1/100 MG RX-178 Gundam Mk-II Titans Prototype Limited
This is the review of 1/100 MG RX-178 Gundam Mk-II Titans Prototype Limited that appear in the anime series of Mobile Suit Z Gundam.
For those of you who have already watched both Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory and the Z Gundam anime you will basically understand about the existence of Titans during the Gryphios War.
But for those who don't, below is some information about the Titans;
The Titans are an elite counter-insurgency group formed by the Earth Federation in response to the disastrous events from Operation Stardust, where the Federation loses a third of its fleet during its naval review to a tactical nuclear attack perpetrated by radical Principality of Zeon loyalists. The Federation government decides to form an elite special operation unit whose sole purpose is to hunt down renegade Zeon supporters and anti-Federation insurgents. Proposed and founded by Jamitov Hymem, who uses the events of Operation Stardust to argue the safety of the Earth is paramount over the civil rights of its citizens, he essentially creates a fascist military force that has the ability to act outside the limit of the Federation's supervision. As time passes, more people line up to join the Titans, inspired by the group's "elite" status and their success in repelling anti-Federation movements.
The citizens of the Federation start to resent the Titans' methodology, and on July 31, U.C. 0085, a massive protest is held in Side 1's 30 Bunch (the 30th colony in the area) against the Titans' actions, but the demonstration soon turns into chaos, rioting breaking throughout the colony. After repeated failed attempts by Federation colonial forces to suppress the riots, the Titans are dispatched to put it to an end. Shutting off the colony's air supply, they proceed to pump the whole colony cylinder (about 20 miles (32 km) long and 4 miles (6.4 km) wide) with a lethal nerve gas called G3, killing the entire populace.
Due to the Titans' effective political censorship, most Federation council members are uninformed of the 30 Bunch Incident; the Federation military knew little about the events, apart from Side 1 being dubbed a "cursed sector". Any reference to the incident becomes taboo, even amongst the Titans (many new recruits, such as Emma Sheen, had no knowledge about it at all).
Despite the extreme scarcity of witnesses, the incident is known to some well-informed individuals who openly resents the Titans, such as Commodore Blex Forer of the Earth Federation Space Force, who goes on to form the Anti-Earth Union Group (AEUG). Many more dissident Federation citizens and soldiers on Earth and in space formed the Karaba resistance movement.
As the AEUG and Karaba begins to pose a serious threat to the Titans, Jamitov manages to convince the Federation council the Titans need for more power to deal with these "terrorist" insurgencies. The council willingly gives the Titans the resources they need, even the authority over some regular Federation military. Instead of resolving the issue, this only widens hostilities, ultimately resulting in the Gryps Conflict.
Unfortunately, the Titans' repressive policies are exposed to the public, when AEUG members and their Karaba allies seize the Federation's Congress Building in Dakar, televising to the world of the Titans' multiple atrocities. The Titans fleet is crippled at the end of the Gryps Conflict by the AEUG, using the Gryps Colony Laser the Titans constructed. Although most members of the Titans are killed, remnants regroup into a rebel group called New Desides and is eventually annihilated by the Earth Federation's Task Force Alpha in late U.C. 0087, as narrated in the novel Gundam Sentinel.
The Titans seem to have been based somewhat on the Schutzstaffel. Most notable are their black uniforms, elite recruiting procedures, and their horrible callousness towards human lives, which coincides with the subtle Nazi undertones in the Principality of Zeon in Mobile Suit Gundam. Also coincidental is that for an anti-spacenoid organization, the Titans seem to be very influenced by the late Principality, from basing their mobile suits on Zeon technology (namely the RMS-106 HiZack, which is directly influenced from Zeon's trademark Zakus) to practicing many of their forms of genocide, such as gassing colonies and the use of colony lasers. Even the Titans uniform possesses similarities to its Zeon counterpart, namely the ornate golden lining. Higher-ranking officer uniforms have a purple texture that looks suspiciously similar to a Zeon officer's cape.
