WIP
Wow, this kit… is surely something extraordinary.
I never thought I’d end up having a full AUV Susanowo, but here I am, owning the bigger variant, all because she was tanner than her previous counterparts. By all means, this is one busy kit that requires a considerable amount of time to build, but I knew what I was challenging myself with, and my expectations have been met.
This is by far the biggest Megami Device kit I’ve built yet, and she’s by far the biggest Kotobukiya gal in terms of pieces. She’s still behind Yefuna due to the fact that that kit is in a 3-in-1 package, but Susanowo comes in so many layers. You have her base form, her AUV frame form, her AUV form without the backpack, and of course, the whole shabang. Her base form is the same as the Regalias, and as usual, the joints are stupid tight and the seam lines are tough to deal with. The AUV frame gives a nice boost in visuals compared to her base form (it’s mostly because of the longer legs) and the joints don’t need as much sanding, but the real kicker is building her AUV armor because holy shit, there are just soooo many parts. The legs are absolutely insane, it’s piece over a piece over a piece, it’s layers upon layers, and oh, don’t forget the big ass flame parts go on top of them!
With her normal limbs and fully armored limbs done, you’ve already went through a considerable amount of plastic cutting and sanding, but guess what? There’s still a lot more where that came from with her giant sword, and the monstrosity you call her backpack. The sword is simpler than it looks, though then again, it is like 10-15 pieces for a single weapon. The connection system is riddled with joints that are luckily not as tight to fit together, the shoulder armor is layered with pieces, the ring has a bunch of pieces, and exclusive to the Souen/Guren, more flames and flares that connect on the ring.
But once it’s all added up and excruciatingly lined up together, mah god, is she one beauty. All of her faceplates are amazing. Her tan is great. The color scheme is fire, haha. Is she busy looking? Yeah, and I love it, you know I always dig busy. There’s a good balance of busyness throughout her entire silhouette—her legs are as busy as her upper half, and unlike Tamamonomae, the stability of fully armed Susanowo is leagues better. Her shoulder armor isn’t even connected to her shoulders, and if they need to be moved away, they can be moved away with ease. The ring is connected with not one, but two pegs, very nice. And the rock solidness of her core makes more sense as it has to do more heavy lifting than the Regalias, I mean goddammit, her ability to hold her sword is like magic! Sure, the rest of her body is weighed down if pointed away from her body, but her arms keep it the fuck up. That piece that connects the sword to her forearm hole really does wonders to keep the sword rock solid. I can’t express enough how strong and stable Susanowo holds up, though yes, I do have an Action Base 7 to hold her up, which also holds her up superbly. God bless the AB7.
It’s not to say Guren comes with faults, because she definitely has a few. Like I said, her base limbs have stupid tight joints and horrid seam lines. Those pigtails fall off all the time, and I’m not sure if they’re as annoying as Suanowo Regalia’s huge twintails… The flames for the back of her feet are annoyingly excessive. They’re large, and get in the way so much that there’s a good chance I might not use them at all once I finish her up. Her AUV chestpiece is easy to come off when I try to remove her from the stand, and I’m so close to just gluing them up if not for the fact that I still have to swap them out for final pics of her base form. Hell, I wanna try her alternate chestpiece on her AUV form. And my god, the flame hands are nothing what I expected them to be. I thought they’d be good alternatives to her PVC hands, but god, they’re made up of several pieces, and those pieces fall off a lot. The holding hands can’t even hold her swords for shit. I’m not even gonna bother with them anymore. Finally, and this is just a me problem, there’s so many clear parts I’m gonna have to disassemble in order to topcoat the rest of the kit.
But that’s been my building experience with Susan Guren—and she was more fun than I expected. Granted, I don’t think I’ll be attempting to pose her with her Insane or Brutal modes, but she already looks great as she is, why even bother? I don’t know if you noticed already, but I did get all of that gold painted up already, which I airbrushed with Alclad Pale Gold. I’ll be detailing her up with hand paint, but I don’t think I’ll go crazy considering how crazy she looks already. I’ll be panel lining, facing my mortal enemy known as Kotobukiya waterslides, and I’ll finish ‘er up with a flat topcoat. I’ll see you again soon with a complete Susan!
