Wing Gundam Zero Honoo Feather Blade
Review by ArshadAA
If there’s one thing the Gundam franchise loves to do, it’s having its protagonists upgrade their mobile suits. The Build Fighters universe is naturally no stranger to this practice. As the story goes, the Wing Gundam Zero Honoo found its way into the hands of one Tsubasa Souma. He/she gave the WZH a new head and decided that it didn’t have enough melee weapons so the Feather Blade was created. This means that, yes, the WZH now has swords with knives on them mounted on top of its swords because why the heck not? Around the same time of the Wing Zero Honoo kit’s release, the Feather Blade kit was released as a Hobby Japan exclusive.
The box contains a single runner molded in white. The two page building instructions are part of the magazine.
As with nearly all Hobby Japan kits, a moderate amount of painting needs to be done to get a look matching the source material. The primary colors being silver, yellow, red, green and grey.
The kit includes parts for a new head that has a different faceplate and v-fin. Since no eye sticker is included, you’ll either have to paint the eyes or swap in the equivalent translucent part from WZH’s original head. I decided to go with the paint route by coating the eye area with a layer of silver then applying black and green. The result isn’t as perfect or shiny as I had wanted it to turn out but I’m still proud of it.
Once assembly and painting is complete, you apply the upgrade to the WZH kit by replacing the head with the new one and attaching the Feather Blades to the wing binders via tight fitting racks. This configuration is known as the Wing Gundam Zero Flame Feder, but for brevity’s sake we’ll still refer to it as WZH.
The Feather Blade kit is a set of four weapons which are all held in the included pair of angled wrist hands. First up are the aptly named Feather Knives which come in a set of three. Unfortunately, much like WZH’s own binder swords they look very ornamental, not very threatening and are just for show contrary to what a famous Newtype once said.
The other three weapons share a handle/hilt part that they attach to. I’m not sure how this is accomplished in-universe as there’s no place on the WZH to store the handle or the other blades. The first configuration is the Feather Glave. The blade itself is almost as a big as a Feather Knife but it’s still a bit small compared to the handle itself. A pole arm-type extension for the handle would have done wonders.
The titular Feather Blade configuration measures up to an impressive 19 cm. If you think the blade is too vanilla by itself, you can literally put the Feather in Feather Blade by clipping on a knife holder that all three Feather Knives can slot into. It’s as ridiculous and cool as it sounds.
If the above still doesn't sound highly over-compensating to you, you can double up on the Feather Blades to make the Feather Buster Sword configuration.
Unlike their Anti-Ship Sword and Tactical Arm cousins from the Cosmic Era, the Feather Blades are much lighter and less likely to cause the kit's arms to sag quickly. You still have to worry about the wrists giving out though.
This is the closest I could get to replicating the boxart pose while still keeping the entire Feather Blade inside the frame.
Like most Build Fighters accessory kits, the Feather Blade comes with an adapter that lets you mount the blades on other compatible 1/144 kits.
This is another great addition to the WZH kit to further distinguish it from the regular Wing Gundam Zero. I am however a bit annoyed that the kit only came with one handle when the photonovel and promotional images showed it dual wielding Feather Blades. So I did what any obsessed nerd would do and bought two kits...
Twice the action!
Triple the excitement!
More swords than is legally allowed on broadcast television!
Comments
3 comments postedGreat review, glad to see you picking up some of the bonus expansions for a model. the Honoo looks great with it.
I wanted Hobby Japan's Caletvwlch for the HG Red Frame, but I didn't have the Red Frame nor did I like how it was only a single white plastic runner. I have found that there are third party groups that make full color injection upgrades to existing models. Since I have the Master Grade Red Frame, I bought the "BTF Weapon Unit Equipment Type for Astray Red Frame" and it's pretty impressive. funny thing is it was cheaper too and I got two "Weapon Units" to make a semi-Red Dragon.
Thanks Rob! This was my first bonus kit and I'm glad it turned to be feasible for my skills. I considered getting the add-on parts for the Freedom but I didn't like the end result of that modification and couldn't think of a good way to paint it in the original Freedom's colors.
I have zero experience with 3rd party add-ons but I'm always fascinated by them. Is there a good online resource for researching them?
Cool. I know about the set for the Freedom's 'BF Honoo' style custom, but yeah, it's a full chore to recolor the whole model and paint the add-on kit to match. I say it'd be easier to paint the weapon to match the Freedom's original colors.
I've slowly been adding 'upgrade' parts to my technique but the "WEAPON UNIT" (because it'd be a big breach of copyright to say Caletvwlch) is my first third party addition. I first found about it on Ebay. There aren't many mainstream places or rather the ones I've surfed, that talk about these kits, but they're out there. I saw some group also made the "Powered Arm" set for the Astrays, but they require you cannibalize the existing Gundam for missing parts.
The makers of the Weapon Unit, BTF (Butterfly) makes a number of upgrade sets that look impressive from the saber unit for the MG 00 Qan T and they even have their own version of a Double Fin Funnel for Nu Gundam Ver Ka. What I find most impressive is they're not that expensive compared the models they're paired with.