In addition to the shared characteristics of the SS and Zeon, the group may be based on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Whereas the Titans are formed to fight Zeon remnants and any opposition to the Earth, NATO's original role was preventing the growth of the Soviet Union and communism in general in the West. Also, the Titans' policy and practice could be considered a futuristic, and by far, more brutal form of McCarthyism.
And below is some brief information about the Gundam Mk. II;
Shortly before the outbreak of the Gryphios Conflict, the Earth Federation Forces' Titans branch was hard at work developing its own mobile weapons in secret as part of its goal of subjugating the Earth Sphere. One of their earliest and more revolutionary designs was the RX-178 Gundam Mark II, based loosely on the well-known RX-78-2 Gundam from the One Year War. Although designed as a general purpose mobile suit, the Gundam Mark II was intended to be a highly capable unit under gravity and atmosphere - specifically, when fighting inside space colonies. Three prototype units were constructed at the Titans' base at the Gryps colonies, with plans to mass-produce the Mark II already in the works.
The main technical advancement introduced with the Mark II was the "movable frame" construction concept. Up until that point, almost all mobile suits were built on the "monocoque" construction concept - with the external armor serving as a "shell" that supported all of the thrusters, joints, hydraulics, fuel tanks, et cetera, that were stored inside. The movable frame concept turned this design philosophy around; the Gundam Mark II was built around a skeleton-like frame, with all thrusters, fuel tanks, weapons and so forth mounted on the frame, and minimal amounts of armor applied to those critical areas that needed protection. With the advent of portable beam weaponry, a mobile suit was typically destroyed with one or two well-placed shots regardless of its armor; therefore, it was decided that otherwise useless armor would be sacrificed for lighter weight - and thus greater speed and maneuverability. When word of the Mark II's development reached the underground Anti-Earth Union Group movement, its leaders decided to move openly to capture one of the prototype mobile suits. Not only would this serve to give the AEUG access to the movable frame technology, but it would allow them to openly prove to the entire Earth Sphere that the Titans - now developing new war technologies - had other plans for the otherwise independent-minded space colonists.
On March 2, UC 0087, AEUG Captain Quattro Bajeena (the incognito Zeon ace pilot Char Aznable of the One Year War) led a team of Rick Dias mobile suits into the Gryps II space colony to gather reconnaissance data and - if possible - capture one of the "black Gundams." Luck would be with Captain Quattro, as a young boy named Kamille Bidan would find himself in dire straights with the Titans... and being a mobile suit construction hobbyist, soon at the controls of one of the Gundams. With a newfound ally in the boy, Quattro would manage to capture all three Mark II prototypes. However, the Titans were not so willing to give up their prototypes, and the first days of the Gryps Conflict would focus on who would own the three mobile suits. In the end, the AEUG would come out the winner of the prizes: Unit 02 was heavily damaged in combat; Units 01 and 02 were disassembled and shipped off to the AEUG-supporting Anaheim Electronics Company's lunar factory for study; and Unit 03 would be repainted in a more traditional midnight-blue-on-white color scheme and remain in the hands of new AEUG recruit Kamille Bidan.
However, the AEUG soon found its newly-acquired Gundam Mark II to be outclassed by newer and more powerful variable-form mobile suits/mobile armor being developed and fielded by the Titans. One serious design flaw in the Mark II was its older-style titanium alloy/ceramic composite armor; this factor, combined with its rather unremarkable armament of 2 beam sabers, an optional head-mounted vulcan gun pod, and beam rifle, made the Mark II little more than a remake of the original RX-78-2 Gundam. As Anaheim Electronics continued its "Z Project" of next-generation mobile suit development for the AEUG, new items were needed to help boost the Mark II's performance. The first of these was the Flying Armor, a sub-flight system based on the new "waverider" technology being developed for the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam. The Flying Armor unit - built exclusively for the Mark II - allowed the Mark II to safely enter the Earth's atmosphere, and then act as a sub-flight unit, giving the Mark II unprecedented mobility in atmospheric combat. Later on, as Kamille moved on to pilot the new MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam and the Mark II was passed off to former Titans member-turned-AEUG pilot Emma Sheen, a second support system for the Mark II was developed: the FXA-05D G-Defensor, a space fighter-like vehicle that could combine with the Mark II into the Super Gundam, putting the Mark II on a more equal footing with the Titans' high-performance variable mobile suits/mobile armor. At the end of the Gryps Conflict in early UC 0088, the Mark II was heavily damaged. After being repaired on the Anaheim Electronics ship La Vie en Rose, the Mark II was put back into service until it was critically damaged almost a year later in Axis during the final battle of the First Neo Zeon War.
