And just like that, we’re almost at the tail-end of January 2024. While there were only a handful of major announcements and/or happenings this month, I did want to highlight a couple that I’m too lazy to make a dedicated post.
The elephant in this room is of course the premiere of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM which will be in a couple of days as of this post. The initial wave of kits from the film will also be released around this time, and we’re starting to get leaks from these kits, most notably the HGCE Rising Freedom Gundam.
Unfortunately, these leaks also include the rather sizable sticker sheet this kit includes and was seen during the preview from Bandai Spirits’ own LINKL PLANET.
As many are already aware, Gundam SEED designs tend to have a lot of colors and pinstripes. And the need to balance costs and color separation meant that Bandai Spirits will likely cut some corners, which leads us to this sticker sheet. For a kit that already costs ¥2,400 or ~$16.00, such dependence on stickers is honestly disappointing. That said, someone mentioned an interesting point over on X (previously Twitter).
Whenever Bandai Spirits does commercials for upcoming kits, they often end them with the kit coming together from CG renders of actual parts. What’s peculiar is how the white pinstripes appear to be segmented from both the dark navy and light blue parts of the wing binders. Initial prototypes of the kit also look the same though more recent ones seem to take a different approach on parts separation. I’m not sure if the change attributed to the larger sticker sheet, but it’s likely caused by a combination of costs, and how the kit would look straight out of the box.
At the very least, we won’t have to wait long as the kit will be released towards the end of the week.
The second item I wanted to highlight is the new Full Metal Panic! light novel as part of the franchise’s 25th anniversary. Set 20 years after the climax of the original story, Full Metal Panic! Family sees Sousuke and Kaname together in a family of four with two kids. I won’t go into the specifics, but I wanted to highlight that we are getting a new AS (or Arm Slave) unit because there are still mecha elements to this story.
This is the ARX-10d Type 11 Custom “Azur Raven” which looks like a combination of Sousuke’s (now old) ARX-7 Arbalest and AS-1 Blaze Raven, the latter appearing from the side story Full Metal Panic! Another. Kanetake Ebikawa returns to design the Azur Raven and I wouldn’t mind getting a model kit of it. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that though since we won’t be getting any unless an animated adaptation of this story is made.
The last item on this list are additional teaser images for What If…? season 3. I did enjoy season 2 and seeing the teases for the next does excite me, especially when they revealed mechs would be in it. That’s right, seen above is a mecha that’s clearly inspired/piloted by Captain America and a black machine that many describe as evoking the Flag from Gundam 00.
Mecha isn’t really a foreign concept in The Avengers as there have been several storylines that bring the two together, the most notable being Avengers: Mech Strike. So, it will be interesting what kind of multiverse shenanigans would lead to Captain America and whoever he’s with pilot awesome looking mechs. No release dates have been set for What If…? season 3 as of this post.
