I want to start this post with the photos I was most excited to take. I borrowed the hangar display from the Master Grade Gundam Mk II, popped Unit 04 onto it, and removed some of its armor to create a “maintenance” scene where some of its inner frame is exposed:
I really love that they made so much of the armor easy to remove in order to accommodate this kind of display.
If I could put my rant hat on again really quick, I wish more people saw Master Grades the way I do. I do not see them as merely “Bandai’s default 1⁄100 Gunpla line”, nor do I believe it means “if you can build one of these it means you’re a master” (though at the same time, I also don’t believe it means “only truly master builders need apply”. There’s no need for that kind of gatekeeping).
No, to me, Master Grade means “this is a model that has some great bones, and you can (but doesn’t have to) use those bones as the foundation to make something that looks truly masterful”.
My point is that while this model may not have a full inner frame, the presence of all this surface detail, and the ability to so easily display it, is still very much in the spirit of what the Master Grade line is all about. If you don’t want to paint it all up, so be it, but you can’t complain that it isn’t there simply because you don’t want to put the work in.
(Now for a few more of the same shots, but with the dark backdrop)
In terms of overall detail, I think this thing is a stunner. The more you look at it, the more you realize just how much is going on. Even if it’s toned down from the original M-MSV sketches, Unit 04 is still quite intricate compared to Grandaddy Gundam.
This here was a poor attempt at shooting Luce standing on the ground looking up at his mobile suit:
And here he is stepping in to deploy:
And now it’s time to gear up and deploy:
I didn’t take a ton of action shots of this thing, partly because the articulation isn’t any great shakes, and partly because I think it speaks for itself:
It’s got the detail, it’s got the poise, and I think it just delivers:
Seriously: aside from the fact that it’s a bit blurry, this may be one of my favorite shots all year. Unit 04 just goes hard:
Boost Armor
Let’s wrap things up by equipping the big gun and the Boost Armor:
This was a bigger pain in the ass than I expected. The red wire that connects the gun to its power pack is extra long, so you’ll have to carefully trim it down to a more reasonable size. After that, you’ll have to be careful strapping the Mega Beam Launcher to the shoulder. It’s not a very stable connection, and if you move the right arm even a tiny bit it will likely brush up against it and knock it off.
(I will say that I do like the way the shoulder armor works. There are two blue clamps on the sides of the standard shoudler armor that lock the Boost armor into place. It’s a fun (and secure) mechanism)
Better to just equip the Launcher than have it slung over the shoulder. Except it’s so big (and it’s old style Master Grade hands to poor) that it can’t easily hold onto it. You likely won’t be surprised if I told you I had to enlist the help of my recent friend Sticky Tack to keep it in place.
Fin
That’s it folks. That’s everything I can think of to say and show you about Gundam Unit 04.
This was quite the project, and while it wasn’t easy to grind through it all, in the end I think it was worth it. It’s nice to be able to successfully dig in and find and investigate some real primary sources.
Believe it or not, I don’t necessarily need to know ever single little bit of lore, but at the same time I wasn’t satisfied with just hearing “oh yeah, that’s from an old MSV design series, and it showed up in a game”. Hopefully I’ve convinced you that the story of Unit 04 is a bit more interesting than that (and if not, well, it’s still really interesting to me)
Before we wrap up, I want to note once again that this isn’t going to be the new normal. I’ll likely only do these long form, multi-post projects for particular Master Grades; as nice as this was to put together, it was a lot, and I don’t have the juice to do it all the time.