So let's have a look at this Gundam Mk. II Titans;
The box...
By the way, this Titans of mine is no longer in that "HD Blue-Ray" color scheme as I use lots of "Flat/Matte" top coat on it...
Articulation is quite good for this Version 2.0 frame... You can do plentiful of action pose - way much better than the older version of MG kits for the same model.
That thing on the head that looks like stereo earphone is the VCU-505EX-Gry/Ver.009 60mm 2-barrel vulcan pod, 1400 rounds total...
A customize water slide decals chosen by me...
38, if you're Chinese you know the word of it... For this Titans though, I decided to give it unit number 38...
Our favorite logo...
You can store the H-Baz-85-Gry/Ver.045 (Titans) 360mm Hyper Bazooka here on the rear skirt...
The Titans unit 38 with complete armaments...
Some action pose as usual...
BOWA*XBR-M-86-C2 (Titans) Beam Rifle...
XB-G-1048L (Titans) Beam Saber...
H-Baz-85-Gry/Ver.045 (Titans) 360mm Hyper Bazooka
And the most powerful weapon in the world... money... hahahaha...
The shield (RX*M-Sh-VT/S-00018) is quite unique as you can slide it down to make it shorter...
You can also stored 2 extra "E-Pac" (something like bullet refills) for the beam rifle on it...
The sliding shield...
Some additional photos on the knee joint system and the articulation/movement range...
The articulation on the elbow and arms...
The head/neck movement....
The waist/torso part doesn't offer much though....
And as a must for any MG kits... the openable hatch of the pilot cockpit...
You can see the pilot inside...
As a mass produced Gundam carrying lots of traditional design and cosmetics from the previous RX-78 Gundam, this RX-178 Gundam Mk. II does not offer more refreshing new looks apart from some noticeable changes or adjustment here and there though the color scheme of Gundam Mk. II Titans version is certainly striking and quite unique.
As a 1/100 MG GunPlaMoKits this model is certainly quite fun to build - just like the popular MG 1/100 Aile Strike Gundam, quite easy and quite fun with maybe just a few minor difficulties here and there but nothing serious like the 1/100 MG Sinanju Ver. Ka
Overall, if you're a big fan of UC time line and especially Z Gundam, you might want to add this model into your collection.
The Gundam Mk. II have 2 version - namely the AEUG and the Titans. Basically they're from the same frame and the color is the obvious differences between them though for some reason I tend to think that the color of Titans is more.... rock!!!
As a GunPlaMo kits though... Bandai produce 2 types from the Version 2.0 frame;
1/100 MG Gundam Mk-II Ver. 2.0 AEUG - 4,000 yen
1/100 MG Gundam Mk-II Ver. 2.0 Titans - 3,500 yen
1/100 MG RX-178 Gundam Mk-II AEUG Prototype Limited - 4,000 yen
1/100 MG RX-178 Gundam Mk-II Titans Prototype Limited - 4,000 yen
The first two are painted with standard color while the last two are painted with the so called "Blu-Ray High Definition" glossy color to celebrate the Blu-Ray" release of "Mobile Suit Z Gundam" Memorial Box BR Disc.
It's up to you to choose which one to pick - though they look slightly "different" from the outside, the internal frame are basically the same....
