Any time I try an IBO HG, I'm always worried about the strength of the build. While there are a couple weak joints in this kit, you can get away with them in most poses. In the arms, the wrists and the peg between the upper-arm and shoulder are very floppy. While this means it can't hold the lance in one hand, if you make it use both hands, the shape of the lance will hold the wrists and arms in place, so that looseness becomes less of an issue. The one joint that's a serious issue is the swivel in the chest as the weight of the backpack is always pulling on it and making the model lean backwards. The unique design of this swivel makes it a bit hard to tighten too unfortunately. Then, aside from the joints, the biggest issue is the lack of color accuracy in arms, resulting in some complicated stickers that are meant to wrap around the entire part. While this is a shame, it looks presentable without the color correction. Though, overall, this is such a unique and dynamic design that I'm still in love with this kit. The sub-arms on that back are incredibly cool and they're made with rock-solid construction. I'm torn between giving this 5 stars or 4 stars, while I love this kit's aesthetics, the loose chest is really unfortunate and took a bit of effort to tighten. Though I still 100% recommend this kit as it's likely my favorite IBO kit, it looks incredible and has a surprising amount of gimmicks, so it was absolutely worth it for me.

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When it comes to thickening joints, you can always just use super glue or thin paint, but this product's unique strengths are its speed and its low commitment. When it comes to just tightening a single part, it's nice to just apply a quick strip of this rather than wait hours for glue to properly dry. It may not be as strong as a layer of glue, but it gives you much more immediate results. Though my favorite thing about this product is the ease at which it can be removed if tightening a joint creates connection problems. I specifically got these for the recent Witch From Mercury kits, which use a lot of c-clips which could theoretically be tightened with glue or paint, but are a bit dainty, so I didn't want to risk having to sand glue off of them. If you have a specific problem where you want a less permanent solution to joint tightening, I'd absolutely recommend this product.

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This was my first SD kit, and I bought it with the assumption that it would be a fun, simple build between more complicated builds. I really regret that decision because it took a lot of time and effort to make it look presentable. Aside from the chest and v-fin, everything on this kit is made of either white or grey plastic, so almost all of the color comes from stickers. I wouldn't mind the stickers as much, but many of them are made to be sandwiched around parts, creating gaps or creases that make it really obvious it's covered in stickers. I knew about the amount of stickers and still bought it with the assumption it would be easy to paint, but I didn't consider how the small number of parts meant that every part is covered in folds and contours that made masking a nightmare. I spent more time applying masking tape to this kit than I spent actually painting it. It took weeks of on-and-off work for a very lackluster final result. Only buy this kit if you are familiar with SDs and how they're designed. However, if you're expecting something nice looking out of the box, spend your money elsewhere.

I absolutely love the design of this mobile suit and it is rendered in impressive detail for a high grade. There's a lot of plastic in this box, even for its price, making it significantly heavier than all of my other high grades. The majority of its parts are also much smaller than most high grade builds, giving it an impressive amount of detail and color separation. There's so many accessories strapped to this build that it could've ended up looking busy and unfocused, but it manages to have the perfect amount of complexity while still striking a memorable silhouette. Though, being such a complicated design, you're still given a few dozen stickers to make it entirely screen-accurate. This design is one that would be really difficult to make entirely accurate in 1/144 scale and the designers did an impressive job even if it will take you a good amount of effort to make it 100% faithful. The articulation also surprised me a bit. Being so heavy and bulky, I expected it to either be inflexible or floppy, but it confidently holds its weight and the only part that's gotten loose is the wrist after I replaced the hand part multiple times. The elbows and knees each have two points of articulation, though their full range of motion is blocked by the armor. The waist has a ball joint too, but there is an armor part that keeps it stiff. Overall, sturdiness seems to have been prioritized over articulation, but it still delivers in both categories. Like mentioned earlier, this kit may take a bit of extra effort to get everything you want out of it, but the final result is dynamic and eye-catching. This is a must-try if you see it in stock.

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Overall, this is a really good kit. The Witch From Mercury high grade line has been raising the bar for HG kits and the Michealis has many of the things that make the other WFM kits great, but there are some aspects of it that rub me the wrong way. This is a poly cap-free build that feels remarkably solid no matter how rough you are with it. Though while constructed well, there are some design decisions I'm not a fan of. The feet are weirdly small and lack the heel part the previous Grassley kits had, which makes it really hard to find standing poses that are sturdy while still looking natural. You're definitely going to want to get a stand for this (especially because the included stand is not designed for holding up the main body). As far as articulation goes, it's obvious they put a lot of effort into it and it shows, but there's only two points of articulation in the torso, and they're both really high in the chest. This makes it really easy to make nice looking forward-leaning poses, but you can't do much else with the torso and achieving any contrapposto is hard. I'm also a little disappointed by the kit only including one hand part, especially when its a holding hand with nothing to put in it. I feel like they could've thrown in another hand when this kit has one less wrist than most and some other WFM kits in this price-range have extra hands. TLDR: I still recommend this kit, all of the Witch from Mercury HGs have been exceptionally good, but personally I feel like the other WFM kits in this price-range have a little more going on with them.

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I fell in love with this design the first time I saw it and I'm glad to say that this high grade did it justice. The long, angular silhouette on this kit makes it so that it looks dynamic in basically every pose you put it in. I take this kit off the self like once a week to take new photos of it because there's so many little moving parts in it that I'm still finding new ways to display it. This kit has a polycap-free build and uses some unique construction that makes it feel rock-solid for the most part. The only part of the construction that feels questionable is in the backpack. There are 4 c-clip connections in the backpack that look a bit dainty, but so far they've only fallen off when I've tried posing the kit. They hold everything up and stay still when left on the shelf. I would just say to be careful with those parts and re-enforce them if they bother you. Ultimately though, the backpack is so stylish and multi-faceted that I don't mind putting in a little extra work to display it. Aesthetically, this kit is really impressive even when snap-built. Almost all of the plastic is color-accurate, most of the stickers are reflective ones that are covered by clear plastic parts, which makes them look a lot more natural than most high grade stickers. The lack of exterior stickers also means there's no eye sticker that most Gundam-style kits have. Some people might be disappointed that there's no shine to the eyes, but the final effect is so impressive that I do not miss that detail at all. The plastic itself is really impressive too, the dark-grey armor has a bit of gloss to it that contrasts really nicely against the more matte light-grey interior parts. It actually took me a few weeks to panel-line this because it looks so nice out of the box that I didn't feel any rush to start detailing it. While I was building this, all I could think was how I wish the kits I built as a kid were this good. I'm so excited to know that people getting into Gunpla for the first time will get to start with kits that are this visually and structurally impressive. This kit has immediately become my favorite child on my shelf and I'm sure it'll stay that way for a long time.

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