Gunpla Review: HGBF Try Burning Gundam

It's been a struggle these past few weeks (life is kinda sucks more than normal), but hey, we have another gunpla added to the collection! And we're taking a look and Kamiki Sekai's 2nd suit (kit?), the Try Burning Gundam.

Holy Mother of bad photoshop! 

The Try Burning is the mid-season upgrade of Sekai's (or Iori's?) mobile suit. It's more powerful than the original, which means that the suits of the new season much more powerful than what Sei builds. It features an RG Core (no idea what that is) as well as the "Burning Burst System", which releases stored plavsky particles in the clear parts. So clear parts = more powerful suits?

Aesthetics

Anyway, the suit itself is simple and clean in terms of design. The anime, of course, has a more exaggerated proportion, while the kit is more realistic and grounded. Color separation on the kit is excellent, but given the simple coloration, nothing outstanding.

Stop calling it mediocre!

It is littered with tons of clear blue parts, which makes nub removal difficult. I wish he had clear parts in the feet though and I wished it used the sparkly plastic like the ones in the HGBF Denial Gundam. It's predominantly Red and White, which echoes the Rising Gundam (minus the blue feet). The shade of red is very pretty, as it's deep yet doesn't feel cheap (like how most red plastic end up feeling).

The back is quite plain as well, with no thrusters/boosters to speak of. There's an adapter you can use to attach backpacks, but is not quite necessary due to it's accessories (more on that later).

There are minimal panel lines on the kit, so if you want a more detailed kit, be prepared to spend some time weathering or at least highlighting the edges on the kit.

What I like is how the parts that are meant to be casted off creates some layer of depth to an otherwise boring surfaces. The one at the calf in particular.

Also the one in the lower arm. Also the only stickers provided are for the front camera, the eyes, and the grey parts on top of the foot (which I forgot to paint).

Overall, pretty decent. Especially if you compare it to some of the plainer suit designs like the renewal RX-78-2. As if it's designed from the ground up to be a model kit (unlike the G-reco designs).

Articulation

Being a melee suit, articulation should be the emphasis of this kit. And it is. The simple small skirts and small shoulders give excellent range.

Double jointed neck (connected via traditional polycap), bicep swivel, near 180 elbows, double waist joint. And they all move freely.

The "I just woke up yawn" pose

The shoulder is an interesting design. The yellow vents are not flush with the chest armor, and this is to facilitate the entire pectoral armor moving forward. Add to that the double jointed shoulder connection, and you'll get a shoulder with a massive amount of range, and a very organic movement.

it's been fertilized with manure apparently

It's like a crude form of the Figuarts shoulder joint. The main problem is the shoulder ball joint (which is in the shoulder armor), does not sit deep enough. You'll notice it as there's a gap where the shoulders connect to the torso. So if you're fiddling with it, 80% of the time, it'll pop off. A similar system is in the Denial, but lacks the double joint. Denial also uses plastic on plastic, so the connection is tight.

No "that's what she said" jokes please...

The lower articulation is very good as well. The ankle tilts are very deep, and the overall simpleness of the design gives it superb balance. It's can't quite do the Van Damme split, but it's more than enough for most action poses.

Ankle tilts = best toy evarr

It has a T-bar crotch, so the hips can move up and down, thigh swivels, double-jointed knees and the mentioned fantastic ANKLE TILTS. It can also kneel pretty well (as it should).

The HG God Gundam can only dream of this pose

It's articulation is pretty impressive, compared to it's rival Denial, simply because of how stable itcan get. The only downside is the easily pop-able shoulders. If it had the HG Denial shoulders and toe joint, it'll pretty much be perfect.

Weapons and Extras

As a melee suit, fists are it's weapons. Sekai literally mentions it in episode 1. As such, he has a variety of hand options you can choose from. Karate chop hands, open palms, fists and holding things hands. All has an extra wrist joint except for the holding things hands. These same hands are actually included in the build knuckle option parts set minus the karate chop hands (which the Unicorn really needs). The hand armor is suppose to have clear blue bits in it, but they're not engineered in.