For those of you who have already watched both Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory and the Z Gundam anime you will basically understand about the existence of Titans during the Gryphios War.
But for those who don't, below is some information about the Titans;
The Titans are an elite counter-insurgency group formed by the Earth Federation in response to the disastrous events from Operation Stardust, where the Federation loses a third of its fleet during its naval review to a tactical nuclear attack perpetrated by radical Principality of Zeon loyalists. The Federation government decides to form an elite special operation unit whose sole purpose is to hunt down renegade Zeon supporters and anti-Federation insurgents. Proposed and founded by Jamitov Hymem, who uses the events of Operation Stardust to argue the safety of the Earth is paramount over the civil rights of its citizens, he essentially creates a fascist military force that has the ability to act outside the limit of the Federation's supervision. As time passes, more people line up to join the Titans, inspired by the group's "elite" status and their success in repelling anti-Federation movements.
The citizens of the Federation start to resent the Titans' methodology, and on July 31, U.C. 0085, a massive protest is held in Side 1's 30 Bunch (the 30th colony in the area) against the Titans' actions, but the demonstration soon turns into chaos, rioting breaking throughout the colony. After repeated failed attempts by Federation colonial forces to suppress the riots, the Titans are dispatched to put it to an end. Shutting off the colony's air supply, they proceed to pump the whole colony cylinder (about 20 miles (32 km) long and 4 miles (6.4 km) wide) with a lethal nerve gas called G3, killing the entire populace.
Due to the Titans' effective political censorship, most Federation council members are uninformed of the 30 Bunch Incident; the Federation military knew little about the events, apart from Side 1 being dubbed a "cursed sector". Any reference to the incident becomes taboo, even amongst the Titans (many new recruits, such as Emma Sheen, had no knowledge about it at all).
Despite the extreme scarcity of witnesses, the incident is known to some well-informed individuals who openly resents the Titans, such as Commodore Blex Forer of the Earth Federation Space Force, who goes on to form the Anti-Earth Union Group (AEUG). Many more dissident Federation citizens and soldiers on Earth and in space formed the Karaba resistance movement.
As the AEUG and Karaba begins to pose a serious threat to the Titans, Jamitov manages to convince the Federation council the Titans need for more power to deal with these "terrorist" insurgencies. The council willingly gives the Titans the resources they need, even the authority over some regular Federation military. Instead of resolving the issue, this only widens hostilities, ultimately resulting in the Gryps Conflict.
Unfortunately, the Titans' repressive policies are exposed to the public, when AEUG members and their Karaba allies seize the Federation's Congress Building in Dakar, televising to the world of the Titans' multiple atrocities. The Titans fleet is crippled at the end of the Gryps Conflict by the AEUG, using the Gryps Colony Laser the Titans constructed. Although most members of the Titans are killed, remnants regroup into a rebel group called New Desides and is eventually annihilated by the Earth Federation's Task Force Alpha in late U.C. 0087, as narrated in the novel Gundam Sentinel.
The Titans seem to have been based somewhat on the Schutzstaffel. Most notable are their black uniforms, elite recruiting procedures, and their horrible callousness towards human lives, which coincides with the subtle Nazi undertones in the Principality of Zeon in Mobile Suit Gundam. Also coincidental is that for an anti-spacenoid organization, the Titans seem to be very influenced by the late Principality, from basing their mobile suits on Zeon technology (namely the RMS-106 HiZack, which is directly influenced from Zeon's trademark Zakus) to practicing many of their forms of genocide, such as gassing colonies and the use of colony lasers. Even the Titans uniform possesses similarities to its Zeon counterpart, namely the ornate golden lining. Higher-ranking officer uniforms have a purple texture that looks suspiciously similar to a Zeon officer's cape.
In addition to the shared characteristics of the SS and Zeon, the group may be based on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Whereas the Titans are formed to fight Zeon remnants and any opposition to the Earth, NATO's original role was preventing the growth of the Soviet Union and communism in general in the West. Also, the Titans' policy and practice could be considered a futuristic, and by far, more brutal form of McCarthyism.
