Kit review: MG 1/100 – Jegan
Simplicity is best, but a bit of sleekness is good too! The Mobile Suit that evolved from the GM line and became an iconic Earth Federation grunt suit in the Universal Century timeline – the Jegan. Best known for participating in the Axis Shock incident during Char’s Counterattack, the Jegan is the epitome of a simple design with its own unique charm that it took Bandai 30 years to come up with a Master Grade for the kit. Thanks to our sponsor ANIME TOWN for supplying this kit.
– Info:
MG 1/100 Jegan
Series: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack
Price: 4,000 yen / 75.95 AUD
Release date: July 2018
Order your Jegan here.
MG 1/100 Jegan
Series: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack
Price: 4,000 yen / 75.95 AUD
Release date: July 2018
Order your Jegan here.
– Design: The Jegan – as mentioned – is a straight upgrade from the GM. Basically everything the GM was, the Jegan improved upon it. The head looks much more angular and modern. The chest protrudes more with more details, the shoulders also has more edges to it rather than just the rectangular shape of the GM. The thighs and lower legs still has the similar curvy proportions, but much larger and the feet is a bit more pointy. The arms are actually quite similar to the GM, keeping the simplicity of the design. The Jegan has an light green color, a bit more green than the GM with red panels straight in the middle to break up the color palette a bit. Overall, you can tell it’s a firework MS but modern enough to not be a goof on the battlefield.
– Build quality: Since the MG Zaku from Seed, grunt MS have been quite simple to build, not much more complicated than an FM 1/100. The Jegan has a fairly simple frame, not as complicated as some older MG like 00 or SEED. Considering it’s a pretty stock standard MS with no ground-breaking gimmicks, this isn’t a huge issue. The build is still enjoyable and things held up pretty well. The only part where it might be a tiny bit tricky is the waist piece. You might accidentally let it slip out of the chest piece and it would take a bit of wiggle to get it back again. Not a huge deal. It’s also similar to new MG that it doesn’t need a lot of stickers. The markings are all optional and up to your preferences.
– Articulation: Classic UC grunt suit are quite…well disproportionately stocky. The Jegan is no exception, the large chest piece and big backpack didn’t leave much room for wiggle. However, Bandai’s engineering still shine through with some very decent movement range. Of course, the best areas are still the shoulders/arms. They are virtually free to move in all direction and can pull off everything you can imagine. The ab-crunch is still there, but it’s easy to make the torso piece slip out if you go all the way. As mentioned, it is easily fixable.
The limiting part is the hip joints and feet. Due to the stocky design, there’s not much room to wiggle. The thigh swivel is only a bit because the armor got in the way. Personally, I think Bandai could have altered the design a bit to create a much more posable joint. The feet is pretty much the same as most other UC suits: giant shoes. Not much we can do on that front. Overall, you can still do many good poses for a grunt MS.
The limiting part is the hip joints and feet. Due to the stocky design, there’s not much room to wiggle. The thigh swivel is only a bit because the armor got in the way. Personally, I think Bandai could have altered the design a bit to create a much more posable joint. The feet is pretty much the same as most other UC suits: giant shoes. Not much we can do on that front. Overall, you can still do many good poses for a grunt MS.
– Gimmicks: The only gimmick worthy of mentioning on the kit is the beam saber storage on the hips and the launcher pod on the hip that can open up. Otherwise, it is pretty much a normal MS.
– Accessories: The MG Jegan came with the most stock standard armaments possible:
x 1 Beam Rifle
x 1 Missile shield: the shield has 2 two-tube missile pods but no effect parts (of course)
x 1 Beam Saber
x 1 trigger hand (for the right arm)
x 2 closed-fist hands
x 2 weapon-holding hands
x 2 open-palm hands
It is a very basic kit in terms of overall value.
x 1 Beam Rifle
x 1 Missile shield: the shield has 2 two-tube missile pods but no effect parts (of course)
x 1 Beam Saber
x 1 trigger hand (for the right arm)
x 2 closed-fist hands
x 2 weapon-holding hands
x 2 open-palm hands
It is a very basic kit in terms of overall value.
–> Overall: It took Bandai a while to make this very cult-famous grunt suit (probably due to lack of overall interest). But they did make a pretty good kit. Although there are several parts that can benefit from a slightly design change, and more accessories would be a great addition since the normal Jegan is pretty bare-bone. It would be nice if they make it a Jegan/Stark Jegan set. But alas, the MG Stark Jegan is obviously a P-Bandai (and many other Jegan variants). In conclusion, it’s a decent kit, but compared to many other MGs before and after, this kit isn’t very exciting. But I’m sure many grunt enthusiast would love to have this kit in their collection.
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