| HG00 1/144 SVMS-01 Union Flag (no picture available)
Series: High Grade 00 (HG00) 1/144 Title: SVMS-01 Union Flag Release Date: 10/2007 Suggested Price: ¥ 1000 No. of Parts: 88 Plastic colors: black, dark gray, gray-blue, white, transparent orange Gimmicks: transforms into mobile armor mode
Contributor: Mwulf Date: September 29, 2009 Say what you will about Gundam 00, whether we love it or hate it all of us can admit that the mecha designs are a breath of fresh air for the Gundam franchise. Chief among these designs are the Union Flag and Tieren. Both are fantastic designs; honestly, I haven't been so enthralled with a mobile suit design since Victory. The Union Flag is small, even for a 1/144 model, but it is amazing regardless. The Union Flag manages to claim a level of poseability and flexibility that most master-grade models fail to reach. It's an astounding model and definitely a must-have for anyone interested in gunpla.
I was impressed by the Flag's head. It's very simple, yet very sturdy. First you have the lower part, with a flat plate in the center to attach a silver foil sticker. In front of the silver sticker goes the clear orange-plastic visor (with a properly-molded mono-eye at the top) and on top of that goes the "cap" of the head. There are two asymmetrical "ears" on the Flag's head. Rather than simply peg into the sides of the skull, they have pegs on the side AND they wedge down into the wide "chin" at the bottom of the head. Once they're in place, they're virtually immovable. The head itself cannot move very much, but I do not think it was ever meant to.
The Flag's torso is fairly odd. Essentially, there's the cockpit sphere at the bottom (with the 20mm machine gun, as my instruction manual, uh, instructed me) a pointy chest, and very wide saggy breasts. A single pillar runs laterally through the torso, sticking out of either ends. The shoulder armor is snapped on top of the pillar, and the arms are popped on to either side. The main wings are on the back and each one can move independently of the other (all four wings can also move from an active to an inactive configuration--swept forward or back). There are also two triangular black pieces that fit into the base of the neck, though they are fairly loose. If you're not careful, you might lose one.
The Flag's arms are pretty simple, and fairly self-evident. What you see is what you get. They're not quite as flexible as the legs, but still allow you to move them a lot more than in most high grade kits. Sadly, the Flag only comes with a single set of hands, and they're huge. They grip the weapons well, but they're still huge. The only particularly interesting thing to note on the arms is that the hands attach to a ball joint snugly, but are open enough that the wrist can rotate in and out nearly 100 degrees! It's pretty cool. It's also worth noting that the shoulder armor (dare I say pauldrons?) are not, in fact, part of the arms but are rather attached to the Union Flag's upper torso.
The Flag's legs are rather interesting, and not only because they manage to capture a good amount of detail with a small number of parts. The waist/pelvis part of the flag can rotate to accommodate the transformation. Two large spokes extend from either side of the groin area, but rather than attach the legs directly to these spokes (as is done in nearly every model I've ever built) there are two different sets of rotating caps that go on each spoke. The outer two are used to hold the lower wings in place, and the inner two thrust forward to attach to the thighs. The rest of the leg is pretty straightforward. The knee and ankle joints allow you to move a great deal forward or backward, but allow for very little movement from side to side. Luckily, that hardly matters since the pelvic joints I described earlier allow you to pose the legs however you wish--literally. The Union Flag's legs are far more flexible than most human legs--and heads above better than a majority of the master grade models out there. The only problem with the legs is that because they are so long and slender, the slightest bump will jar them out of place and send your model crashing down. It can be a bit of a pain to re-pose your model, so it might be better for some people to simply keep the Flag in its mobile armor configuration.
You don't get much with the Union Flag. There's the shield, which is just a solid hunk of black plastic--with foil-stickers to make the white markings on the tips--and the plasma sword, which is no more than a single piece of white-molded plastic. It's a real shame they only do transparent beam weapons for HGUC releases. There's also, of course, the linear rifle. It's only four pieces of plastic, but they all fit together snugly and the two foil stickers are set at just the right places to make the rifle look pretty cool. The handle of the rifle can move back and forth about twenty degrees to accommodate being stuffed into the Flag's pelvis in mobile-armor mode.
The HG Union Flag is, very nearly, the perfect model. In fact, I daresay that it is the best High Grade kit I have ever seen. It does, however, have a single (rather important) flaw. Yes, it's very flexible and you can pose it any number of ways... but it is not well-balanced. If you want to display the Union Flag standing up, you either have to have both legs side by side, or one in front of the other. There's not much room for variety here. This is the sole detriment to the model. If you have a base or stand for the flag--you can do anything. Anything. The waist can move the torso a full 360 degrees, and because of the shape of the torso any angle looks functional and normal. As always, I think panel-lining is a must, but honestly the construction of the Flag is already so well-thought out that it hardly matters. <<back to Gundam |