And below is some brief information about the Gundam Mk. II;
Shortly before the outbreak of the Gryphios Conflict, the Earth Federation Forces' Titans branch was hard at work developing its own mobile weapons in secret as part of its goal of subjugating the Earth Sphere. One of their earliest and more revolutionary designs was the RX-178 Gundam Mark II, based loosely on the well-known RX-78-2 Gundam from the One Year War. Although designed as a general purpose mobile suit, the Gundam Mark II was intended to be a highly capable unit under gravity and atmosphere - specifically, when fighting inside space colonies. Three prototype units were constructed at the Titans' base at the Gryps colonies, with plans to mass-produce the Mark II already in the works.
The main technical advancement introduced with the Mark II was the "movable frame" construction concept. Up until that point, almost all mobile suits were built on the "monocoque" construction concept - with the external armor serving as a "shell" that supported all of the thrusters, joints, hydraulics, fuel tanks, et cetera, that were stored inside. The movable frame concept turned this design philosophy around; the Gundam Mark II was built around a skeleton-like frame, with all thrusters, fuel tanks, weapons and so forth mounted on the frame, and minimal amounts of armor applied to those critical areas that needed protection. With the advent of portable beam weaponry, a mobile suit was typically destroyed with one or two well-placed shots regardless of its armor; therefore, it was decided that otherwise useless armor would be sacrificed for lighter weight - and thus greater speed and maneuverability. When word of the Mark II's development reached the underground Anti-Earth Union Group movement, its leaders decided to move openly to capture one of the prototype mobile suits. Not only would this serve to give the AEUG access to the movable frame technology, but it would allow them to openly prove to the entire Earth Sphere that the Titans - now developing new war technologies - had other plans for the otherwise independent-minded space colonists.
On March 2, UC 0087, AEUG Captain Quattro Bajeena (the incognito Zeon ace pilot Char Aznable of the One Year War) led a team of Rick Dias mobile suits into the Gryps II space colony to gather reconnaissance data and - if possible - capture one of the "black Gundams." Luck would be with Captain Quattro, as a young boy named Kamille Bidan would find himself in dire straights with the Titans... and being a mobile suit construction hobbyist, soon at the controls of one of the Gundams. With a newfound ally in the boy, Quattro would manage to capture all three Mark II prototypes. However, the Titans were not so willing to give up their prototypes, and the first days of the Gryps Conflict would focus on who would own the three mobile suits. In the end, the AEUG would come out the winner of the prizes: Unit 02 was heavily damaged in combat; Units 01 and 02 were disassembled and shipped off to the AEUG-supporting Anaheim Electronics Company's lunar factory for study; and Unit 03 would be repainted in a more traditional midnight-blue-on-white color scheme and remain in the hands of new AEUG recruit Kamille Bidan.
However, the AEUG soon found its newly-acquired Gundam Mark II to be outclassed by newer and more powerful variable-form mobile suits/mobile armor being developed and fielded by the Titans. One serious design flaw in the Mark II was its older-style titanium alloy/ceramic composite armor; this factor, combined with its rather unremarkable armament of 2 beam sabers, an optional head-mounted vulcan gun pod, and beam rifle, made the Mark II little more than a remake of the original RX-78-2 Gundam. As Anaheim Electronics continued its "Z Project" of next-generation mobile suit development for the AEUG, new items were needed to help boost the Mark II's performance. The first of these was the Flying Armor, a sub-flight system based on the new "waverider" technology being developed for the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam. The Flying Armor unit - built exclusively for the Mark II - allowed the Mark II to safely enter the Earth's atmosphere, and then act as a sub-flight unit, giving the Mark II unprecedented mobility in atmospheric combat. Later on, as Kamille moved on to pilot the new MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam and the Mark II was passed off to former Titans member-turned-AEUG pilot Emma Sheen, a second support system for the Mark II was developed: the FXA-05D G-Defensor, a space fighter-like vehicle that could combine with the Mark II into the Super Gundam, putting the Mark II on a more equal footing with the Titans' high-performance variable mobile suits/mobile armor. At the end of the Gryps Conflict in early UC 0088, the Mark II was heavily damaged. After being repaired on the Anaheim Electronics ship La Vie en Rose, the Mark II was put back into service until it was critically damaged almost a year later in Axis during the final battle of the First Neo Zeon War.
