HG 1/144 Gundam Virtue Review

Series: Gundam 00 Season 1
GN-005 Gundam Virtue
Grade: HG
Scale: 1/144
Price: 1500 Yen

Height: 18.4m
Weight: 66.7t

Armaments:
1x GN Bazooka
2x GN Cannon
2x GN Beam Saber

Pilot: Tieria Erde

Brief Story Plot:
Gundam Virtue is piloted by Tieria Erde. This mobile suit is slow but has high destructive capabilities, especially when the GN Bazooka is charged for "Burst Mode". During the course of the anime, Virtue is used to destroy enemies within groups(mass destruction FTW).

Now, on with the review.

Part 1: Box Opening
3 plastic bags(with runners) and a manual. Quite relative to the price it was paid for. ^^

The manual "book".

Part 2: RunnersQuite a lot of parts for a HG, but then again, look at the price. Nothing much to say but at least they gave two beam parts for the saber. ^^


Pre-assembly work. Painted the clear "round" parts which are the covers for the GN Condensers with a green highlighter(shown above). I'm just trying this out after I saw what Ngee Khiong did for his Exias.

Part 3: Cutting, Cleaning, Snap Fitting
Part 3.1: Main Body

Part 3.2: Head

Part 3.3: GN Bazooka

The bottom part of the GN Bazooka. Notice the "gun handles" on the left and right. Either one can be detached to be put into the middle slot so that Virtue can hold it one handed(it can also be held with one hand without putting one of the handles in the middle though, just that is looks a bit weird).

A gimmick for the GN Bazooka. This is how it will look like when Virtue fires with it. ^^


Part 3.4: Arms
Just like the other 00 Season 1 HG Gundams, their arm articulation is pretty limited. The part which I did not like was that the Virtue's GN Cable(the purple part), is a piece of white plastic, requiring a puple sticker. I was hoping it to be made of rubber like the rest of the 00 HG Gundams. =/
If I had the light purple marker, I would prefer to paint it instead since the sticker only covers the upper part.

Prt 3.5: Legs
The feet seems rather fat. Then again, Virtue's legs are pretty big...

A lot of big parts for the legs... which makes building them rather easy, especially for those who have big hands. ^^

The inside is pretty hollow.

The legs... are pretty big, very big. The good thing about the legs are the stickers. They pretty much covered most of the parts that needs extra detail. =)

Sadly... due to the shape and size of the legs, Virtue has one of the most horrible leg articulation between the 00 HGs.

The black "containers" on both sides of the legs can open up to spread GN Particles to form the GN Field... it only can open up in real life though. ^^

Part 3.6: Waist
Nothing much to say about the waist except that I used a black permanent marker at the thrusters of the waist(yellow part) to make it look a little more nicer as well as it was the easiest thing to do quickly. ^^

Part 3.7: GN Cannon

One of the GN Cannon. It can be detached and be used by being held by the hands. However, Virtue cannot hold it due to the thickness of its arm armor. Then again, it is not really supposed to be used by Virtue...

The GN Bazooka while connected to the backpack can swivel up and down on the sides and around. The lastpicture shows it in shooting mode. When it goes to rest, the cannons can open up the "top" to spread GN Particles similar to the leg condensers to help form the GN Field.

Part 4: Gundam Virtue
Part 4.1: Front, Side, Rear
The Virtue is of similar height of the Exia, which is about 12cm and thus is still shorther than a normal 500ml bottle. ^^ I didn't have anything to use as comparison at that time, so an explaination in words is the best I can do for now.

If you look closely enough, the GN Bazooka yellow part is out, which is a bit loose and can come out easily, when it is not supposed to anyways. I could be my fault or the connection is just that loose.

Part 4.2: Poses and Action... Nadleeh
Virtue has no problems in holding the GN Bazooka with one arm, unlike its 1/100 counterpart which is unable to hold it straight up even when held with two arms(I read, saw some pictures, you can check Dalong.net for it also).

Burst Mode!

Beam Saber action~ The saber hilts can be kept inside Virtue's legs when no in used. If you look closely, I didn't use Virtue's sabers yet, the saber comes from Nadleeh. ^^

"Lockon no KATAKKI!!!"

GN Cannons... can be used by Nadleeh like this.

Armor Purge!
The legs' pose in that last picture is based on the pose that Nadleeh did when it first came out of Virtue in the anime, seriously.

Virtue & Nadleeh, eliminating the targets!

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I/WE AM/ARE!?"

Part 5: Final Words
Overall, the HG Virtue is a nice model kit. I like its sturdiness the best as you can see that it can hold the big GN Bazooka one handed!

If you have the HG Nadleeh, you better buy this kit too, to finish the set and have 4 beam saber parts in the end. XP

Though, since the Virtue is quite "fat", posing is rather limited and you can't really pose it very dynamicly. Too bad. If you like to pose your kits a lot, this might disappoint you. For me though, since I bought this to complete my 00 HG collection, it does not matter, much, especially when I got it for a very good price from a friend of mine. ^^

It also comes with an abundance of stickers that helps newbies or lazy people to build the kit without the need to lay even one drop of paint. =)

All in all, it is up to you. If you like it, buy it, if you don't, then don't. A good price for HG Virtue in Malaysia is about RM50-RM60. It would probably cost more than RM60 though is the seller got the item during the high exchange rate between Ringgit and Yen. =x

Fin~