After 4 hours of building here are the completed pictures of my snap-build of the Masurao by TT Hongli. This is going to be a picture heavy post but I will be writing some of my thoughts about the kit.
Here's a view of the entire kit. It kit only comes with two beam katanas, which I must say are very impressive. I wish there were more accessories, but it only really had these two in the series.
The Masurao is a very thin mobile suit, and is a nice departure from the usual design of mobile suits in the Gundam universe. Do not let its flimsy appearance fool you, this is kit is equipped with its own version of the Trans-Am system and is able to hold its own versus the 00.
Staying true to the samurai theme of the suit, the hands of the Masurao are definite my favorite from any of the kits I own so far. While they're not Real Grade quality, they are still quite detailed - and you get 5 of them! I probably should have taken pictures of those.
The design of the backpack is also quite nice. If you take a closer look you may notice that the black part resembles a kunai/throwing dagger.
I originally thought I could get a lot of upper-body articulation from this guy with it being so thin, it's better than most High Grades but not by much. The kit also relies on a lot of pegs to connect the different limbs which loosened pretty quickly on mine. Then again this is a knockoff so I'm not sure about the original (hmm..).
The main body of the kit also has some articulation. The chest piece goes down to reveal a bit of the inner 'frame'; the shoulders are also on pegs attached to a ball joint allowing some circular movement. In the second photo above, I moved the chest down and shoulders out and I think it gives it a tougher look. I like to imagine its a super mode like the God Gundam's.
The Masurao's side-skirts are unlike anything I've seen before in the Gundam series as they are quite prominent. I initially thought they were the GN boosters but from the videos the suit only has one mounted on the back. It does do a good job in offsetting the flimsiness of the unit's lower body by providing additional overall mass.
The side-skirts are able to move from the back and to the front of the kit until it hits the front 'Y skirt'; you could probably get it all the way to the front if you removed it. I haven't tried to do it on mine as they do come off rather easily (simple peg connection to the leg). As you can see in the second photo, the skirts do move independently and can rotate until you bump into something.
Some (weird) poses. The legs are connected to the hip via a ball joint. The first picture demonstrates the split you can achieve before one of the legs pops off.
The second picture looks a little goofy, but it does show that you can achieve a very good front split with this kit; mainly due to the fact that it has no front or back skirt to get in the way.
The legs of the kit bend at the knees at roughly 90 degrees. You can get a lot more movement at this joint, but the additional leg armor gets in the way.
The foot is very weird, but in a good way; again, very unique to the Masurao and the 00 units. At first I doubted if it would be able to hold up the kit, but it does so quite well. You can move the 'heel' (pictured) down for additional support. As the kit has no foot guard to speak of it does have good articulation.
As we've gone over the upper and lower body of the kit, the pictures above highlight the most annoying parts of each:
For the lower body, the legs do tend to pop off too easily which could limit the poses you can achieve on this guy. As I mentioned in the preview post, the kit does come with its own stand which can help with that.
For the upper body, the connection at the upper and lower limbs is quite flimsy and do come off when you bend the arm at the elbow. I would never use super-glue in any of my kits but I may have to do it for this one. :(
Almost forgot about the head unit, which I am totally digging. I think it's pretty much the unit's head that establishes the samurai theme. If take a look at the close-up of the head unit, you can see the mono-eye, which I believe was taken from the Union Flag. You do end up covering it with a red visor, but having that small detail is definitely a plus.
The head moves forwards and back; side to side a little. It cannot do a full 360, but can turn left and right fully. The horns of the kit also move forwards and back, just be careful as plastic feels like it's going to snap on mine.
I think I've pretty much covered the basics of your typical gunpla review - look, design, articulation, accessories, and any highlights - the only missing now is the answer to the question: do I recommend this kit?
Short answer - yes; long answer - still a yes, but allow be to explain in part 2. This build/review has ended up a lot longer than I had originally intended so for now, I'll be closing this entry with a few more pictures of the built kit.
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