Gunpla Review: RG 1/144 Sinanju

It's been months since the release of this beast. Not only did it take time for my pre-order to arrive, it also took time to build, and even more time to get pictures. More on that in the review. So, let's take a look at the latest RG as of this post, the RG Sinanju.

If you're wondering if he's just recycling backgrounds... yes he is.

The Sinanju has always been a beautiful design. Intricate curves like a sports car. The gold emblems, the red color scheme, the proportions, regardless of what scale/model kit/action figure, will always look stunning. It looks menacing and muscular.

Aesthetics

The RG interpretation is pretty much spot on. And I don't think there's anything else I can say, because, well... look at it. It's smexy. The red though is brighter than normal.

It's a lot brighter than his future

But you'll probably say, how is it different from the High Grade? The High grade on it's own is pretty good already. This is when the wonderful idea turns a bit sour in execution. Before we go to the negatives though, let's tackle the positives.

It's better proportioned than his own body after a diet

 Parts separation is excellent. All the gold you see is molded separately and plated. It trumps the MG in making the gold trim separate from the black bits. This makes it infinitely better compared to anything else (kit wise) as you don't have to use the crap stickers nor do you have to painstakingly paint these. There are decals for this kit, but I have a feeling it'll look like crap. So I only applied the copper and silver stickers that are barely visible.

The yellow vents are all separate, and all the tiny grey bits around the kit is from the inner frame. There's also some silver for the inner frame. The vulcans are separate as well, again trumping the MG.

If there's a down side, it's the red parts. Gloss coating it looks really good, but unless you're super careful, you'll end up with a bunch of horrible nubs. Also, a constant complain is how large and poor the nub placements are for Real Grades. Some are under gated, while some (i.e. the arms ) are large and not undergated.

Also, this is a Real Grade. If you're expecting a ton of surface detail, you won't find it here. The kit was design to look glossy and sleek in the 1st place, so I can't rant about it I suppose. But it comes with High Grade hands... Even the high grade has fists. This doesn't. C'mon Bandai. You have those HD builder parts for Real Grade level hands and you gave us HG hands?

Overall, it's overall looks pretty much out weighs the negatives... IF and only IF you can carefully cut out and trim the bits. If not, you'll end up with a nice glossy kit with VERY obvious nubs.  I wish I can show you that pic a friend of mine sent for his RG Sinanju. He stopped cursing now I think.


Also if you're wondering how it looks using the Real grade hands... well it looks a tad under sized.

Doesn't look as bad... but still off

Articulation

Ooooooh boy. Here's a can of worms. In one sentence, I can say that Articulation wise: It has all the points that are needed but the looseness of key joints pretty much makes it impossible to even stand.

You're probably asking: "Stand? You pics consists of pics of the Sinanju standing with no support!" Well, I disassembled mine and stuck a piece of pla plate on to the back of the inner chest joint to prevent it from toppling over backward. Also dropped some plastic cement on it in the hopes of fusing it in place. It's that bad. The main culprit I believe is the ball joint that connects the chest to the abdomen. It uses the same Inner frame as the RX-178, which is smaller than the Sinanju  with a smaller back pack. Some joints have additional inner frame bits from a separate runner to bulk it up a bit (hips, wrist, feet etc) but this one didn't do anything to the chest. The result is a floppy torso that throws off the balance of everything else. Sigh...

Anyway moving on. You can pop off the head and swivel a tiny peg to move around the mono-eye.

this has more brains than he does

The monoeye is tiny though. So it kind off doesn't make sense.

The head, like the RG Qan-T, pops off easily. It can look far back though unlike the Qan-T. The base of the neck contains a swivel to help facilitate this.

It can't look down very much though. Still better than the Qan-T.

stop comparing it to the Qan-T!

Side to side is a bit limited by the collar. That's expected though.

The torso has a bunch of joints but with the Sinanju's top heavy backpack, and the overall looseness, it's not fun. At all. To pose or to simple display. With the modification I made, there's still a bit of articulation.

FYI. It has more range that this picture suggests

The shoulder articulation's a bit more limited due to how it's constructed. The old RG MKII shoulder joint is sandwiched between the new shoulder joint (the circle bit) in a permanent angled way. It's limited in short. The Shoulder flap can swivel as well.

