Gundam Model Kits

No internal details here at all except for the chair in the cockpit if that counts. The chair is molded with more detail than older kits which is also a nice touch... but the chair is hardly visible after the body is assembled. Shoulder joints are polycapped ball joints and so is the waist joint. Pretty simple except for a little gimmick for the cockpit hatch. Although looking at the pictures online and in the magazines you may think that the cockpit mechanism is just a hatch rotating on one axis, the two gold pieces on the left and right actually overlap the hatch slightly and slide to the sides when the cockpit opens.
Backpack has removable cover to reveal the engine details inside but the thruster assemblies are not poseable at all. The backpack literally hooks onto the back of the upper body and the joints have some polycaps to hold them with some security. 2 wing units attach to the sides of the backpac via polycapped ball-joints. There are also areas to mount the bazooka and the beam-rifle too.
Lower torso ends up with 5 pieces of poseable armor: left-front, right front, left side, right side and the back is one piece on a rotating joint. This allows for quite a range of hip motion. On the rear panel has opening 'clasps' for holding the beam-sabers.

Arm units don't have any internal details unless you want to consider the *very* minor upper arm stuff that is revealed when you remove the armor - I wouldn't consider that an internal skeleton though. Double jointed elbows allow for a good range of movement. The shoulder armor is more complicated than most gundams too - primarily because there is an additional piece that hangs on the outer side of the armor... it also tries to mold everything in color.
The hands are interesting. They aren't the typical MG hands you've come to expect. What you get is 2 sets of hands for each arm. The palm and thumb are molded in one piece and the 4 fingers are molded in another. The 2 pieces are joined with a pivot point to allow the 4 fingers to open and close to insert/remove weapons. However, the whole assembly slides into a gold piece which acts like an outer sleeve - it is designed to remove almost all of the movement in the hand so any weapons being held should stay put. This 'sleeve' assemble makes the Shiki's hands *huge*...

Knees are double jointed with quite good range of motion. Upper legs (thigh area) consist of 2 gold pieces... that's it! Don't expect any internal structures there.
The lower leg features some internal details with 5 pieces of removable armor - all polycapped on... but I suspect this was included because part of the Shiki's design leaves the leg exposed - I wouldn't be surprised if there were no internal details here if this had not been the case.
One of the gimmicks is in the legs - this is a working piston in the lower leg. Nice touch... the piston is thicker than any I have found in the MGs I have built so far, but there is not a huge range of motion though.
Feet themselves are also very simple - no fore-foot/rear-foot individual movement, just a ball-joint where the lower leg section attaches.
Some curious modellers have asked whether the Shiki can pose... well, it took a little effort, but the Shiki can do a decent crouch.

Nothing really outstanding here. The bazooka is a 2-piece affair which means lotsa sanding to remove all the seamlines. The rifle is generally also a 2-piece design (left and right halves) although there is a small rotating catch that flips out to allow it to be hooked onto the backpack. A nice touch is that both weapons feature removable magazines. The one for the bazooka is nice with even molded details of the shells inside.

The Shiki was definitely a pleasant build - like most new MG kits (Sazabi excluded), parts fit and finish is excellent and the plastic is of high quality *and* what is gold-plated is generally molded in nice colours.
With that said, you probably don't want to go through the trouble of painting these non-plated parts. I did... but like I mentioned before... the gold draws attention away from everything else - so the painted parts really don't add much to the look of the figure. hmm... should I remove the gold?
Plating is always a controversial topic. Although the Shiki has only minor seam problems (which is a big problem on most other plated kits), plating still doesn't suit everyone's tastes... As for me? I'm still undecided.
Closing thoughts? Nice kit, but it could have been much better. It's a little too simple in design for it's price... get it if you can get a good price, but S$84 is definitely too much to pay for it in my opinion. :)

Contributor: GUNDAM_BASE

General and Technical Data

Series: Master Grade (MG) 1/100 Release Date: 03/2001

Price: ¥ 4500