#jona

Little art trade with @krotichi

MG [Ver. Ka.] 1/100 Anaheim Electronics Multipurpose Test Mobile Suit RX-9/C "Narrative Gundam [C-Packs]"

It's finally done! I've been super excited about this kit ever since it was announced, but could never justify the cost of the kit until now (over $130 AUD TwT). The Narrative is only my second MG Ver. Ka. kit (after the MG Ball), and you can really feel the jump in complexity and level of detail as compared to standard MG kits like my previous MG from last year, the GM Command.

The Narrative is a bit of an oddity. It's a testbed mobile suit developed by Anaheim Electronics alongside the Unicorn line, and is very bare bones and stripped down to let it test out new equipment that later led to the development of suits such as the Mass Produced Nu (you can even see influence from the original Nu Gundam in the design of the head). You can really feel the scrappy design ethos here, with the exposed core fighter, the minimal ankle armor, and the complete lack of armour over the forearms and thighs. This is emphasised with the C-Packs psychoframe equipped. According to the manual, Katoki desgined this kit to incorporate the exact same psychoframe moulds as the Unicorn, and to have them attach to the outside of the kit without necessitating too much disassembly, replicating how in the story the psychoframe is simply bolted on top rather than properly incorporated into the suit from the beginning.

Just like other MG kits, the Narrative is colour separated from the start, although disappointingly instead of having the cockpit in a transparent blue, all the trasparent parts are in the same basic clear, and I had to paint the cockpit with transparent blue paint. This feels like a needless shortcut, when so many other kits colour their transparent parts individually. I also ended up painting some of the thrusters on the core block/fighter in yellow, as the thruster nozzles on the backpack and feet have a separate yellow part that recreates the heat retardant coating. There are a set of 3D foil stickers that recreate the eyes and camera sensors. The 3D design simply means that they're a little stiffer and have printing on the back to give the impression of cameras behind a screen.

I took my usual weathering approach to this kit, with the two tones of grey recieving a dark gunmetal and silver drybrushing, and some silver pigment powder, and the purplish grey parts recieving a simple silver drybrush. I also added black drybrushing and an oil-stain pigment powder to the various thrusters and vents around the kit (which are especially numerous given the added detail and greebling of the Ver. Ka. line - thanks Katoki). Inspired by the 3D stickers in the new PGU Nu, I painted a lot of the internal hidden detail with red and gold accents, although a lot of these weren't as visible as I was hoping, despite all the missing armour parts.

This kit included lots and lots of water decals to detail it, but given the clear psycho frame that would interfere with topcoating, and the horrible experiences I've had with Bandai's decals, I chose not to use them at all.

For this kit, I also wanted to add some scratches and paint discolouration like I did with my MGSD Barbatos. It's pretty subtle as it's only on the coloured parts, but especially on the core fighter it adds a very 80s anime crosshatching look to it which I absolutely love.

The base unadorned Narrative Gundam has a really nice look to it, with very RX-78-2 inspired legs and Nu Gundam skirt and shoulder design.

A nice feature of this kit is a removable and transformable core fighter. It's designed after the sillhouette of the ZZ's core fighter, but the wings are repositioned to the gull-wing position, and also have a somewhat birdlike design to them, which was a motif in the Narrative movie.

There's a 3mm peg hole in the bottom, which can be attached to either the removable landing gear or an action base. You can open up the fighter's canopy to reveal the pilot, Jona Basta, in his inflated g-force minimising pilot suit. I painted the tyres of the landing gear in black to give them a little more of a realistic look.

The pilot figure was a pain to paint, given how small he is (despite the 1/100 scale). I wasn't able to get every detail in, but I at least got the red lights and two-toned grey detailing in.

The core fighter is fully transformable, and can be folded easily into the core block, with the wings neatly wrapping around the body of the plane to create the shape of the abdomen. The core block slides onto a "spine" of sorts on the main kit, which is what actually holds the kit together, allowing you to keep it upright while the core system is removed. There's a little "switch" you can pull on the bottom of the cockpit that rotates the chair backwards, making sure that Jona is upright when in Core Block configuration too.

Unlike other MGs I've built, here the pilot is super visible (although still a little difficult to photograph. There's a standing Jona figure as well, but I didn't paint him as Jona is super forgettable and it didn't feel worth it to paint him twice.

All of the psycho-frame parts are reserved for the end of the build process, and the kit is full of hidden switches and hinges that let you insert the new parts without fully disassembling the armor, just like how the C-packs is attached in the movie. A neat detail is that the activated psycho-frame is all on the C runner.

The psychoframe is in a vibrant UV-reactive trans-pink/red, moulded in ABS and more similar to the beam effects parts than the harder, brittle trans-clear plastic used for the psychoframe in the original Unicorn kit. The softer plastic makes it a lot easier to remove nubs. This psychoframe is based off the MG Unicorn, but it's been redesigned with a ton of extra detail and depth to it, helping it to pick up the light a lot more easily and letting it glow pink without even needing to shine a UV torch or blue light on it directly. There's also a separate set of 2 runners cloned from the Unicorn and moulded in grey. These are de-active psychoframe and can be attached to this kit or used to build a de-active MG Unicorn. I've elected to instead use them for spare customisation parts instead.

The narrative includes a lot of neat parts to display it with. There are two hand options - a very well designed poseable set, with semi-articulated fingers and thumb that unlike the floppy and delicate ones included in RG kits can hold a number of hand poses - and a simple set of closed fists. There's a small flip-down door on the back skirt that is compatible with the large peg from an action base (which is a little weird as usually kits like this have a custom connector or use the small 3mm peg).

There's a set of two beam sabers, that can be attached to either to a saber rack on the back skirt (in un-equipped mode) or to the backpack when in (C-Packs configuration). The beam saber effects parts are moulded in a similar UV-reactive red/pink as the psychoframe.

There's also a large shield (unique to the C-packs loadout) and beam rifle. The shield is very reminiscent of the Jegan's shield, and I think part of it is pulled from the MG Jegan. However the bulk of it resembles the Sazabi's, complete with a beam cannon on the rear. There are also 4 Jegan-style missiles on a rack. The front has a set of 4 psychoframe panels similar to the Unicorn's shield, however they don't seem to be achieving anything as there's no I-field generator like on the Unicorn.

The beam rifle is a redesign of the Jegan's as well (and even includes spare parts to convert it into the Jegan-type). The sensor has been swapped out with one similar to the Unicorn's beam magnum, and there's a much larger emitter. There's no extra handle, but there's a large thin E-pack magazine (and a spare that can be attached to the rear-skirt).

The shield attaches to a small hidden connection point on the forearm, but this point is on one of the liftable panels under which a psychoframe part is inserted, and thus is rather inseccure, especially given the weight of the shield.

I also had a little trouble with the upper arm rotation, which on the right arm felt a little floppy. The rest of the kit is very secure in comparison however, and I don't think I had any issues with posing, thankfully.

I had a really good time building this kit. It's super fun to pose and put together, and the design of the psychoframe means that it appears to glow with no extra lighting needed, making it look incredible on the shelf.

Proper Ver. Ka. kits seem very complex, and I don't know if I'll build too many more, but I'm definitely keeping my eye out.