Say hello to my final build of the year!
I’m not sure if it’s the kit not living up to its high expectations, plamo fatigue, or just being randomly depressed lately, but I didn’t like this kit as I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong—this is one of the best kits Bandai has released this year filled with insane engineering and gimmicks never seen before in a Wing Zero, I’m just kinda lukewarm about it even though it looks really good and can pull a lot of amazing poses. Unlike the Wing Zero EW, this is only my second Wing Zero TV ver. following the MG Proto Zero, and by all means the RG blows the MG out of the water. I think I faced so many minor inconveniences with this kit that I’m just not feeling the hype for it.
First of all, despite its complexity, this kit was kinda easy to build. The legs at first make absolutely no sense but you eventually get a sense of shape, the waist is untraditional as the hips float for added articulation, the shoulders sure are something as well, but the rest of the main body is dead simple. The wings are the highlight of the build being dense as fuck with its giant thruster unit featuring a very cool gimmick where the thruster guards expand through rotation, and the wings themselves have a lot of pieces and a lot of detail both in and out. While there’s a lot going on in the build, it is a very seamless one—it’s not super tricky to connect the pieces, everything fits just right and tiny pieces are minimal. There are too many undergates though. Now everything I just said are all great aspects, it just doesn’t feel new, say like the RG RX-78-2 2.0 making no sense for 90% of the build, the Epyon’s absurdly complicated torso and forearms, and the intricacies of the MGSD line. The RG Wing Zero isn’t basic by any means, but relative to Bandai’s other releases, it’s not really game changing either.
As I do for all my RG kits, no hand painting was done and I went straight for panel lining, which I thought there wasn’t gonna be much but there still ended up being a lot anyway. It took me a couple of days to do, but afterwards I used the sticker decals because I’m a sucker for how easy they are to apply and it took me a single sitting to apply all of them according to the manual. If I had to be nitpicky, there a lot of decals, but they’re kinda… too subtle for an RG? I know recent RGs have been straying away from race car levels of decaling, but the Wing Zero surprisingly lacks the line’s usual pinstriped decals that would be on the edge of every single goddamn corner. I still like what Bandai provides, but again, I just wish there were more that made the kit pop out a little more. Finally, I gave the kit a nice matte topcoat which I had no issues with, assembled everything together, and it was time to pose!
Now, maybe I should’ve been a better mood when I was posing this, but by far my biggest complaint about this kit is that it is a fucking bitch to pose. This kit has too much articulation, especially with the hips and the wings, oh my fucking god it is a nightmare to get everything symmetrical with the wings. There’s so many ways you can move the whole unit itself, and spreading the wings is a finnicky mess, largely due to the shaved ball joint that can and will go loose on you, making sure you never get the wings align as you want them to. Some joints are tight, some joints are loose, and oh my god this kit’s even too heavy for an Action Base 7 to hold at times. You can pose however you like with the Wing Zero, just be ready for the fact that if you breathe on the kit too hard, something will move when you didn’t want it to. I was so annoyed with the wings, I forgot to extend the twin buster rifles for the entire photoshoot, and I am NOT gonna even try redoing the poses just I got the poses accurate. Posing this kit was so much more of a bitch than should’ve been.
Finally, as for the transformation, it’s probably the best and most complex Neo Bird form out there. The legs are compacted much more than any other Wing Zero as the feet are tucked into the legs, and feels nice and robust compared to the Proto Zero, which I have that transformed on display. While having the RG Wing Zero would be nice in Neo Bird form, that would leave two Wing Zero TV versions both displayed in its transformed state, which only looks good from the top.
Overall, this was certainly a kit to end my 2025 Plamo Year. As a (expected) Christmas gift my papa, I had super high expectations for this kit, only to be left with… mixed feelings. Everyone’s calling this the kit of the year or even the best RG, but I don’t agree with either sentiment, and it doesn’t help I don’t really have any nostalgia bias towards it because I never experienced the 90’s, and sorry if that makes you feel old. Well, thanks for reading, and have a Happy New Year!
