Perfect Grade Astray Red Frame impressions

The Perfect Grade Astray has just been released recently, and at a whopping 18,000 yen it’s one of the most expensive ones out there. Is it worth the price?

The first question that comes to mind is why the Astray? Bandai’s made a few weird choices for PG’s in the past, such as the GPO1/fb combo. I don’t recall Gundam 0083 being that popular a series. The Astray is not a mainstream Mobile Suit either and there are certainly far more popular MS that have been waiting in line for a long time already, such as Freedom or Nu Gundam. But it looks good at first glance, and comes with a massive katana (which is apparently quite sharp too), which is probably enough to make Astray fanboys buy one instantly.

Now that it’s out and Dalong.net has brought out his review, we can take a good look at it and how it compares to the PG it was built on, the Perfect Grade Strike. Pics taken from dalong.net.

Strike Gundam vs Astray Red Frame comparison

And it’s not looking good. There’s only one word to describe it really. FAT.

In Gundam SEED canon, the Astray based off the Strike, but because Morgenroete didn’t have access to Phase Shift technology, they have to make the Astray lightweight and agile. Both of which this new PG is not. Hell, the Astray PG is even bigger than the Strike!

Astray line art

As you can see compared to the original lineart, the shoulders are far too broad, and the chest is too big and too tall. I have a feeling that the Bandai sculptor who made this really just slapped everything onto the Strike’s frame, which is why everything is so damn bulky.

The bulkiness has some adverse effects on the posing too. The Strike frame is well built and is quite posable. Strike itself is able to do the squats. The Astray fails trying.

Posability problems…and notice how huge the Astray is compared to Strike

Bandai have being doing this a lot lately. We had the MG Unicorn Gundam which had a perfectly good posable frame, but the armour made it terrible. Surely it can’t be that hard to fix? The opening armour hatches are now gone as well, for those people who actually cared about them in the first place.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on Bandai, but I consider the PG Strike to be the best Perfect Grade and this seems like a step backwards. The model itself looks good, but also looks slightly off at the same time, due to the bulky size, and I will probably pick one up despite it’s issues, sometime when the Aussie dollar is stronger.