Le Knuckle sandwich

It pretty much gives Build Burning all the poses it needs as seen in the Anime.

Sekai's battle stance

Shippu Zukiiiii

American football kick!!

He also comes with a bunch of effect parts molded in clear orange for his fists and a single kick effect part... which I took 4 mins to arrange it on the table but somehow forgot to take a photo of... You'll need the clear orange fists to plug into the punch effect parts.

"Shoryuken!!" I mean "Soten Guren-Ken"

The kick effect part simply attaches to the slit at the back of the foot. Too bad the seam line is visible

"Rider Kick!!" I mean "Seiso Giri"

Now to put the Burning in Try Burning, you also get a bunch of effect parts to simulate "Assimilation" of Sekai and Try Burning. In the anime, the white bits covering the clear bits, just ignites and seemingly burns off. Turns out these white bits simple eject from the armor (or purge as the wiki describes it). It even says so in the box.

Cast off! And he's expecting the same feature on Super Fumina. Perv...

You need to start removing anything connected to a clear blue part: Top of the shoulder armor, the torso shoulder armor, the blue vents on the shoulder armor (lots of shoulder armor), the forearm bits (these are loose, so take care when removing), the hip armor, the entire Knee/shin area, the back of the lower leg and the back pack.

He lost the vfin on his MG rx78-2 mechanical clear version, so he is now contemplating not buying his only source of coping mechanism

This is what the kit looks like without effect parts.

Aww its naked

And replace them will the flame effect parts.

But first, the backpack needs dis-assembly. The white bits needs to be transferred to the orange backpack.

What's great about the engineering is that every limb effect part can only go into specific area of the body, so you won't slot one effect part into wrong portions of the limb. I also prefer to disassemble the kit into arms, legs and torso for easier part swapping.

Torso gets flames on shoulders, orange chest part and orange backpack.

The arms gets flames actually fit in more snuggly than the clear blue bits. Especially on the front forearm parts and the shoulder vents.

The legs are very straight forward and tight as well. Could be due to the fact that the effect parts are gummy-ier than the clear blue parts.

Overall result looks great, if a bit top heavy.

This kit is on fiyaaaaa!

You also get the ring of fire for the backpack, thus completing the look.

this kit is on fiyaaaa.. ooooohhohh. Also it doesn't have that ugly effect form the title pic

Unlike the Denial, in which the effect parts render the kit into mostly a brick, Try Burning's excellent balance still allow it to retain most of it's articulation with the effect parts on.

"this fist of mine is burning red"

He mentioned posability and all he can think of was a sort of dashing pose

Also as a bonus, if you do not have those tamashii flame effect parts, you can use Try Burnings effect parts to recreate one of Sekai's attacks. It's not as impressive, but it'll do in a pinch.

"Power Wave" I mean "Hado Reppaku-Ken"

Size Comparison

Try Burning's height is pretty standard 18 meter suit. Junya's kit is taller naturally. It's a full head taller compared to Try Burning.

Burning Burst System Activated

You'll also notice how slim and lithe Try Burning is compared to the more substantial Denial. No doubt there's a good vs. evil thing going on here.

Summary

The Try Burning is something I've been wanting to buy, but it was not in my priority list, simply to have my Denial have a companion. The kit was given to me as a gift, so hey, that's one out of the list (which includes MG Amazing Red Warrior and MG Fenice, MG RX-78 3.0 yada yada). It's a very simple and straight forward kit to build, The new shoulder/torso assembly is refreshing to see, and I'm hoping that it gets implemented in future kits (seems unlikely). If you're a beginner, then this kit is good for you as the build is simple, and there's not much effort needed to detail it up. This is also a kit, where I think a Robot Damashii is not needed as the articulation is superb. The effect parts justifies the price it goes for, so I'd say this kit is highly recommended.

Houou Hao-Ken *insert phoenix effect part

Burning Kick!

Unbreakable Heart