HG Gao Gao Seed Series Overview

Hello bootleg lovers, today I’d like to share my opinion and analysis about one of the series released by Gao Gao in High Grade 1/144 scale. They have Seed Series, HGUC and 00. In this post, I start with the Seed Series. Why I called it Seed Series? Well, this series is combination of Seed Destiny kits, Stargazer and so on but no “Seed” kits like Aile Strike and friends. Seed series has some good points like the big backpack or wings and accessories.

Backpack is a need on a Mobile Suit. It provides thrusting power and flying capabilities. Sometimes it contains supporting units or weaponry to support the MS. But with big backpack, the MS looks more badass. So for big backpack lovers, this series is your best choice. In term of design, big backpack gives better overall looking. But for articulation and balance, it can be a problem. Big backpack can make the kit cannot stand well, what we call “back heavy”. So the kit will rarely have a good standing pose. But this series always comes with a stand base. So the problem can be solved with this stand base. And this stand can be used to do more flying poses (that’s what we have to do with the big backpack).  But for the articulation problem, there is no solution. The arms cannot go further back until hits the backpack. And for some people who like to play the kits every time, the big backpack might cause a problem on holding the kit properly and kind of tends to pop off. Aside from the good and bad points the big backpack has, the big backpack is a signature to this series.

Well, some modelers who loves many accessories on their kits, this series is the answer. Starts from backpack until a little tiny baby beam, this series has them all. For example, Destiny. It has big backpack or wing, called Wing of Light, the pink sparkly effects part for the wings. The backpack held the long anti-ship sword which has a beam effect, and a beam cannon. It has a shield along with the effect and a beam rifle. On the body, it has the beam saber and beam boomerang handle on its shoulders and also the beam effects for them. And the last, a set of angled-wrist hands for wielding the sword and a set of “Destiny Hands” which have holes that can fire beams. So in one kit we can get that whole bunch of accessories. More accessories = more playability. But some people do not have extra space to keep the accessories separately. This series has problem holding its weapons. The hole in the hand usually bigger than the weapon handle.

This is the oldest release from Gao Gao and also from Bandai. So it still has the bad points of old HG kits like the proportion, articulation, assemble system and details. The proportion is different with the newer HG kits let’s say 00 series which has longer arms and legs and a little bit bigger torso. The newer ones have more natural look than this series. The articulation in this series still limited and kind of weird. The arms usually only have pegs without ball joints or any joints that can make the shoulder go forward. Some kits have it like Destiny or Strike Noir but the joints are weird, so they will pop off easily when we move it too much forward or loose after some times. The elbow usually only has one joint. Also the design of the parts assembly still left so many visible gaps. The details on Gao Gao kits always worse than Bandai, but this series still lack of panel lines. So many plain parts on this series. But hey, that’s what some people looking for! More plain means more space to modification. Yes, we can make our own panel lines and details on it.

Well, it has glossy finish, which is good, but I think the gloss is too much. This series also relies on a bunch of stickers. As we know, the stickers on Gao Gao are so bad. They are often misshaped and the cutting is off. The stickers are not an option for me. If I can paint it, I will paint it. If not, I will let it plain rather than put the crappy stickers on my kit. And in some kits like, we get a marking sticker sheet. This kind of sticker is good to be used.

So that’s all I think. And I’ll do this kind of post for 00 series and HGUC in near future. Hopefully this kind of post can give us more knowledge of bootleg gunpla world. See ya in the next post! :)

All picts credit to Hongli Gading and Gundam Mokit Nogo