You can pull the shoulders a bit forward. The forearm armor also slides back away from the cuff. The cuff unfortunately just plugs in via friction. So it's very easy to pop out. That means the hands which are connected to it will also pop off along with the cuff. Incredibly annoying when posing with weapons.

Jai Ho

The knees have a nice deep bend as well. Also the knee armor also likes to pop off.

The new hip design allows for a decent range. It also has a mechanism to allow the hips to swing forward.

The toe can bend down... and fall off. Same with the cuff, it just sits in there via 2 friction pegs. The flaps at the side of the armor can move. Same with the back. The thrusters also has joints that can allow it to swivel out and rotate.

There's a decent ankle tilt, but given it's a space suit, not really bothered by the range.

The backpack binders can also move about.

Again, ignoring the loose waist and the bits that pop-off, it's pretty good. It can't kneel that much though due to the long legged design.

Katoki proportions can't kneel

Can it do the kick? Yes... but the loose waist will make it look awkward.

a  lot less awkward than him just standing

Weapons and Extras

The Sinanju has pretty much all the basic weapons it needs. The only thing missing is a bazooka, and you can get that either as a P-Bandai kit, or better if you could track down the system weapons for the Sinanju for much cheaper.

It comes with 2 beam sabers, a shield, a beam rifle, a grenade launcher and 2 beam axes. It has one HG open palm (similar to the ones from the HG Zaku F2) and the traditional RG hands that are too tiny for the kit.

The shield is of course, full featured. You can store the beam axes. And unlikethe HG, you can move it from stored to deployed without removing the axes from the shield.

You can mount the grenade launcher here. And possibly the Sinanju bazooka.

The grenade can be switched between the shield and the rifle.

You can plug in the beam effect parts to the axes. These are the prettiest beam effect parts I've seen.

It clips on to the forearm like the MG... and it's also loose as hell. It also causes the balance to shift all to the left side. Posing it is more of a chore.

He was so frustrated that he did not even bother.

The shield can also mount to one of the shoulder flaps via a hole on the silver bit. if there's one bit that I wish they took from the HG instead of the hands, it's the shield connector. I love how the shield looks, but it's too annoying for it to be used.

Mount everything on it and it becomes unweildly.

he keeps saying he doesn't like this shield, yet has tons of pics of it

The rifle is properly long, but it does not have any clear parts for the scopes. You'll need stickers for that sadly.

Like the MG, the grenade can split and peg into the rifle. The rifle pegs to the right palm. Like any of the available Sinanju, the rifle design, the cuffs and the hands mean that it's incredibly annoying to actually put in it's hand. The amount of fiddling just so you can mount the rifle is incredible. There's also a storage location located on the back for the rifle.

The original design is that the beam sabre is stored on the forearms. For the RG, you get a bit where you can plug the sabre on the forearm along with the actual beam sabre.

The beam axes can detach and combine. Instead of sliding like the MG, you just peg it in 3 different positions, which I prefer.

It also has a clip so you can mount it on a display base... and that's also loose. This kit has serious stability issues mounted on the display stand.

One last party piece is like the new MG Hi-Nu Gundam, bit's can open up to reveal some detail. Not MG Sazabi level hence the comparison to Hi-Nu. It looks ok I suppose.

Size Comparison and Other Comparison

Sinanju is actually pretty big. Here it is compared to the Original Char's original suit.

Vs the new IBO Barbatos.

Here is it against it's own stable mate. If you have all Zeon Remnant suits, I bet it would look stunning.

Summary

Is there really a Sinanju that will be perfect? The HG needs some work to make it look nice. The MG is big, expensive and also needs some work to make it look nice. This one looks nice out of the box, but is plagued with a loose torso, loose parts, HG detailed hands, and poor nub placements. Most of my reviews of RGs tend to be negative due to how fiddly they are. This one takes that to a whole new level. It cannot stand, it cannot wield it shield properly, it's annoying to pose etc. Would I recommend it? Well, I bet the High Grade is a million times more stable that this. Buy the HG instead and buy some paint. It'll probably be more fun to mess around with and it'll probably stand on your shelf. Also I'm swearing off RGs after this. Will probably wait for a GP01 revive instead of the RG.

Good:
- It looks nice.
- Parts separation is excellent


Bad:
- unusable torso if not modded
- HG hands for RG price
- parts keep falling of
- loose display stand connector
- loose elbows if wielding anything other than the beam sabre
- poor gate placement