HCM-Pro Gundam Mk II Complete Set G-Box

Height: 9.3cm

Articulation: 20 points total - Ball joint neck; 5 points in each arm: Double jointed shoulders, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow, ball joint wrist; Swivel waist; 4 points in each leg: Ball joint hip, double jointed knee, ball joint ankle.

Colors: (Gundam Mk II) Molded white, dark blue, black, grey, clear pink, clear green, yellow; Painted Red, yellow, light grey, grey, white, green, silver, gold. (Flying Armor) Molded white, black; Painted Red, black, white, grey. (G-Defenser) Molded white, blue, black, dark grey; Painted blue, red, yellow, grey, black, white, seafoam green, gold, silver.

Accessories: (Gundam Mk II) Hand/beam rifle, bazooka, hand/beam sabre x2, shield, Vulcan Pod (hard and soft plastic option), hard plastic option V-fin, extra hands x3; (G-Defenser) Long Beam Cannon; (Flying Armor) Gundam Mk II foot-lock; Stand/Base.

Release Data: Released in Japan on December 15th, 2005, at a price of ¥3800. This item is still available as of April 29th, 2006.

Gallery: 49 images.

Author: ExVee


The Figure

I have to admit, I've basically ignored the High Complete Model Progressive series sicne it was introduced in the middle of 2004. At the same price range as MSiA, the figures were smaller, less articulated on average, and I felt had unnecessary redesigns and extra lines painted all over. They're made to appeal to a particular demographic of Gundam figure consumer, and I knew that I probably wasn't it.

But then, something was announced that got my attention. See, back in 2003, Zeta Gundam was going to be released in North America. There was a mess of early solicitations for MSiA assortments, among which was a Deluxe Figure With Vehicle level Super Gundam. And it had to be mine. I'd seen Zeta at that point, and enjoyed the concept of the Super Gundam, which made the Gundam + vehicle combination much better than the G-Fighter. Unfortunately, this was not to be. Cartoon Network rejected Zeta Gundam, and nearly all the announced merchandise that hadn't already been released in Japan never again saw the light of day.

Then quite some time later, Japan was to get Zeta compilation movies, and with it the promise of more new Zeta stuff! But yet, over a year later, no MSiA Super Gundam or even G-Defenser to fit on the existing Mk II figures. This is where HCM-Pro comes in. The announcement was made of the upcoming release of a new HCM-Pro G-Box, including the previously released Gundam MK II, and new Flying Armor and G-Defenser to go with it. HCM-Pro is not compatible scale to MSiA, but I didn't really care. I'd finally have a Super Gundam figure! And that was that, my decision was made.

Question is, did this fulfill my desires, and did I learn anything about this figure series? It's worth noting for those not in the know, HCM-Pro articulation is about equal to G Gundam era MSiA. As indicated in the rundown at the top of the article, there's double knees, at least *some* double joint shoulders, but single joints for elbows, neck, ankles, and the other fun stuff we enjoy in duplicate or greater in MSiA now. These figures are also made of all hard plastic, which can have benefit and drawback...


The Head

Benefit! The sculpt is really nice, and the hard plastic allows for the appearance to probably be closer to the Mk II's animation design than either of the MSiA molds. The neck is a single ball joint, but the neck is a bit tall giving the head plenty of range to move. The eyes are clear green plastic with black painted outlines. This could be nice at a larger scale, or if the camera on the back of the head were clear and set up for lightpiping. But as it is, the eyes just look really dark all the time.


Arms and Torso

The arms aren't particularly special. The elbows look more accurate than any MSiA, at the cost of range of movement. The backs of the elbows have piston details molded in and painted in metallic colors. The ball joint wrists bother me some. Being hard plastic on hard plastic really makes the potential of wear and thus loosening of the connection a rear concern. On mine, the right forearm is not bonded together perfectly, so the wrist is a bit loose anyway.

The jointing in the shoulders is interesting. The exposed portions of frame at the shoulders are hinged within the torso, and move smoothly. The shoulder joints in the arms, though, are much stiffer, and can be hard to get moving. The shoulder armor is the same way, so it's a bit of a fight to get it moved back after it gets knocked out of position by extending the arms outward much.

