Review: MG Jesta Cannon (Daban)

Here we are. Another "P-Daban" kit to light a fire under Bandai's butt. The first direct P-Bandai bootleg was the Tallgeese III and now we have the Jesta Cannon.( btw. Do you want a review of the Tallgeese III? Put it in the comments.). Also Before anything else. BUY BANDAI when you can. It's worth the money and we owe them for coming up with the entire Gundam franchise and designing our beloved gunpla. :-)

The Jesta Cannon is part of the Tri-stars, a trio of Federation pilots serving under Bright Noa in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn,  that modeled themselves after the original  Black Tri-stars during the One Year War. 

The Tri-stars are basically a special ops unit using the RGM-96X Jesta which was designed to escort the Unicorn Gundam and to eliminate non-newtype enemies to produce situations that will result in the Unicorn to directly confront a newtype enemy. The Jesta is basically designed and built as an Old type killer to compliment the Unicorn's Newtype Destroy Mode.  

We have been talking about the Jesta so much that you might ask what's so special about the Jesta Cannon? Well it is essentially a heavy assault variant of the Jesta, meaning it has more firepower and more armor compared to the standard model.

Alright enough about Gundam Canon (lol. cannon pun) . After quite a hiatus here is our review of the MG Jesta Cannon by Daban.


The Box

Look at this box... For a grunt suit, its huge.  What else can I say.  It is a direct ripoff of the Jesta Cannon P-Bandai box with additional chinese writing at the bottom

The Kit

My God, does this kit look BADASS. I know that the normal Jesta is cool but the Jesta Cannon is such a badass kit.The broad shoulders, leg armor and the cannon add-on to the backpack really make it very, very macho.

Special Ops? Try Very Special Ops.

Sexy back. A seriously sexy back

Daban's Jesta Cannon comes with all the parts needed to build a full Jesta and an additional few runners of recolored armor so you could mix and match all you want.

Extras... A lot of Extras

The Jesta Cannon even has enough parts to assemble 2 beam rifles. The problem is the rifle needs to specific polycaps to fit the rifle accesories and it only has one set of them. It's no problem if you have super glue. lol.

Pew Pew Pew

The Negatives
Let me be blunt. The plastics of the Jesta are softer than other recent daban MG kits I have assembled in the past. Smaller parts and some joints tend to stress mark and break.

Be careful with this hip joint. I had to glue them because it broke after I tried posing the Jesta

Did Daban change their plastics recently? I honestly don't know. but I feel that it has become a little bit softer.

Another Gripe I have are the wrist and ankle polycaps. I know partly it's because of Bandai's design but honestly, Trying to pose my Jesta Cannon is a pain in the ass. Then ankle joints are loose and it tends to have a difficult time supporting the top heavy Jesta Cannon. While the wrist tends to pop out at whim, I seriously wanted to glue them in place.


Verdict

As a whole, this kit is pretty good but it is definitely not Daban's best work. The plastic quality feels softer than previous kits and that is a little bit disappointing because I used to think that Daban is the benchmark for plastic quality for Bootleg manufacturers, but this kit has made me doubt that assumption of mine.

The details of the kit are a good reciprocation of Bandai's mold. No complaints here.

The extra armor parts and weapon runner are a good bonus for us buyers.

While I cannot say that this kit is a must buy it is a solid copy.

75/100


Author's Suggestion

If you really want a Jesta Cannon. I strongly suggest getting a Bandai Jesta then getting this kit as a conversion kit. You would appreciate the joints of the Bandai. It would be a lot more poseable and you would not be concerned too much about the joints suddenly giving out.

I hope you guys enjoy my review of the Jesta Cannon. Oh btw. Please subscribe to my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/thelatejuanmiguel we would be putting up video reviews very soon. Thank you and have a happy holiday.

Review: Super Vehicle 001 (Billion Spark Craftsmanship)

Hello guys, I'm the new reviewer for Tabletop Newtype. First of all, allow me to introduce myself, I am Cat_Casval. I have been building model kits for a couple of years now, with my brother. I started my modeling hobby from a bunch third party kits, then got some Bandai and even Tamiya airplane models.


So with that out of the way, I'd like to introduce the Super Vehicle 001 M.S. Evolve by Billion Spark Craftsmanship.






It's basically the tank you ride while playing Metal Slug (a really reaaally old game).


After a quick google search of the company, I discovered something really important. It is very hard to read Chinese if you don't know the language.

Kidding aside, the company is almost unknown, the only thing I found was the slug flyer. The sv-001 original design was copied from the manufacturer "Wave". They say it's a 1/35 on the kit but the original is 1/24. Honestly, I don't really know. It's from a game with deformed characters.

Now onto the box.






It's a very good box.


Inside the box are 13 or so runners that are very neatly packed by two's. A thin manual. Some stickers. And.... screws?


Whenever I see screws I faint.

THE KIT

In all honesty, its a very nice kit. Some tight pegs here and there. An irritatingly loose gatling gun cover.


But overall a good build

EXCEPT FOR ONE THING. I don't know of it's me or the kit itself. There's this one part "C2-3" that always gets in the way of the armor.


You could not put it together with this part. Plus it keeps falling off the frame. So I just threw it away. No harm done to the kit.



Another thing that's nice is the inner frame. It's cool and kinda functioning (some pistons work but are just there for design purpose unlike the barbatos' frame pistons). Why would i need to have a really nice inner frame, you ask? If it's just gonna be covered by the armor?

Lo and behold, it also comes with clear armor! Im not really a fan of clear armor on kits. I would like to think that the inner frame should always be hidden, its just for the eyes of the builder. So I didn't build it. That's just me. But I'll admit, it is really cool.




PLASTIC QUALITY

It's thick but surprisingly good. Not really Bandai good but not t.t.hongli bad either. It's not prone to stress marks. The only bad thing is the plated parts. You need some touch up paint especially for the search light on top of the tank. It's the only shiny silver part that is really exposed. But overall good plastic.




POSABILITY

At first, I thought it would be like a brick. No moving parts, no actuation. But surprisingly it moves.

Well… the parts move. And it has a stand included(this is where the screws are for... *phew*). So posability? Just like a tank.


MY THOUGHTS

Movement: The tracks don't rotate.

Extras: There are 2 weapon cases and a gas can in the kit. But you would need to paint them. The stickers can only do so much.

Assembly: i almost crushed this kit trying to assemble the inner frame. It's like merging a bunch of parts from the right frame to a bunch of parts from the left frame.

The tracks again: you WILL assemble 42 of these individual tank threads. 42!!!




VERDICT

Do you like ammo boxes and gas tanks? Do you like cool cartoon looking tanks?
Do you love the nostalgia that Metal Slug brings? If so get one. If not, still get one. It's a cool little model kit for your display cabinet/office table .

One is enough for me. I won't get two.


Score 75/100