1. Great proportions for the Gouf, new mould compared to the now-ancient HGUC Gouf and a slight improvement over the HGUC Gouf Custom. Would fit in nicely when posed beside the other newer HGUC Zeon kits such as the F2, high mobility Zakus, even the Kampfer. Looks nothing like the goofy HGBF-line. Note that I only used 1 barrel for the finger cannons so that they don't look like cartoony giant ape palms.

2. Articulation is very impressive for a Zeon kit, where range of movement of the joints is often restricted by the curvy, chunky armour. The ball joint shoulders allow crazy poses, but they tend to pop out very easily. The superglue trick will help a lot.

3. The extra fuel pods and booster pack are nice addons, which you can either use it for the Gouf to make it more badass, or use it with other HGUC kits. However, it can only be used with newer HGUC (or rather HGBF) kits. None of the connectors provided fit with my other older HGUC kits. I pose the fuel tanks pointing upwards and pretend that they are cannons. They are not able to swivel and point forward like the Guncannon though, but again I'd like to pretend they can.

4. This kit doesn't come with any interesting decals, which is a shame. A couple of squad numbers, a splash of Zeon emblems, some warning/caution signs here and there would make it really sweet-looking. The grey stickers for the forearm cannon/shield attachment is somewhat disappointing - they fit well, but would have been better had they been actual grey bits.

5. The whip is nicely done. Lightweight, flexible, yet fairly sturdy and maintains its fluid shape. Unlike the MG 2.0's whip which is a PITA to assemble and looks funny due to too many unnecessary individual parts. If only it came with transparent orange swappable parts to represent the heated version - could have been easily done since this kit already comes with an orange parts for the blades.

6. Sexy transparent orange blades are sexy. The long handles and palm cannons would however limit posing with the hands and this unfortunately means it'll also be hard for the R35 to carry other weapons e.g. guns and bazookas with the palm cannons/shield attached to its forearm.

7. The two shades of blue are too similar, in fact most people wouldn't even realise there's a difference. I certainly didn't until I started building this.

8. Things to watch out for when building this:
(i) If you're painting the monoeye, watch out. The Gouf head design has a pointy bit in the middle which will scratch the monoeye, destroy the paint, and smear the head armour if the paint is too thick. I discovered this the hard way.
(ii) The part that holsters the sword handles clip into the calves loosely by friction alone. Which means they pop out very easily and if you're not careful, you may accidentally lose it. Luckily they aren't exactly too tiny.
(iii) The orange blades don't connect to the sabre handles tight enough. Surprisingly this is an ongoing issue with Bandai's newer HGUC kits - the HGUC V2 gundam has the same problems with its beam sabres/fan/shield.
(iv) The skirt armours are connected in a unique fashion to allow better articulation, but they can pop out with excessive waist rotation and once they're out, they are quite painful to reassemble.

9. Should you buy this kit? For its relatively cheap price, hell yes. With this kit, there's probably no reason to choose the normal Gouf unless you truly prefer the older, original design. As for the Gouf Custom, it is at least unique enough with its bespoke chaingun and softer baby-blue armour to justify a separate purchase. It's also a fairly easy and quick build since it only took me around 3 hours to complete this - perfect for a killing off a lazy, boring afternoon.

Next up, the great white behemoth which as you can see from the Gouf pics, is lurking on the side.

1. This is probably the best looking Gundam gunpla of all times. Perfect proportions, accurate colours (for some reason the purple appears blue when photographed, other blogs/review sites have the same issue), lots of warning/caution decals which don't overwhelm the kit (unlike most ver Katoki MGs), huge size which towers over most other kits, actual bird-head rear stabiliser instead of a puny tail, gigantic fuel tanks, and it looks absolutely majestic when posed in the air. Makes you wonder why Bandai even bothered with the scrawny old MG Hi Nu back in 2007.

2. Despite its bulk, the articulation is very impressive. Don't expect gymnast-like flexibility, but all the joints bend the way you would expect them to do. The exception would be the head where the pointy cheeks are impeded by the tall collars. One major design flaw would be the feet - for some reason the weight of the HiNu is supported on the midfeet instead of on the heels, and given its heavy backpack it tends to drop backwards.