The backpack is very firmly bonded to the torso, which is good since the backpack is what holds the G-Defenser and Gundam together, and nothing moves aside from the beam sabre rack/thrusters, which all ball jointed with a modest range of motion. The big thing here, which isn't shown on the packaging for this set, is that the front armor of the torso can be removed, exposing basic looking mechanical detailing underneath. It's really hard to get started, so much so that you wouldn't think it's actually supposed to come off. You just have to catch it around the vents and work it straight off. It's a kinda neat detail, but you won;t be missing anything if you never see it. On the plus side, the chest armor isn't gonna fall off on its own, either.


Legs and Feet

One thing I really appreciate about this figure being made of rigid plastic is that it forces the skirt armor to be hinged. I mean, I suppose Bandai could have used soft plastic for this spot, but it would have upset the look they wanted, probably. Either way, we have hinged skirt armor, and that makes me happy. Otherwise, the legs are fairly unremarkable. There's more of the mechanical detailing on the knees, though unpainted this time, but the ankles have painted, working pistons.

The feet are slightly articulated, to work correctly with the Flying Armor, but it does nothing for poseability. You can get an adequate range of poses out of the legs, but you'll be challenged to get really dynamic looking poses without reaching the limits of the jointing.


Paint and Deco

The paint work is actually pretty good on all three components of the set. I could do without the thick grey lines painted on everything, but then I'm also not opposed to large areas of plain white. To put it most simply, the painting is done to EMIA standards. Must be why these little things cost ¥1500, and why the set was ¥3800. Budget is going into good paint jobs!


G-Defenser/Super Gundam

The G-Defenser is surprisingly solid, while having joints all over the place to support conversion for the Super Gundam. The Core Fighter component is of course removeable, but holds very securely to the G-Defenser otehrwise. The missile pods on the nacelles open to reveal lots of firepower. The beam cannon mounts to the right side with a peg, which stays put very nicely. The wings and thruster vanes are all articulated, prmarily for benefit of transformation, and the back part of the Core Fighter opens to reveal mechanical detailing, as well as the cockpit, complete with pilot.

The G-Defenser can either dock with the MK II directly into Super Gundam configuration, or in the G-Flyer flight configuration, which then can transform to Super Gundam. The G-Defenser plugs into the backpack with two tabs and a plug for secure fitting. There's a small square part on the Mk II's backpack that has to be removed for the docking to take place. The base/stand unit has a specific space for this piece to store, another thing I appreciate.

Once the socket is opened up it's a simple matter of jamming the G-Defenser down, though first you'll need to take the Core Fighter off and flip up the stabilizers so the Mk II's backpack can fit correctly. Then you have to flip up the weapon pods so the arms can fit. Then open the white hatch structures under the G-defenser's engines. Once the Mk II is in place, close the weapon pods around the arms, and flip the hatches down to help secure the pods. There's a little cover deal on the bottom of the Core Fighter, which you need to open, and then plug it back into the G-Defenser. And that's the G-Flyer.

This can't actually do anything, since it's effectively a mobile armor form for the Mk II, really no flexibility at all. The base/stand deal is also not equipped to hold this configuration, oddly. But this can sort of balance on a tabletop. Either between the cockpit hatch and the weapon pods, or there's more hatch bits on the weapons pods you can open and flip backward just far enough to keep it from resting on the cockpit hatch. So it's kind of displayable, but it's weird that the base/stand doesn't do it.

To transform to Super Gundam, take off the Core Fighter, the beam cannon, and close all those hatches. Placing your thumb against where the Core Fighter attaches, push up on the engines and slide them as far as they'll go. Then turn the weapon pods to the sides, fold the white panel up over the blue one, and you're essentially done. You will have to wrestle the handgrip out of the beam cannon after you open its hatches. It'd be good to have some kind of small prying tool for this, since that grip really doesn't want to come out.

The figure can balance really well with the G-Defenser attached, which I'm very glad for. It's pretty tricky to get it to hold the beam cannon in any kind of decent way. It can't stay attached in its normal place, and it can't fit under the arm to be pointed straight ahead. You have to fight with the hinged right hand, which is the only one that can hold the grip, to point the cannon to the side a ways, and then put on one of the extra hands to hold up the barrel. Dynamic posing in this case is out of the question, and I don't see any particularly good way to fix this. The figure can still use the beam rifle or beam sabres this way, but the bazooka would be a tricky fit.


Accessories

-Flying Armor

The atmospheric re-entry wave rider specifically designed for the Gundam Mk II. The wings are hinged to fold up for theoretical storage. There's three sockets along the central line which accept the foot lock so the Mk II can stand up securely on the Flying Armor. Plus, there's a tab at the front to plug the shield into. There's a panel that comes off the bottom to plug the Flying Armor into the base. This panel can be stored in the same compartment of the base as the piece of the Mk II's backpack.

