Kit Review: HGIBO - Gundam Asmoday

The 32nd Demon of the Ars Goetia
The Demon King of Lust – Asmoday

One of the 72 Gundam Frames built for the Calamity War 300 years ago, the Gundam Asmoday (Asmodeus) is the second mobile suit whose namesake is a “King” (the other was the ASW-G-01 Bael). The Asmoday is also one of the only Gundam Frame that retain its original appearance and weapons from the Calamity War. Appeared in the “infamous” mobile game Urdr Hunt, we still haven’t been able to see the Gundam in action (maybe one day). But that doesn’t stop Bandai from releasing a model kit of the suit, which is one of the more unique suits in the series

– Info:
High Grade Gundam Asmoday
Series: Gundam IBO Urdr Hunt
Price: 2,090 yen
Release date: April 2022

– Design: If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen pretty much ,well, half of them. The Gundams in IBO all possess the same frame on the inside, but each one has unique armor on various places on the suit, mostly the shoulders and legs. The Asmoday follow the Astaroth’s design with more blocky armors than curvy. If there’s an absolutely unique point to the Gundams in IBO, it’s their feet – the Asmoday also has quite a unique feet with a very industrial blocky style. There are some bright green neon parts throughout the body to accentuate some of the details (but some are stickers regrettably). The Asmoday has a relatively balance proportion with the Tonfas on the arm helping it bulk up a little bit. However, it having no backpack like the Marchosias or Astaroth Origin really makes it a missed opportunity.

– Build quality: If you’ve built one, you’ve built them all. The Asmoday is a standard IBO Gundam Frame build with a VERY loose and frustrating chest and torso. The rest are very good per Bandai snap-fit quality. There are not a lot of big nubs to clean and most of them are on the side seams so you can fix them up relatively easy. And of course, the massive sticker sheet. I recommend only putting the flat ones and the rings around the Tonfas. Do ignore the leg stickers as well as the multi-surfaced ones, those are unnecessary and will actually make your kit looks worse.

– Articulation: The Asmoday follow the typical school of “lots of range but the armor got in the way”, luckily, it’s only for the lower part of the suit. The thigh armor can get in the way if you want to do some spreads, but you can wiggle it through. Arms are double jointed and can bend for more than 90-degree, unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the legs. The bulky thruster on the back got in the way of the joints and the knee can only go a bit less than 90-degree.

The Asmoday also has the exact same problem with the chest as other Gundam Frames. It’s not very solid and the slightest ab-crunch can basically undo the whole structure. So it’s very tricky, and the ab-crunch isn’t that far anyway. Bandai doesn’t seem to want to fix this problem and it has been the Gundam’s most critical weakness. The joints will deteriorate after a few months and leave the chest very loose. To be honest, if you can, just put some super glue on to tighten the joint. Otherwise, it can hold its own decently and perform some badass poses.

– Gimmick: This is where the kits shine! The Asmoday has some of the most unique kit even amongst the other Gundam series. There’s not many mobile suit that uses a pair of physical Tonfas in Gundam before (Unicorn does have its beam tonfa but it doesn’t use them very often). The Grand Tonfas on the Asmoday’s arm work similarly to DaiGuard’s Knot Punisher or Big-O’s Sudden Impact. According to the lore, the Tonfas can be rotated front-to-back, but for the kit, you have to detach the module and re-attach it manually (which is fine really). The Grand Tonfas are really unique and looks very cool. Only downside is: you have to replace the tonfa’s tip with the extended ones if you want to display them in deployed mode, the small tips is quite, well, small and can be easily lost if you’re not careful so prepare a ziplock bag.

Another is the Gigant Javelin, which is very reminiscent to the Astaroth Rinascimento’s Bastard Chopper, minus the folding part, but with the additional wire launcher. The wire is your standard plastic wire like other HG kits like the 00 7S etc…

The next one is the feet (told you the feet was unique). The feet can fold down to become some sort of grappling claw. Basically similar to the G-Else and Hugo, the claw can grab an enemy and drive its weapon into them. The space between the claws are quite big, so you can definitely fit another MS in there, especially IBO ones with their small waist.

The last one is weapon storage. The Asmoday can store all of its weapons on the suit, which is nice so we dont have to worry about losing weapons (but we still have to keep a ziplock accessories bag anyway. The weapon hook on the back is meant for the gun, but you can store the Javelin there too.

– Accessories: The King of Hell comes with
+ X2 Grand Tonfa parts
+ X1 Gigant Javelin
+ X1 Rifle
+ X2 weapon-holding hands.

One of the missed opportunity is the Asmoday has 4 grenades on its hip, but they are attached to the side skirt and there’s no separate ones for it, so you cant use one of the more unique weapons in IBO but can only watch it stick to the suit’s hip.

Overall: The Asmoday is a pretty unique design with very interesting gimmick and accessories. Its major downside is pretty much the same as any other IBO Gundams with the weak waist and chest and a really icky sticker sheet. However, its playability is insanely high with a very unique set of accessories. Although there are some missed opportunities from Bandai, the Asmoday is one of the more fun-to-handle IBO designs with a lot of possibility for some creative display. This and the Marchosias are some of the more interesting designs and IBO for sure.

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