Gundam-IT! The B-Werx Gundam Saga

Ever since my friend talked to me about Gundams I started collecting them.
It all started one early morning while I was sitting in front of the doorway in our class room drawing my usual mangas, then there was this guy trying to strike a conversation with my other classmates about some robot suits that were called "Gundams", it was the late 90s and Gundam Wing was all the rage at that time and it's apparent that nobody is interested in hearing his stories, then he sat beside me and watched me drew some scribbles and then he started talking about these magnificent machines. He'd always say "Gundam this and Gundam that" which sounded like gibberish to me. Sure, I have seen a few episodes of what was then the famous Gundam Wing series, but I didn't pay much attention to it because of it's heavy drama and the very uncharismatic guy who always say that he's gonna kill the heroine and the fact that I’ve seen some episodes where there were no giant robots in them. A giant robot anime that doesn’t have giant robots in it didn’t appeal much to me back then. I just mindlessly nod to his stories, but then he mentioned the plastic model kits. As if I was struck with some kind of force, I suddenly dropped my pencil and began to listen to the guy. He was blabbering about these robot toy kits that go with the anime show, the "Gunpla"! At that time I rarely heard about toys modeled after anime mechs and what struck me most about the fabled Gunpla is that you have to assemble them piece by piece. As a kid growing up I'd usually collect tiny toy robots you can buy in small boxes and you have to put them together. I was always fascinated about how some seemingly flat pieces of plastic refuse can be put together to make intricately designed mechs. The thought of building a robot model with lots of parts sounded very intriguing into my ears, and I suddenly had the urge to find one and buy as many as I can. As the guy sitting beside me continued with the seemingly endless catalog of Gundam models he had seen, my head started to have illusions of me putting together a beautiful piece of machine based from an anime show. “I want one… I must find one… I must have one” I said to my self, and as I was getting all delusional I said something really weird, “I’ve seen one of those…” my mouth blurted unconsciously, as those words left my mouth the guy suddenly stopped with his rambling and he looked at me. “Oh my God! What did I just say!?” I was panicking in my head, knowing full well that I haven’t actually seen one. Did I just tell a lie? Well, apparently, I did and it’s a bad one. I didn’t even pay attention to the show and since all the partly episodes I have seen never showed any Gundams I have no idea what they even look like! “This is bad, this is really bad!” I said to myself as I start to feel my cold sweat beginning to pour. Then, the guy broke his silence, “You have seen one? Where?” he said as he looked at me with a strange look. Realizing that I just said something that I’m not even sure if I can cover it up, I turned my eyes to him and replied, “Yeah, I’ve seen one in a shopping mall.” The brief silence between our conversation felt like forever, and then he said “Cool! These things are only available there, what model have you seen?” he continued, in response I made up my own Gundam, sure I have seen some anime mechs before and said to myself, “It’s not that different from an EVA unit” and oh how deeply mistaken I was. From that moment on, I started to watch the anime reruns to understand it a bit more and as I watched, the further I got hooked into it and these Gundam robots that they call mobile suits. But still, I haven’t seen a model kit!

A few days went by and it was nearly the end of October. There is a Festival that is going to be held the following month in my home town and many street merchants and traveling joy rides come to set up their business there and while I was wandering around the shops one particular booth had this display of a peculiarly red looking robot that caught my eye, it was a Gundam. “Holy S***!” I was about to crap my pants when I saw the printing that reads ‘Gundam W G-Unit’ I can’t believe my eyes that a Gundam kit is right there in front of me! I was so high up in ‘lala-land’ at that moment that I didn’t bother to check the manufacturer logo on the box. It was unknown to me who the manufacturer of these fabled Gundam kits was at that time, sure I’ve heard of Bandai, the toy company that produces the Power Rangers toy line up and that’s about it for me. I nonchalantly asked for the price of the kit and the shop owner said “275Php” the price gave me a sudden jolt that made my jaw drop to the floor. That much for a tiny plastic toy!? Hey, I was just a poor student I don’t carry that much money with me around! Forget about asking my folks for the extra cash because they won’t give me more than my allowance. My problem now is how am I gonna get hold of some cash fast! Stealing is out of the question, and so I resorted to some odd jobs, luckily there are a lot odd job opportunities at that time because of the coming festivity. I suddenly landed a camera operating job for 6 full days and it was enough for me to get enough cash to buy all the available models they had. Even though I didn’t realize the stuff I bought were cheap knock-offs I was still happy about the quality of the kits. The plastic was faithfully reproduced, even the pink transparent beam sabers and the decals! Though there are some parts for the shoulder mountings that were both for the left shoulder, but who cares!? It’s Gundam!! They were “The High Grade” series back then and you won’t easily get your mitts on those babies with just 275! The time came when I was finally able to get the chance to buy a legit kit, and what pains me is that the “No Grade” kits cost double than that of the cheap high grade knock-offs that I got. And ever since then I started buying every Gundam kit that I can get my hands on. The guy who introduced Gundam to me became one of my closest friends and my ally in hunting down Gundam kits in our area, we also met other enthusiasts along the way, but they were not as hardcore as we were when it came to Gunpla, but that’s another story.

Years had passed since then and I still buy Gundams whenever I get the chance, now my room is chock-full of Gundams and unfinished kits with their boxes. I hope to make some mean looking dioramas one day. That is when I get the chance to do them.

This coming year my all-time favorite Gundam is getting a Master Grade version, the Heavyarms Gundam! I like how this beast pack a lot of fire power in it, although there was an attempt to revive its design with the Leopard in Gundam X, it was still a far cry compared to this mech. It will be out on January 2012, until then I anxiously await when I will get my mitts on it.

So b-werx, you like gundams? XD.Too bad i dont own any

He has a shelf chock-full of them
Last time I came over his house he even had two huge boxes of unopened ones!

You can just feel the enthusiasm coming from his wall of text.

This is not all of it, he has a whole blog of it on the main site XD... but anyway, they seem pretty cool!