HG Origin Guntank Early Type

 

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Story Time
When Gundam The Origin was first announced, I tried to follow the manga on Comic Walker. However, this was hard while I was in the middle of the ocean and the app did not work well in it’s offline mode. When I heard they were releasing an anime, I was hoping they would cover the entire manga. As many of you may already know, it does not do this. When my brother started collecting all the hard cover copies of the manga, I never found the motivation to look through it, even though it is probably the best rendition of 0079 to date. Through all of this however, I found myself mesmerized at the kits being released, especially the Guntank Early Type.
While I was out to sea during the fourth quarter of 2015, a good friend of mine purchased this kit as either a birthday gift, or a Christmas gift to me. I am not sure which one of those two it was for, but I am grateful either way. As with the Dom R35, this was one of the many kits waiting for me at home.

Background
The Guntank Early Type is a prototype mobile suit that only appears in the first episode of Gundam The Origin. It was used as an escape vehicle by none other than the young Casval Rem Deikun, also known as Char Aznable. That is about all I could find out (my brother says I need to read Volume V in order to do proper research on the lore of this mobile suit).

Chassis and Treads
Although I was excited by this kit, the one thing that confused me the most was the treads. Why the kit gave the ability to move the tread housing and articulate them as arms did not make sense. I can only guess that this allows for the least amount of moving parts while allowing a little play to simulate shocks. Beyond that, I feel that feature is quite useless.
The Chassis, due to the lack of moving parts, is quite solid. On top of this, the details like the open vents in the aft end, and the pilot hatch on the forward end gives this mobile suit a post war tank aesthetic.

Upper Body
To further the development of the post war tank chassis, the chest is needlessly extended quite a bit. This twin cannon turret reminds me of a Flakpanzer Gepard (A german anti-aircraft cannon tank developed in the 60s).
And of course, this would not be a Guntank, let alone, a mobile suit without the head and the arms. The head is mounted on a standard socket poly-cap, as opposed to the twin ball joint poly-cap typical of most high grade head joints. This actually allows the head to have more surface area on the joint allowing for a very solid grip which in turn makes the head feel very solid. However, this is not carried over to the arms.

Disappointment
As I was building this kit in order of the instructions, everything about this kit was amazing. Even the shoulder sockets were awesome. However as soon as I got to the forearms, I was severely disappointed. If you even slightly bump the forearms, you will knock them off. If this a kit breaking flaw? No, but it is disappointing to see such a solid build up until this point.

Armaments
Twin cannons, twin hand guns: these are the weapons housed by the Guntank. There are no shields, there are no melee weapons. Of these, the shoulder mounted cannons are my favorite. It has been quite some time since I had seen what seems to be dynamic hydraulics in a kit, and it especially is rare or maybe even non-existent in the high grade level. The quad guns mounted on the hands are only what I can imagine as mid ranged rapid fire machine guns. I have always hated how the hands were not actually depicted as rotating barrels like a minigun, but just four separate machine guns. Despite my opinion on the matter, they were well thought out. However, as mentioned before, the forearms like to fall off with the slightest touch.

Overall Opinion
As mentioned multiple times, the forearms like to fall off quite easily. This would normally make me shy away from a kit. However, the rest of it felt so good that it kind of drowns out the terrible flaw in the hands. Maybe because the kit is not based on those hands that I can forgive it every time I pull the arms off. Another thanks to the friends who thought of me while I was out to sea, hope this allows you to throw some more money at Gunpla, and thanks for reading this far or at least enjoying the photos.