3. The stand is an ingenious way to solve the back-heavy problem. It acts as a third-leg and hence making it very stable, no way this thing is going to topple regardless of its pose, as long as it is on its feet. The RG Justice utilises this too but having a transparent stand in the HiNu makes it less visible. My only worry is the additional grey piece that shoves in between the backpack and torso - it tends to pry open the attachment and separates them. I left that piece out and now my stand is only attached onto the backpack. The old HiNu has additional arms that swivel out from the Amuro insigna base which is missing in this newer HiNu - not sure why they were omitted but sure would be sweet if they were included.

4. These new MG manipulators look PG-like, but in reality they are hopeless. Flimsy, fragile, and loose - the weight of any weapon placed in the palm will overwhelm the wrist joint which is only held by minute friction, leaving the HiNu with droopy hands. The old Gundam 2.0/Sinanju/Zaku 2.0 palms work the best and look great - stick with those, Bandai.... not these crappy ones, and certainly not the troublesome, swapping ones on the MG Wing line.

5. The right forearm gatling is a nice surprise, but I'm not sure why Bandai moulded this white. There's lots of grey plastic around and it's part of the internal frame, so why not make it in grey? The beam sabre in the left forearm container also tends to fall out easily, make sure the lid is closed properly, or use some blu tac.

6. Waterslide decals = Pain the ass. So many of the smaller ones have already peeled off, and hence I've elected to leave the fin funnels alone. It's probably the only way to reproduce the purple gradient effect on the funnels, although once applied I'm not quite sure how you are going to manipulate/pose them without destroying the decals. For other parts e.g. warning/caution labels and shield/armour emblems where you'd expect more frequent contact, dry transfer decals would work better. In fact I wouldn't even mind if clear stickers were provided given how thin yet highly-detailed recent clear stickers have been.

7. The funnels, which are almost the exact same replica as the Nu ver Ka's, should have come with stiffer joints, e.g. ABS joints. PS plastic just isn't strong enough to keep them in shape when they are deployed, and in no time they would all be drooping.

8. Speaking of joints, I was quite concerned about the strength of the major joints e.g. shoulders and hips in particular while assembling this, as they were all utilising polycaps instead of the stiffer ABS. But luckily the polycap joints end up being extremely sturdy, yet flexible enough to not give you fears of snapping when posing the kit. Great job here by Bandai.

9. I'm not a fan of the head/chest/backpack attachment. It's a necessity due to the LED gimmick, but it makes the top part of the HiNu too easily detached. Not a good thing when you have an extremely heavy backpack. I might glue the whole thing together some time later since I'm not going to use any LEDs.

Things to watch out for:
(i) The mouth vents are very fragile - I accidentally crushed mine while assembling the face, now my HiNu only has two mouth vents instead of the trademark three.
(ii) The white circular thrusters on the arms/legs/pelvis are really tiny - You don't get extras either so don't lose them.
(iii) The white rectangular vents on the shoulder armours can pop off easily - glue them in.

Conclusion - if you can afford its pricetag and have enough shelf space, this is a must buy. It's drop-dead gorgeous and design-accurate, it's highly detailed yet not too complicated to build, and it'll easily become the most prominent gunpla in your display cabinet. One thing that's still missing in every HiNu gunpla be it HG/MG/RD - no one has actually produced it's mega launcher which is attached to Ra Cailum. In fact I've never seen a picture of it, but I imagine it probably looks similar to Hyaku Shiki's mega cannon.

Overall I'd love to give it a perfect-10 score, but ultimately it's not flawless.

What next? Well, the Nightingale already got a 1/100 release and I doubt it'll ever get an MG. There's not many other mechas in Belthorchika's Children left - the Psycho Doga comes to mind but probably isn't popular enough (although somehow the Geara Doga scored an MG release). A HGUC version in this design would be sweet-as, in fact I'd buy it if it gets released as long as it doesn't get dumbed down like the old HGUC HiNu with monotone weapons and only 2 functional funnels.

And finally, where is my HGUC Nightingale, Bandai?