MG 1/100 Sword Impulse Gundam Review - Part 1

Image borrowed from Ngee Khiong's Blog.

Price: 4500 Yen(!)
Series: Gundam SEED Destiny

Z.A.F.T(Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty) Mobile Suit
ZGMF-X56S/β
Sword Impulse Gundam

The main protagonist's(Shinn Asuka) suit, the Impulse Gundam when combined with the Sword Silhouette, becomes the Sword Impulse Gundam, a melee mobile suit with dual anti-ship beam swords and two beam boomerangs. Pure ownage right here. ^^

Still remember the Force Impulse? Note the difference in colors between them. That's the main striking difference between them, besides the Silhouette packs. >>; Though, the Sword Impulse colors looks way more menacing and "cool"/"awesome"/"teh smecks".

Brief Story Plot:
The Sword Impulse appears in the very first episode of Gundam SEED Detiny, piloted by Shinn Asuka. Weilding two gigantic anti-ship beam swords, he was up against three stolen Gundams and fared rather well until... see SEED Destiny to find out more. XP

The Sword Impulse is notorious in a sense that it created the scene as shown in the boxart as can be seen around half-way through the series. Pretty epic scene with Shinn destroying all the battleships in rage/emoness with the dual anti-ship beam swords. ^^

Details:
Height: 19.37m
Weight: 78.93t

Armaments:
Impulse - 2x Folding Razor(anti-armor knife), 1x Beam Rifle, 1x Shield
Sword Silhouette - 2x Excalibur(anti-ship beam sword), 2x Flash Edge(beam boomerang)

Further details here.

FYI, I just got it last week and managed to "finish" building it last night. ^^; It kinda blew my wallet away and currently I'm pretty much unable to buy another MG or anything that costs more than 3000 Yen anytime soon(in one go). >.<

Now onto the review.

Part 1: Box Opening
Box opening... the most fun part before building the model as you feel the total excitement that you are going to build something, especially when its a MG model kit. Total excitement as in "OH ****, that's a **** load of runners!". XP

But seriously, the amount of runners is not that many, since it is pretty much MG standard and that the Impulse is considered one of the easier MG to build.

Part 2: Runners
That's a lot of runners! Took me a while to photograph them also. I initially didn't want to do it, but since I decided to split the building process into two halves, it was possible.

The Impulse does not need many stickers and the stickers you see there are only for the head unit. ^^ The bigger pieces are decals which are optional to apply onto the kit. I'll be keeping the decals for now as I think I might fine detail the Sword Impulse one day later, when I have the proper items(such as paint, thinner, top coat and possibly an air brush).

Part 3: Cutting, Cleaning, Snap Fitting
Part 3.1: Core Splendor

Truth be told, I built this last as I was thinking of painting the blue parts red, to match the Sword Impulse. Don't fret as it is supposed to be blue as the Core Splendor does not change color like the res of the body when Impulse gattais with the Sword Silhouette. ^^; I might paint it red... later on.

I didn't build this "completely" as I did not cut out the miniature pilot and the landing gear plus missiles for when the core splendor is operating on its own. I didn't want to put the pilot in as it might move about when I'm playing around with the finished model later on.

Part 3.2: Main Body
The hollow part at the rear is for the Core Splendor to attach itself to the main body. The cockpit hatch seems to be able to open from two places, from the top and from the bottom. I'm not so sure since I didn't watch SEED Destiny in uber detail or can read mass Japanese text on the manual. XP If memory serve me right, the top part of the chest is the cockpit hatch that connects to the Core Splendor.

Part 3.3: Head - The Only Part with Stickers XP
Actually there was supposed to be a read piece along together, but I missed it until when I started building the chin of the model. X|

For some odd reason, the head looks really monchromatic to me. In a sense, very "evil".

Part 3.4: Arms
Similar to most MGs, the arms bends well. From what I've seen, the arms are really in close relation to the original Gundam, the RX78-2. O.o

Part 3.5: Shoulder
The shoulder part doesn't really connect to the arms like HGs, but goes into the arm connector before you connect the arm. I guess it makes the model more flexible this way. ^^

Part 3.6: Beam Rifle & Shield
Both of this parts have some gimmick to them. The beam rifle's sensor and second grip can be swiveled so that it can be attached to the rear side of the waist when not used or held by two hands for better shooting accuracy.

The shield is quite special to Shinn's mobile suits as far as I've seen as both his Impulse and Destiny shield's can open up. =)

Part 3.7: Waist
If you follow the building instructions very closely, this is as far as the waist goes.

More parts for the waist. The two white containers are for the Folding Razor knifes, which I haven't build, due to the want to finish up the model quick. XP

Part 3.8: Legs
Nothing much to say about the legs. They are as flexible and pose-able as far as the MG grade goes. ^^

Part 3.9: Sword Silhouette
I decided to build the silhouette in stages instead of laying them out in one go so that I becomes easier to build as I was getting physically tired after hours of non-stop cutting. >>

As you can see, the Excaliburs can extend, which is a new feature added from the previous version that comes with the Force Impulse. Furthermore, they updated the handle fo the sword as to make it more easily held when they are combined. =)

Part 4: Boxart Pose
I wish I had a 1/100 scale battleship that is badly battle damaged for this... =D

Part 5: Action
To be continued...

Hopefully I can take some action pictures by tomorrow or very soon. But I do have tests coming up which I have to study... Ah well, stay tune for the most important part of the review, the actions of which the model can do. IMO, the Sword Impulse is plenty pose-able with the ABS parts and it can hold the Excalibur pretty well, just that it might drop down in certain holding angles... The final conclusion will aso come in the next part. ^^

Part 2 here.