Elemental Cheese: Gunpla Review: HGBF Wing Gundam Fenice

Let's take a look at the Italian Dandy's 1st suit from the 1st (and arguably superior) season of Gundam Build Fighters.

He literally re-watched all the fight scenes in 1 day -_-

*brief comment on build fighter suits

One of the things I like on the 1st season of Build Fighters is that the suits are basically modified versions of existing suit designs. This for me emphasizes their message of customizing gunpla to fit your own, while retaining the suit's original design. It makes a tribute to all existing designs from the Gundam universe. On the other hand, it's totally a cash grab to retool existing kits and sell them as new. Anyway...

Aesthetics

Wing Gundam Fenice, as you can see, has an asymmetrical design. As such opinion of the suit's aesthetics were divided (no pun intended). The right half is very plain, while the left is very ornate, especially the shoulder armor. It looks like the Wing Gundam and Rose Gundam had a kid, with dominant genes coming from the Wing.

Genes? Whaa...?

It really looks like 2 halves of a suit joined together, with no aspect of the left referencing what's on the right. It doesn't actually look bad in hand, but looks a bit off in the pictures.

make up your mind! Do you like it or not?

His colored like an Italian flag ( or Neopolitan?), with his white being an off colored white (like vanilla ice cream). Yellow and greay breaks it up a bit. I would have liked to see a little bit of green on the white bits (shoulders and knees mainly) and a bit of white on the green bits, but gun to my head, I would say I liked it. It's flashy, like an Italian sports car.

He's been avoiding sugar this week, hence the ice cream references

New pieces includes new shoulders, knees ankle guards, the red on the wings, the foot and the helmet. The head itself has a broken right side, along with the right ear pieces.

he also broke the left v-fin as well. Hahaha

I especially love the head, specifically the eyes. It has heterochromia, with one eye red and the other eye green. The eye shape itself is far from traditional, with a zig-zag pattern, which looks awesome in the show... but is unfortunately too small to see in the kit.

The kit itself is molded mostly in the correct colors, but requires a lot of fine detail painting to get the look right. Lots of grey is needed: the vulcans, machine cannons, crotch, the chest vents, the vents in the shoulders...

he drew arrows... see if you can find them

The shoulder joint needs to be completely gray, the beam launcher on his shoulder is just white out of the box. The black in the yellow circles needs painting as are the front skirt vents.

Tiny grey details on the legs need painting. The circle vents near the toes needs painting. Not shown is the grey on top the foot as well, and the thrusters under the foot.

it's already chipping -_-

At the back, the grey part of the backpack, and the vents on the wings also needs to be painted. The butt thruster also needs painting.

The paint already rubbed off -_-

It's decent, but requires a lot of effort to look correct. It does not quite match the flair of its on screen counterpart.

Articulation

This is where this kit shines. It's super poseable, with only 2 very minor complaints. It uses the traditional (at this point) polycaps from modern HGUC (it uses most of them). Double jointed neck. Ball joints in the chest and waist, with extra molding in the white part to cover the gab when it bends forward. The shoulders have a nice range, and the yellow claws fold to give the elbows a very impressive bend.

The shoulder can also pull-out to allow double handing the buster rifle (more on that later). When the shoulder armor bends down, there's a white bit with detailing that is revealed. It's basically left over from the original kit's bird mode. The wings are movable, but the way it's designed means you cannot replicate the famous pose were one hand is to the side (as seen in the opening pic above). It won't bend far enough ( complaint 1) and clashes with the giant shoulder armor (complaint 2).

The legs are super poseable. The transformation gimmick is still there, which can be annoying, but it does not impede knee mobility. The ankle tilts are very deep, allowing for a very nice stance when posed on the ground.

Overall, it's very impressive. It's even better that the melee suit Denial Gundam. It does not even need to be this poseable since it's mostly flying and shooting anyway when it's fighting. A+

Weapons and Extras

He comes with everything he has in the show (minus the meteor hopper, which is a separate kit).

His main weapon is the Buster Rifle custom, which is the buster rifle from the original wing gundam, with a small beam rifle below.

He can dual wield it, like he does occasionally ( I only remember it in the Qubeley fight). It fits nicely in his hands.

Or you can plug the small rifle to where the yellow bit used to be (you also get the yellow bit, use it if you want).

Opening sequence pose!

The small rifle's handle can swivel side to side so the suit can wield it with 2 hands.

Required strength stat lowered when 2 handed

He also comes with his Beam Rapier and Beam Mantle, molded is brittle pink plastic D:

They can really see it with the nice red background you have.

The mantle simply frictions into the flap on the green shoulder armor. The rapier he can hold, but the beam part is too loose and falls very easily.

I hope you can see it now

His superb articulation allows him to pose like a fencer would. It's Italian after all (even though fencing is French).

That's... not fencing works! They don't even jump!

With these accessories, he actually looks more like a matador, which is Spanish.

He's basically representing the EU.

What's nice is all his weapons can be stored. The back features a peg hole where either of the Rifle can snugly peg into it.

It also makes him incredibly back heavy.

The beam rapier has a piece that can allow it to connect to either forearm, but traditionally stored on the left arm.

Also if you peg the Buster Rifle Custom by the buster rifle part, you can swivel it forward and give it a nice shoulder cannon.

The only thing missing is the splayed open hand, at least for the left hand for the signature pose. And for the fist, when the Fenice and Build Strike punched each other to death. I plan to fix that by getting the Build knuckle accessory, which are basically hands (nice Bandai, milking at it's finest)

Size Comparison

As he is based on Wing Gundam, it's a fairly small kit. The zaku below (standard 18 meter suit) towers him. Kudos to Fellini as his suit has less range than the Build Strike during the punch out fight.

Zaku is love. Zaku is life

Summary

Ok, just to clear this up. I bought this kit, simply because it's appearance in the anime. It's not even the best looking suit in the series (I prefer the Kampfer). But objectively speaking, the kit is fine. Strong suits are articulation and build process is relatively easy, but is not as involved as say the Denial or most HGUC kits. If you want a screen accurate suit, get ready with some grey paint and a fine paint brush, because it requires a lot of detailing to look correct. The aesthetics are fine for me, but if you prefer a more traditional suit aesthetic with the same theme, go for the Rinascita, or build the original Wing, since it has most of the parts for it (I think). If you want the experience of buidling the Wing Gundam, then grab the HGAC Wing Gundam. For me, it's all about this Fighter's Radiance!