Gundam Ex Impulse
Series: Master Grade (1/100) Brand: Bandai Model #: N/A
Finished: December 11, 2024
![[ex-impulse.jpg]]
Built, painted and decaled by my dad. Decaled by me.
I remember seeing this kit announced for the first time and thought, damn, that is one sexy looking kit. With the limited time I actually handled with the kit, the good looks are basically the only positive thing I can say about it.Â
MGs from the late 2000s have surprisingly not aged well. The few MGs I have dealt with this year were the Sengoku Astray, which was my sister’s kit that I posed, the Shin Musha, which I built and my dad painted, but I just never posted a review, and this kit, which I applied the decals and did negligible posing. Unless I’ve just hit a streak of multiple mediocre kits in a row, these 3 MGs were very meh to deal with, all suffering the same problem that you can really feel the fact that they are held by polycaps and the engineering is… getting old. Though, I was at least able to get a few poses out of the Sengoku and Shin Musha, but the Ex-Impulse? I don’t know if the Ex-Impulse just had tight tolerances out of the box or if my dad just painted too much, but damn, the joints are so goddamn stiff my dad basically had to use oil to loosen some of them up. Moving this kit is a pain in the ass.
To make my little experience even more sour, my dad wanted me to apply the decals as he was busy doing a bunch of other things. I loathe Bandai water slides, and using them for this kit was no exception. I swear, they are like cursed—they take way too long to slide out of the sheet, and they want to stick anywhere but the fucking plastic. It doesn’t matter how much Mark Setter I put, because it won’t stick to the plastic, but will gladly peel off and get stuck in the q-tip or your fingertips instead.Â
It’s already frustrating trying to apply them for the first time, but it doesn’t end there—since the kit is so hard to move around, I’m applying a good amount of pressure on the plastic, which, you guessed it, the damn decal decides to fall off and there’s a good chance it’ll disappear into thin air. By doing the mere 3 poses I did for the Ex-Impulse, at least a third of the decals have peeled off and disappeared. Holy shit, fuck Bandai water slides, it really makes the extra cost of getting 3rd party decals worth it. I don’t know why they suck like absolute ass, but if I never had to deal with them, I think my perception of the world would be a little brighter.
Anyway, this kit was all style, no substance. It looks very good, but that’s how good it gets. It’s probably still better than Kampfer Schwer, which doesn’t update anything from the original Kampfer and its problems. That’s about it, thanks for reading, even if it was just a big ol’ rant, and I’ll see you next time.
Ranking: ={yellow}B=