So let's have a look at this Gundam Mk. II Titans;
The box...
By the way, this Titans of mine is no longer in that "HD Blue-Ray" color scheme as I use lots of "Flat/Matte" top coat on it...
Articulation is quite good for this Version 2.0 frame... You can do plentiful of action pose - way much better than the older version of MG kits for the same model.
That thing on the head that looks like stereo earphone is the VCU-505EX-Gry/Ver.009 60mm 2-barrel vulcan pod, 1400 rounds total...
A customize water slide decals chosen by me...
38, if you're Chinese you know the word of it... For this Titans though, I decided to give it unit number 38...
Our favorite logo...
You can store the H-Baz-85-Gry/Ver.045 (Titans) 360mm Hyper Bazooka here on the rear skirt...
The Titans unit 38 with complete armaments...
Some action pose as usual...
BOWA*XBR-M-86-C2 (Titans) Beam Rifle...
XB-G-1048L (Titans) Beam Saber...
H-Baz-85-Gry/Ver.045 (Titans) 360mm Hyper Bazooka
And the most powerful weapon in the world... money... hahahaha...
The shield (RX*M-Sh-VT/S-00018) is quite unique as you can slide it down to make it shorter...
You can also stored 2 extra "E-Pac" (something like bullet refills) for the beam rifle on it...
The sliding shield...
Some additional photos on the knee joint system and the articulation/movement range...
The articulation on the elbow and arms...
The head/neck movement....
The waist/torso part doesn't offer much though....
And as a must for any MG kits... the openable hatch of the pilot cockpit...
You can see the pilot inside...
As a mass produced Gundam carrying lots of traditional design and cosmetics from the previous RX-78 Gundam, this RX-178 Gundam Mk. II does not offer more refreshing new looks apart from some noticeable changes or adjustment here and there though the color scheme of Gundam Mk. II Titans version is certainly striking and quite unique.
As a 1/100 MG GunPlaMoKits this model is certainly quite fun to build - just like the popular MG 1/100 Aile Strike Gundam, quite easy and quite fun with maybe just a few minor difficulties here and there but nothing serious like the 1/100 MG Sinanju Ver. Ka
Overall, if you're a big fan of UC time line and especially Z Gundam, you might want to add this model into your collection.
The Gundam Mk. II have 2 version - namely the AEUG and the Titans. Basically they're from the same frame and the color is the obvious differences between them though for some reason I tend to think that the color of Titans is more.... rock!!!
As a GunPlaMo kits though... Bandai produce 2 types from the Version 2.0 frame;
1/100 MG Gundam Mk-II Ver. 2.0 AEUG - 4,000 yen
1/100 MG Gundam Mk-II Ver. 2.0 Titans - 3,500 yen
1/100 MG RX-178 Gundam Mk-II AEUG Prototype Limited - 4,000 yen
1/100 MG RX-178 Gundam Mk-II Titans Prototype Limited - 4,000 yen
The first two are painted with standard color while the last two are painted with the so called "Blu-Ray High Definition" glossy color to celebrate the Blu-Ray" release of "Mobile Suit Z Gundam" Memorial Box BR Disc.
It's up to you to choose which one to pick - though they look slightly "different" from the outside, the internal frame are basically the same....
great review, rx-178 titans is one of my fave mecha. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Shaun, welcome to Shewsbury Land and thank you for the comments.... hope you visit us often... have a nice day...
ReplyDeleteYou put a bit of distance when spraying top coat, so that it only changes the texture, not the surface.
ReplyDelete