HGUC GM III

Hello everyone! At the request of a friend, I am reviewing the HGUC GM III from Bandai. So, not much of a story to go along with this. It is a model kit from the Mobile Suit Gundam series. More specifically Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ. At least that is when this particular mobile suit made its debut. Since then this particular suit has appeared in various Gundam series. This particular model came out during Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. I'll get more into that later. For now, however, let's look at the box.

Looking closer at the details on the box.
Some blurbs about the model kit, as well as everything it comes with.

More information about the mobile suit.

And the price of the kit, 1500 yen.

Now before we move on, I would like to say that I did use some tools to paint this model up. (Live and learn, do not use the Panel Line Accent Color without a form of paint over the model. The results can be devastating.) This was just me testing things out and the results were eh. But hey, its a model kit, so you can do whatever you want with the colors! Don't let my sloppy work deter you.

Now onto the kit itself.

As for articulation. The arms are on ball joints which can give 360 degrees of movement.

The shoulders can move forward as so.

Arm can extend out this far.

It can rotate 360.

The elbow can bend this far.

And the wrist is on a ball joint.

As for the head, it can look up.

Look down.

And able to spin around.

The binders on the backpack are able to move around.

And the thrusters on the bottom can move somewhat.

The GM III while having a ball joint for a waste is somewhat limited. But it can move side to side. To a point.

It can not rotate in any way.
The side skirts can move this far. Again limited.

 The front skirts move up this far.

The leg can come out this far. I will admit it got caught on something, but I'm not really sure what it got caught on.

The knee can bend this far.

Then ankles are on a ball joint.

The ankles have this slight articulation on the back of the leg.

And it has that standard foot articulation that most EFF mobile suits have.

And the ankle guard can move up and down.

Here are all the accessories that come with this model kit.

The shoulder missile pods attach to the slots in the top of the shoulder.

You can swap out the missile pods with these open covers which show the missiles.

Then the hip mounted missile pods fit on these slots on the side skirts.

The red cover is removable. Basically how it would look moments before the tube missiles fire.

And because it is on a round peg, the part can rotate around.

The next thing we have is the beam rifle.

With the handle able to swing left or right.

The shield plugs into a slot on the back of the arm. (Both arms have this slot.)

And it is able to rotate around.

The shield can alternatively be placed on the peg on the back of the shield mount.

Which gives it, its own set of poses.

Then we have the beam sabers.

Moving on from the armaments, we have the hands.
We have closed fists.

Open hands.

Opened fists.

Then the trigger hand.

And lastly, it can fit up on a stand thanks to the peg slot built in.

Almost forgot, you get decals and stickers.

 Size comparison.

Here it is next to its predecessor, the HGUC GM II.

And its successor, the HGUC Jegan.

So it is a standard sized HG kit.

So, this is where it gets hard. This is normally where I give pros and cons about a figure. When it comes to model kits, however, I find difficulty in doing so for the reason of, it is a kit a few years old, and its hard to really give it a proper comparison. I feel it is unfair to compare it to modern kits, and I'm not really sure what kits came out back then to give it a fair comparison. Also, I'm just lazy. I guess what I can say is what issues it does not have. All the joints work, it can hold its weapons and it is really articulated. So no structural issues. If anything, my issues are the shield is just kind of in the way, I'm not sure why but I'm having difficulty posing it.

The other issue is that when you put the missile pods on, you lose a bit of articulation.

The other issue that can be brought up is that the HGUC GM III is a merger of designs between the ZZ GM III and the Unicorn GM III. Take that as you will.
And I guess the last issue I have is, the backpack is the MK II Gundam's backpack, but it does not have the slot for the plugin. So you can't pull off a Super GM III without swapping backpacks. Don't worry, the backpacks are built the same, easily exchangeable.

So that is it for this review.
Overall, GM III is a great grunt suit. You get some play value with the missile pods. It is a very simple kit, and it makes for a great grunt.

- Zeroconvoy