Many were surprised when a new 1/100 scale Calamity Gundam kit was announced. Many were also scratching their heads as to how are they doing it? Would it have the same engineering as the way too old 1/100 SEED kits? Well, Bandai Spirits made a lot of announcements today, and that included the whole deal with this new Calamity Gundam kit.
Introducing, the new Full Mechanics 1/100 Calamity Gundam. Yes, Bandai Spirits is bringing back the 1/100 scale Full Mechanics kits as a totally new line. These were first introduced during the second season of Iron-Blooded Orphans and many thought this was just a moniker for those ‘ungraded’ (I really don’t like the term ‘no grade’ others use) 1/100 kits. That said, there are leagues of differences between the old and these new Full Mechanics kits.
The old ones were basically larger High Grades in terms of details and engineering. As for the Full Mechanics Calamity Gundam, there’s a lot more detail and engineering on this guy. Shoulder joints feature multiple points of rotation allowing for maximum range of arm movement, not to mention the now-standard double elbow joints. What’s more impressive is this seemingly complicated hip joint assembly which can shift downward for wider leg stances. The front skirt armor also shifts which should prevent any obstruction when the torso unit is crunched forward.
Surface details for the outer armor are also leagues above the original 1/100 kits. They are actually made to match those of modern SEED Master Grades, and this kind of makes me think. As someone who’s very particular with semantics as far as Gunpla brands go, what we see here are essentially features of RE/100 kits. I was actually wondering why they didn’t just list this guy as a RE/100 kit during its initial reveal. Are RE/100 kits supposed to be exclusive to Universal Century designs while the rest would be Full Mechanics releases?
Bandai Spirits can pretty much do anything, but this is definitely something good for 1/100 scale collectors as more designs now have better chances of being released as modern kits. Whether they be Master Grade, Master Grade Extreme, Reborn One-Hundred, or Full Mechanics. Heck, let’s not forget those Hi-Resolution Models! In any case, definitely look forward to more of these Full Mechanics releases.
Full Mechanics 1/100 Calamity Gundam
June 2021 / ¥5,000
