HGUniversal Century

MSF-007SS Gundam Seltsam

A cheerful, easy build wearing the silhouette of a monster.

MechaGrade Score

3.4/5

Gundam Seltsam · 1/144 · 2019

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2019

Runnersn/a

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

I like this kit for what it dares to look like, not for how it holds a pose.

The Seltsam Arm is the whole pitch here, a huge, deformed claw that turns a standard HG frame into something genuinely unsettling on the shelf, and building it is about as painless as a High Grade gets. Where it stumbles is balance and joint tension, and once that giant arm and lance are attached you will be reaching for a display stand more often than you would like.

Best for: builders who want a weird, villain-shaped HG conversation piece and don't mind propping it up

The full review

What it is

This kit is a straight-up monster mech built off the Gundam Tertium frame, and it commits hard to the bit. The Seltsam Arm dominates the runners, an oversized claw limb that extends to nearly double its folded length, and next to it the rest of the kit reads almost normal. I went into this expecting a novelty gimmick kit and came out liking the assembly itself, the parts are chunky, the nubs are thin and easy to clip flush, and the whole build moved along about as fast as a smaller HG like Sandrock. It never once felt fiddly getting there.

The catch

The honest problem is what happens after you finish it. The joints connecting the limbs to the torso are loose out of the box, enough that ball joints can pop free during normal posing, and builders online have had to dab clear nail polish onto the polycaps just to get them to hold. Strap on the Hyper Destlance and the extended claw arm and the whole figure leans, sometimes to the point it will not stand unsupported. The claw hand itself is also underbuilt, just three simple pieces with limited articulation, and the arm's color separation is mostly plain orange and grey rather than the layered detail shown in the box art.

Who it's for

If you want an easy weekend build that gives you something genuinely different to look at on the shelf, a lopsided brute of a Gundam instead of another humanoid silhouette, this is worth grabbing, especially if you already like the Build Divers designs or want a cheap first kit that isn't just another RX-78 clone. Skip it if you want a kit that holds dynamic poses on its own or if loose, sag-prone joints are a dealbreaker for you. A stand basically turns from optional to mandatory once the big arm and lance are on.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

This one moves fast on the workbench. The runners are dominated by the oversized claw arm pieces, but they are thick and forgiving, gate marks sit in easy spots, and nub removal is close to painless, closer to a smaller, simpler HG than to a fiddly one. Nothing about the assembly itself gave me trouble, it is the kind of kit you could hand to someone building their first Gunpla and have them finish it in an evening.

The engineering highlight is the extending Seltsam Arm, a triple-jointed claw limb that pushes out to roughly double its folded length for a genuinely dramatic pose option, backed by a double ball-joint neck and a torso that tilts fore and aft. The accessory loadout is generous for an HG price point, the Hyper Destlance, a Shield Binder that folds out into a beam cannon with sabers tucked inside, and beam cannons mounted on the legs. The catch is tension, the ball joints in the arms and torso are loose from the box, so the same range of motion that makes posing fun also lets the figure sag or drop pieces, especially once the lance and extended arm add weight to one side.

Lore & trivia

01Gundam Seltsam first appeared in Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE as one of the more dangerous rival builds Hiroto Kuga and his friends face, its demonic strength said to go well beyond normal Gunpla limits within the story.
02The kit is built on the same base frame as the MSF-007TE Gundam Tertium, with the Seltsam's oversized claw arm and horned head grafted onto that shared structure to create its monstrous silhouette.
03The Hyper Destlance's shield section folds out to double as the Folding Destlauncher, a beam cannon, while the saber hilt built into it doubles as a removable beam saber, giving the kit two weapon modes from one accessory.