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: Strike Noir (Dragon Momoko)

Here's another kit coming from Dragon Momoko. Yet another version of the strike. Don't get me wrong it looks great and all but what's new with this one.



The Strike Noir is one of the main suits used in Gundam Seed Stargazer. It’s basically a specialized Strike E. with a more melee/close ranged IWSP pack.


For those who don’t know, Dragon Momoko a manufacturer of third party kits. The designs they use are redesigns of Bandai so the details of the details of their kits are different from Bandai’s (more on that later). Did they bring their “A” game with this kit? So with that in mind, here's the review of Dragon Momoko's Strike Noir. 




THE BOX







Again with the same white cover. The same white manual. Even the same brown box that we know and love. It comes with 33 runners, carefully placed in 9 plastic packaging. The manual has another momoko trademark, the unusual, unexplainable names of the runner (like pj2 or xb?? Like what the heck?) Other than that it's more or less the same as the other strike. It also comes with the usual sticker and waterslide decals. 

THE KIT

Sharpen your hobby knives cause yo gonna do a lot of shavin'. The Noir keeps its signature Dragon Momoko tight fitting pegs. Almost all polycaps needed it. Some armor panels (like the back armor, elbow, details on the wing) also like to pop out. Nothing out of the ordinary for a third party kit.

BUT THE DETAILS… Incredible work from DM for the details. Really really nice. It's all I can say about it. Really good job. Aside from that, it comes with 2 bendy wire for the rocket anchor. But I'm not really a fan of that. 

PLASTIC

Good plastic quality. It's not coated so awesome for straight build. Not really daban standard, but really far from hongli. 

POSABILITY

Very posable. Arms doesn't go falling off. Make sure you hear a snap when fitting the legs, so it won't go falling(just like the dm tallgeese). Overall good posable kit. 

MY THOUGHTS

Shoulder armor is hard to snap. Results into stress marks.

Be very careful with the articulated hands. It is prone to tearing when you're not careful. (I lost a finger and the connecting joint to the gunpla gods)

Non articulated hand have problems holding the handguns.

 Super tight fit when changing the hands. 

VERDICT

It's a cool looking gundam. DM really did a great redesign with this kit. The tight fit issue is not really a big problem. Overall, awesome kit. Get this kit! It's worth the moolah.

85/100 

peace