particles to allow a machine to defy gravity and hover within atmosphere, as well as to leave atmosphere without having to launch like a traditional rocket.

It was used at least as early as the One Year War, and could be found on ships like the White Base. And for the longest time it remained exclusive to capital ships and very large mobile armors, if for no other reason than because the drive was too big to fit into a mobile suit.

But just like in real life, this was a technology that shrank in size over time. By the UC100’s, the Drive still wasn’t small enough to fit in a normal sized mobile suit, but they could fit it into a really big one.

And as luck would have it, mobile suits just so happened to have increased in size from the late UC0080’s, through the 0090’s, and into the early 0100’s. The stage was set for the creation of two giant, 26 meter tall, Minovsky Craft-equipped MS - the Penelope Gundam, and the Xi Gundam.

So these two mobile suits were big because that was the style at the time, but also because that was the only way to fit the Minovsky Craft System in there.

A Technical Revelation … Or Was It?

Now I know what you might be thinking - “Everyone acts like the Victory Gundam is a big deal because of its Minovsky Drive, but why? It wasn’t even the first MS to have one!”

Think of it this way - when it comes to technology, being the first to market isn’t always an advantage, and in fact can be a detriment in some cases.

Yes, it is true that the Penelope and the Xi were the first mobile suits to have Minovsky Drives. But it’s also true that both of them were extremely large, heavy, and unwieldy, not to mention that they were almost certainly extremely expensive.

Consider this - the top voted comment on this Reddit thread about the Xi speculates whether Aneheim’s influence waned in the UC 100’s in part because they put themselves into crippling debt building such large, complicated mecha. While I don’t think there is any evidence of this in UC lore, it sounds entirely plausible.

But even if that isn’t true, there is evidence that maybe sticking a Minovsky Drive in a mobile suit was more trouble than it was worth. As far as I know, there is no evidence of any other mobile suit using a Minovsky Drive in the time between when the Xi and Penelope launched in UC 105, and when the Victory Gundam launched in UC 153.

In other words, it looks like the idea was a developmental dead end for several decades. Sure, the Xi was an amazing technical achievement, but it wasn’t the (immediate) future of mobile suit development. Rather, it was more the product of a megacorp that was getting high on its own farts, that wanted to throw its weight around as a show of might (budget and practicality be dammed).

Which brings us back to the Victory Gundam. There are two reasons why it was a big deal.

1. The people who made it figured out how to make the Minovsky Drive significantly smaller. Instead of requiring a 26 meter tall, super chonky mobile suit, they could instead fit in into a 15 meter miniature mobile suit.
2. We know that, with the right factories and equipment, the Victory Gundam could be mass produced.

Not only did its creators make the Drive small enough to be practical, but they also made it cheap. And in the world of tech, that can be more important than making it first.

But I digress. Let’s get back to the Xi.

Different Visual Designs

The Xi Gundam hasn’t shown up in all that much media, but it seems like every time it does, it ends up getting a redesign.

This is both interesting and annoying. Interesting because I like seeing how it’s changed and evolved over the years, and annoying because there is both a lack of solid and information - as well as a lot of _mis_information - out there regarding the history and provenance of some of these designs.

I tried my best to get my facts straight, but it is entirely possible that some of the information in this section is incorrect, in which case I apologize in advance.

When the Hathaway’s Flash novel was published, artist Yasuhiro Moriki came up with the original vision for the Xi:

This, to my eye, looks more like something from Gaia Gear than a traditional UC story. It’s by far the most organic looking of the Xi; I’m not sure if I like it, but I give it props for trying to do something different.

The first redesign of the Xi was allegedly done for its inclusion in an SD Gundam game. I think it was specifically SD Gundam G Generation F released in 2000, but I’m not 100% sure on that.

I guess they needed to know what it looked like as a full size MS so they then knew how to turn it into an SD:

In any case, this redesign looks much less monstrous and much more Gundam-y, for better or for worse.

The next redesign was done by good old Hajime Katoki. Allegedly he made it to serve as a basis for the Xi’s inclusion in the Fix Figuration line of action figures:

Here is Katoki’s lineart:

And here is the action figure:

I’ve seen a lot of people dunk on this design, but I’ve never seen a good explanation why. I don’t think it looks that different from the G Generation version. I do know there are a lot of terminally online Gundam fans with a weird hate boner for Katoki’s artwork, so it’s entirely possible that alone is the main driver.