Completed
I absolutely admire Susanowo Guren—throughout the whole way, she has just been pleasant to work with and has easily been one of my favorite kits of the year so far. Without a doubt, she is my favorite Megami Device kit, though that’s not really a high bar to cross considering my unstellar experiences with the Regalias and Tamamonomae, while being visual candy, she suffers from being based off an older kit that has to shoulder a lot of weight that it wasn’t designed to hold. I’ve only had Tama for six months on my shelf, but damn, has her joints weakened a lot that I’m not sure if some of the main ones cracked or not and it makes me scared to move her around.
But let’s talk about the star of the show—Susanowo is just fucking awesome. There’s so much going on throughout her entire kit, but my time detailing her up to get her finished has been a surprisingly enjoyable experience. There was a lot of disassembling to remove her clear pieces as I was going to flat topcoat her, but—if you could tell—there was not much additional hand painting I did, and that’s mostly because there’s not much to do anyway. I only used two colors—Vallejo Steel and Tamiya Metallic Gray, which I just sprinkled at the few areas I thought could use them, mainly her weapon, and basically all the surface detail on the gray parts. I used the Metallic Gray quite a bit on her inner AUV frame, but that’s mostly it. For once, I think I did more panel lining than painting, and there’s not even that much to panel line anyway compared to other kits.
The big hurdle I was challenged with was… using Kotobukiya decals. Up until now, 3rd party decals for Guren do not exist, so my only option was to use the ones that came in the box. I’ve said it in the past, I do not like Koto decals, they may not be as bad as Bandai’s, but using them with the Regalias was a pain in the ass, and there’s only like 5 of them in both kits. I sucked it up and to my 60th surprise with this kit, the decals were serviceable! A lot of them are applied onto flat surfaces, but they’re still iffy when trying to adjust them and dry the decal in place. I did curse a few times whenever a decal moved when I didn’t want it to move, but I got them in the right places, and I’m so happy to report that with the finished product, not a single decal was broken, which is indeed one hell of a miracle.
It was only a matter of topcoat, which this afternoon the humidity happened to be low, so I used up the last of my previous can and then a fresh can of topcoat, so I gave her a coat or two more than usual. Once she was dry, it was only a matter of reassembling all the clear pieces and getting her posed up.
Susanowo was fun to pose OOB, and she’s still fun to pose now, a first for an MD kit. I basically reiterated the poses I did before, with a few new ones here and there. While posing her up, I was thinking—Koto makes the best base forms out of any Girlpla manufacturers and I hate how they still do not come with dual bodies. Her AUV form without her backpack is still visually stunning, but her full form really takes the cake. It’s full of detail, and I know some say she may be too busy, but in my opinion, I think it’s just right. Granted, I never transformed her into her Insane or Brutal modes, but I was never going to in the first place. But damn, I really gotta applaud the solidity of Susan. Her joints are tight like a bitch, but it’s justified for how big and busy she is. With an Action Base 7, she can pull all sort of poses and look good without too much effort, and I can’t believe the arm strength that lets her hold her giant sword without problems. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I actually broke the handle because I applied too much force getting the handle into the hand, but it worked in my favor. The sword had to be angled in accordance to the hand (I used the static holding hands out of laziness), but with her handle broken, the sword could be angled in accordance to the piece that holds the sword from the arm, and that piece is so strong it the hand holding the handle is not even necessary in the first place.
Goddamn, as I finish writing this up, this may not just be my favorite MD kit, but it probably has got to be my favorite Koto kit overall. I’m so enamored by Susanowo, I got her for her looks, and the kit holds up along with them. I’m so happy I got her as cheap as she was, and I’m so happy at her finished state. I’ve finally become a Susanowo believer. Oh, and let me not forget to mention the obvious—she is drop dead gorgeous and unbelievably hot, it’s really what ties it all together.
Anyway, that’s that—with my largely positive experience with Susan, I’m immediately going into my next Girlpla in my backlog—the Buster Doll Tank, in which I have big plans to customize her color scheme. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back soon!