The figure fits perfectly on top of the Flying Armor, but how securely is a different question. There's small pegs on the sides of where the hands go. But the fists that this seems to be designed for won't secure between those pegs. If the figure wasn't supposed to be basically laying down anyway, this would turn out pretty bad.

Standing up works okay because of the foot lock. One foot or the other secures into it, while the other goes in one of the foot housing at the back of the Flying Armor. I wouldn't wanna count it that if it was gonna get moved around, but it works just fine when it's fixed to the base.

-Beam Rifle/Hand

Most of the handheld accessories actually have hands molded as part of the piece. This helps as far as making sure the weapon is in the right position in the hand, but it's bad if you wanna pose the figure with the accessory in some way other than being held in a specific way in a specific hand. because of the size, the forward grip isn't hinged. Instead, it tabs into the rifle at one of two angles. At least it holds in there strongly. It's sadly loose in the right arm, though.

-Beam Sabres

Pretty much same deal as the beam rifle. The blades are permanently fixed, so you can't pose using these hands (which are sculpted really well at a good angle) without the sabres being lit.

-Bazooka

In this case, there's an option regarding the fixed hand, since this comes with a grip by itself and one with a sculpted in hand. You'll really only get to make the decision once, since it's generally a bad idea to take apart pegged together model kit style pieces once they're assembled. It won't matter much, since this Mk II doesn't have storage for the bazooka anyway.

-Vulcan Pods and V-fin

Covering the headwear altogether. There's two Vulcan Pods, one made of soft plastic for durability, and one of hard plastic for non-warpage and sharper detailing. There's no other difference. Both fit easily and securely around the head and look essentially identical.

The V-fin that comes attached to the figure is soft plastic, but the set comes with a second option V-fin made of hard plastic. The edges and points are sharper, and this will look closer to the lineart or a model kit. Just a matter or preference again.

-Extra Hands

In the package, the figure has the flat, slightly spread finger hands attached. In addition, it comes with a slightly more closed left hand which works decently for supporting the barrel of the beam cannon. Plus it comes with a set of fists with rectangle slots in them to fit the beam cannon grip or the bazooka grip. These have hinges at the wrists, which you have to assemble, and it is extremely difficult to get the hinge pieces, which are rather tiny, into the fists. Both ends will press into your fingertips, and the entire process will be quite painful and not fun. But they haven't come apart since, so you'll probably only have to suffer through it once. In general though, any hand besides the fists or beam sabre hands, which have softer plastic pieces are likely to become useless over time, as the harder plastic on both sides of the joint will wear down over time. There's a reason real model kits use polycaps for this kind of thing, afterall.

-Shield

Comes in four pieces. Top, bottom, inside, and mounting bracket. The extra ePacks are permanently attached, obscuring the viewing slot at the top of the shield. The shield can collapse as it's designed to do, and the mounting bracket has two positions, to mount either on the back or side of the left arm. I've found, though, that the bracket fits too tightly into the arm, and you literally have to pry it from the arm. Bad design, that.

-Stand/Base

This has three points on it to mount the figure, the Flying Armor, and the G-Defenser (or Core Fighter if you've got the Super Gundam put together), plus a compartment in the base to keep the panels from the figure's backpack, the bottom of the Flying Armor, and the foot lock when they're not in use. It's a little tricky getting the Mk II to fit on the stand right, but the G-Defenser and Flying Armor plug down easily once you memorize where the connection points are.


Closing Remarks

So, I find that this HCM-Pro is a pretty solid little figure. If it's representative of the other figures in the series, these are nice little guys, if still kind of pricey. I bought this set to fulfill my desire for a Super Gundam figure, and I think that's been satisfied. Not to say I wouldn't jump all over an MSiA version should one come along, but for now, I'm good.

This set was expensive, though, and while it comes with quite a lot of stuff, I wouldn't suggest this as a first HCM-Pro for someone just wanting to see if they'll enjoy it. If you want a Super Gundam that's not a model kit, this'll probably do you. If you have a genuine interest in the set and are familiar with HCM-Pros, I think you'll be satisfied.

I'm gonna give the HCM-Pro Gundam MK II Complete Set G-Box an overall rating of Very Good.

-ExVee, 4/29/2006