Finally we have the most recent redesign that was done for the Hathaway’s Flash film adaptation:

According to this news article (which is itself a translation of an interview on the Japanese website Da Vinci News), the film redesign was also done by Katoki, while Seiichi Nakatani was responsible for translating it to the screen. The fact that Katoki was involved is a bit rich when you look at Reddit discussions like this and this, where some people trash Katoki’s Fix Figuration design and praise the movie design without realizing he’s responsible for both.

As far as I can tell, the main changes that Katoki made were to tweak the color scheme, increase the size of some of the limbs, and perhaps most importantly, make the chest look more monstrous, like it does in the original novel design. It’s my favorite version by far, so I guess I’m glad it’s the version they based this model kit on.

About the Visual Design

Here is a (rare) good comment from Reddit: It does a great job of briefly and effectively explaining the “beauty” of the Xi’s design:

It's diseased, sick, cancerous; there is literally a second Gundam head growing out of its chest like a tumor. It menaces with spikes protruding outwards chaotically in all direction; the image of the Gundam itself has become wrong, maligned, in need of healing. This is what the military-industrial complex does to a humanoid form.

While a comment in reply correctly observes:

It perfectly mirrors Xi's pilot and the state of UC 105

You don’t have to find the Xi Gundam pretty, or even appealing, but I do think you at least have to give it props for being such an excellent visual metaphor. The heroic symbol of the franchise has become … this.

Weapons and Stuff

I’ve never done this before, but I’m going to type out the weapon descriptions from the manual. The descriptions capture some interesting nuance that might otherwise be lost:

====Beam Rifle====

The Xi's main armament. It is said that its initial velocity is close to double the specs of previous models, and its power is enough to destroy a Gustav Karl with a single shot. An Energy Pack is attached at the rear end of the weapon

====Beam Saber====

Melee combat armament equipped on the left and right shoulders. Their high output allow them to cut an MS in half. They can also generate beam blades from the bottom of the handles in a similar way to the beam saber used by the RX-93 Nu Gundam

====Shield====

External additional armor equipped on the left arm. It has sufficient defensive capabilities against Mega Particle Cannons and is also equipped with a Beam Cannon on the tip.

====Funnel Missiles====

Psycommu-guided missiles that can change their trajectory and track targets to a certain degree after being launched in environments where Minovsky Particles have been released. Ten missiles are equipped on the back of the rear skirts

(Side note - that Mecha Talk thread I mentioned earlier claims that there are also missile launchers embedded in the knees. I’m wondering if they’re included in this model, and if so, why they aren’t mentioned in the manual. Perhaps it’s because we don’t see them being used in the Hathaway film?)

As you can see, it’s not a super exciting or unique arsenal, but each piece of equipment is either extremely powerful and/or higher quality compared to other contemporary mobile suits.

Appearances in Media

So far only one of the Hathaway’s Flash film adaptations is out, so for now that’s the only canonical animated appearance of the Xi Gundam we have. And even then, it only shows up at the very end of the film for the big final battle.

And even then, due to the way that final battle is animated, everything is very dark and hard to see on some TVs (including my old set that I originally watched the film on).

Thankfully, it looks quite a bit brighter on my current TV, and I was able to get some decent screengrabs of the Xi in action.

While the Xi technically wins this fight, it doesn’t manage to run roughshod over its foes. I’m guessing this is because it’s pilot was trying to minimize damage, which makes me curious about what it might be capable of if were allowed to go wild.

About the Model Kit

This is one of the largest and most expensive High Grade model kits I’ve ever seen. At approximately $70 MSRP, it’s as expensive as a high end Master Grade, with a box that’s just as big.

I’m curious to see whether the increased price and size lead to an increase in quality. Does it have better part separation and color separation than other High Grades? I certainly hope so considering how detailed and intricate this mobile suit is, but I’m not sure either way. I guess we’ll find out soon enough!

Other Thoughts

• Since this is named after the Greek letter Xi, the name of the mobile suit can also be written as “Ξ Gundam”, which looks cool, but might be harder for folks to understand.