MaK

Hello Minus World! Today we’ll be looking at the box and contents of the 2008 release by Wave of the Gans in 1/20th scale from the Maschinen Krieger franchise by Kow Yokoyama. Wave began making Gans kits in 2004. That release and this one only differ in the decals and an english backstory on this release. Wave last rereleased the Gans in 2016 with a new box that aligns tall instead of wide alongside the new decals. The only mechanical variant released is the 2013 issued Luna Gans. Like most model kits, this kit is primarily comprised of plastic sprues; this time the sprues are from three Nitto molds: the Neu Spotter for the head, the Kröte for the legs, and the Gans for the body and weaponry There are some multimedia pieces of vinyl cables, metal springs, and metal rods for certain aspects – mostly the head details and leg mechanism. Being that these are redone Nitto molds, none of the plastic pieces are undergated and most parts are halved – thus they require significant seam welding. When it was released, the model kit retailed for 7,344 Yen and like most Ma. K. kits, was discontinued and sold out a few months after release. I was lucky enough to pick it up for a total of 78 USD after shipping and taxes, where as most currently are sold second-hand for around 120 USD before taxes and shipping.

This is a large crewless robot that, in 1/1 scale, comes to 3.3 metres. That brings this scaled model to 16.5 centimetres tall once complete. The design encompasses the standard for the franchise of unique organic shapes mixed with mechanical details inspired by World War Two era machinery, armour, and aircraft. This particular unit towers over most other commonly seen Ma. K. designs, especially the iconic AFS (Armoured Fighting Suit) and SAFS (Super Armoured Fighting Suit) development lines.

At the start of this article, you’ve see the front of the box with Mr. Yokoyama’s wonderful artwork made specifically for this release. Following will be the sides and back of the box, with some zoomed in pictures of the statistics and backstory’s engrish.

Next we’ll take a look inside the box! What you’ll find is sealed packages containing the eight plastic sprues, a cardboard backed set of vinyl cables and metal springs, metal rods of three different sizes (0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 mm in diametre), the decal sheet, the very popular pattern card with three different canon camos and decal reference, manual, and a correction.

Looking at the manual, you can see what I described earlier about the major portions of the model kit being comprised of large portions halved. This requires a lot of work to fix, but it is a standard modeling skill: seam welding. If you’re very precise, you can actually weld it with just glue and it’ll have a smooth surface, but with such large parts, you’re going to end up with areas that need puttied and sanded back. All of the plastic parts are molded in a silverish plastic that has a very nice hardness that makes sanding even rounded parts fairly easy with some extra care put in. If you would like to see the images in more detail, a hover expanding tool such as Imagus or opening the linked image will lead to the full photograph. None of the instructions are unclear if you’ve built a model kit before and reference the front of the manual for the limited code images included. The only area that caught me up was the back of the head – you have an option between two parts but by looking at them both you can see the same female port for part A5.

And here we have the opened parts for the kit. They can be seen in more detail in the same way as the manual. There is very little flash – excess plastic from molding errors that are usually thin flaps on the sides of parts, and there’s amazing details such as premade weld marks and rivets. The 6 panzerschrecks and 6 smoke launchers are excellently detailed with easy mid-firing posing possible with the former. There is an obvious lacking in the range of motion for some of the parts’ articulation, but the intricacy in having such articulation be in would be much higher difficulty than the kit asks you to have to build out of the box. The areas that could involve improvements in articulation are the head with it lacking any tilting, the ankles and hips would really benefit with swivelling, and the body’s “midsection” as it is just rotation on the z-axis.

Overall, this is a very nice kit that I’ve enjoyed building so far, and I will create a new post once I have finished snapping it and it’ll include my planned modification to the ankles to allow a more dynamic, spread out posture in both process and result. If anyone has interest in the Maschinen Krieger universe, feel free to contact me for suggestions and guidance to purchasing any. In terms of difficulty, this would be a model kit that I would recommend skill-wise to someone who has ventured into minor modifications, especially with drilling and pinning, and has a few kits under their belt.  I hope you enjoyed looking through this and am excited to share the rest of this progress with you, Minus World!