I remember when MGSDs were first announced, I was kinda bummed about it as it would be another case of Bandai doing anything but making MGs, giving SDs an MG treatment better than MGs themselves—having silver plated parts, two-tone colors and being denser in detail due to its compact size. I remember when the MGSD Aerial got announced, people were bewildered about how it would get an MGSD before an actual MG, but, I was impressed by it. It does have an actual inner frame unlike the Full Mechanics, it comes with both Permet Score 5 and 6 colors which the kit is engineered to swap easily, it has an opening cockpit and the Escutcheon shield can fully transform without a base piece. Along with its short yet stout appearance, I was sold on this MGSD, and I luckily found it at my local hobby shop. $52 is a steep price for it, but, everything’s fucking expensive these days and I don’t know if it’ll get any better.
I basically started it as soon as I got home, and this is my first MGSD, the MG part of the name definitely lives up to how its built and engineered. There’s basically a full inner frame and packs molded detail on the frame and inside the armor pieces that some MGs don’t even do anymore. The articulation and joint separation is absolutely wild for such small proportions, and for pretty much every joint there is some locking mechanism so it doesn’t pop off while posing. While it’s great for moving around, it’s kinda a pain in the butt to remember when disassembling things. Hell, I had a joint snap on me because it was virtually impossible to take off due to how it was locked in place, and I had to remove it because I put it in the wrong orientation. Luckily, that and the eyes sometimes popping off for no reason were my only problems, it is just a lengthier build than what would you expect, which I can only imagine how long it takes to build the Freedom or Wing Zero Custom with their huge ass wings.
Building was one thing, but panel lining was a whole ‘nother story. Out of laziness or something, I was going to treat this like how I do with my Real Grades—just panel line and decal them, not doing any hand paint whatsoever. This kit had soooo much more panel lining than I expected, I think there was more to do than some RGs out there. I used a new Micron pen for this, I probably should’ve used a Copic pen because the Micron pen degraded FAST. I had to take breaks as I was having neck pain just doing so much lining in one sitting. I eventually got everything done after a few hours.
Just when I think the decals will be a breeze since I’m using the sticker ones that come included, again, I underestimated how much there was to apply. Basing off the decal numbers from each manual, the MGSD has more decals than the Full Mechanics does, and this is for a considerably shorter kit. The amount of insane detail Aerial already had got lambasted with more, though I did mess up with one of them as a sticker accidentally stuck onto my table cloth, it was really hard to get the cloth out of the decal, and the sheet only provided the exact amount required :/ Despite the blemish, Aerial was looking real purty, which was time to do the cherry on top called the flat topcoat, which I did a bit of masking to protect the clear colors and the little silver details, and she was ready to pose!
Although short and stubby, Aerial can really pose with the amount of engineering that’s been put for the articulation. The head has 3 points of articulation, the shoulders has a wide range of movement, the hips can do all sorts of things, and the legs has some really nice bends. The arms are like the Full Mechanics where the forearm can rotate as well as having another swivel for the two elbow bend, but the forearm rotation joint is quite stiff, causing me to just rotate the whole arm instead. Due to how the waist needs to be inserted, I of course did it wrong and tried to insert it like how I normally would, which has made that point of articulation weak. It’s fine when it’s fully inserted in, but trying to do ab crunches basically make the torso loosey goosey. Overall, there’s a lot you can do for such a small kit, and again, having Escutcheon by fully transformable and both Permet Score colors are just flipping great.
All in all, I believe in the MGSD hype and seeing the kit slowly being developed, my dad has also been sold into it so much, he really wants (me to get) the MGSD Freedom, which I was considering putting on my HG METEOR unit we haven’t done yet. Are the MGSDs pricey? Yeah, I’ll admit so, but they pack so much in such a little package. The proportions are something you have to vibe with though. That being said, I’m finally getting to the bottom of my backlog, kits I bought back in 2023 that I still haven’t touched. First is this simple HG, but for the first time, I’m planning to fully paint it in a totally different color scheme. See you next time!
