HGAfter Colony

OZ-06MS-SS1 Leo-S

A grunt suit dressed up as a knight, and it actually earns the costume.

MechaGrade Score

3.9/5

Leo-S · 1/144 · 2021

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2021

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the best-engineered Leo you can buy, wearing a cloak and carrying a beam musket like it just stepped out of a different show entirely.

I went in expecting a reskinned mob suit and came out impressed with how much new tooling Bandai put into the chest, shoulders, and that diffuser cloak. It builds like the excellent 2018 Fine Build Leo underneath, then adds a genuinely distinct silhouette on top. The catch is that this is a Premium Bandai exclusive, so getting one at a fair price is its own project.

Best for: Gundam Wing fans and Leo completionists who want the definitive, best-built version of the suit with real personality

The full review

What it is

Underneath the crimson armor and cloak, this is the same Fine Build Leo chassis Bandai reworked in 2018, and that is genuinely good news. The base kit is famous for ditching stickers entirely in favor of properly molded colors, and the Leo-S carries that forward with new parts for the chest engraving, the shoulder ornamentation, and a clear-plastic head camera. Building it feels less like a typical cheap HG grunt kit and more like a small MG, with runners grouped sensibly by body section so you are never hunting for one stray part. The beam musket and dual beam sabers, each with separate sheathed and drawn handles, round out a loadout that feels purpose-built rather than bolted on.

The catch

The obvious one is availability. This was a Premium Bandai online-exclusive release, which means it never got a wide retail run and secondary market prices have climbed well past the original 1,980 yen tag. The sculpted diffuser cloak is the character's signature piece and looks great standing still, but a fixed cloth-style cloak like this is always going to eat into waist and hip rotation compared to a bare Leo, so full lunging poses take some patience. And because Leo-S is a manga-only variant from G-Unit rather than a screen-used Wing Gundam design, it is a niche pull for anyone who does not already know the character.

Who it's for

If you already like the Gundam Wing OZ mobile suit designs, or you are chasing the full run of Leo variants, this is worth tracking down and paying a bit over sticker price for. It rewards people who enjoy a clean, sticker-free build and want a kit that looks finished right off the runners. If you are new to Gunpla and just want an easy, cheap first build, grab a base HGAC Leo or an Entry Grade kit instead and save the Leo-S hunt for later, once you know you like the hobby and the character is worth the premium.

The build story

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

The frame is the same 2018 Fine Build Leo, which reorganized its runners by body section (legs together, arms together) specifically so builders are not hunting across five sprues for one part. Around 102 pieces across five runners keeps the build brisk, and gate placement is clean enough that most builders report needing barely any cleanup before things click together tight.

Articulation is the real standout for a 1/144 HG this cheap. Even with a modest handful of polycaps doing the work, the hips, knees, and shoulders give it a wider range than most kits in this price band, and the Leo-S specific parts (new shoulder guards, the chest piece, the cloak mount) snap on without fighting the base frame. The dual beam sabers come with separate handle parts for sheathed and drawn poses, a small touch that a lot of HG kits skip entirely.

Lore & trivia

01Leo-S first appeared in New Mobile Report Gundam Wing Dual Story: G-Unit, a manga side story set apart from the main Gundam Wing anime continuity.
02In the story, Leo-S is piloted by Roche Nattono, leader of the OZ Prize faction's Stardust Knights.
03The suit's diffuser cloak is depicted in-universe as an anti-beam coated cloth shield, giving the medieval-knight silhouette an actual combat justification rather than being pure decoration.
04This kit was the first three-dimensional High Grade release of Leo-S, built on the tooling from the acclaimed 2018 Fine Build reissue of the standard OZ-06MS Leo.