HGPost Disaster

STH-05/AC Amida's Hyakuren

Teiwaz's bruiser gets a personal paint job and an extra gun, and the extra gun is the whole reason to buy this one.

MechaGrade Score

3.4/5

Amida's Hyakuren · 1/144 · 2015

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2015

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is a good HG that never quite becomes a great one.

I like it best as a value proposition, you get the standard Hyakuren's chunky, believable proportions plus a second, newly sculpted rifle and Amida's Turbines color scheme, all for HG money. It builds fast, poses well at the shoulders and hips, and looks properly bulky next to the smaller Gundam frames in the IBO line. It just does not hide its weak points, the side skirts and handguards are looser than they should be, and there is nothing here that reinvents how an HG goes together.

Best for: IBO completionists and Teiwaz/Turbines fans who want the definitive Amida Hyakuren without hunting the harder-to-find original release

The full review

What it is

The Amida's Hyakuren is the recolor and reload of Bandai's standard HG Hyakuren, built to match Amida Arca's personal machine from the Turbines arc. You get her faction's color scheme molded into the plastic rather than left to paint, plus a newly sculpted assault rifle alongside the standard rifle and blade that shipped with the base kit. I like that Bandai did not just swap stickers and call it done, the extra weapon actually changes how the kit displays, since now you can pose the Hyakuren with a rifle in each hand or split loadouts between two display stands. It goes together in an evening without drama, which is exactly what I want from a kit at this price point.

The catch

The known issue with this kit is looseness in specific joints, not everywhere, but enough to notice. The handguards and side skirt armor are the two repeat offenders, they can pop free during posing, especially once you start swinging the legs into a wide stance. It is an HG, so expect molded color to carry most of the identification work with foil stickers filling in the smaller markings, there is no full color separation on the finer details. The double rifle gimmick is great, but the sheath and blade mounting feels like an afterthought compared to how well the guns handle. None of this ruins the kit, but none of it is invisible either.

Who it's for

If you are working through the IBO line or specifically chasing Turbines-affiliated machines, this is worth grabbing, the extra rifle and unique colorway make it stand out on a shelf full of Gjallarhorn white and grey. New builders will have no trouble with it, gate placement is forgiving and there is no frame assembly to fumble. Skip it if you already own the standard HG Hyakuren and are not attached to Amida as a character, the core kit underneath is the same, and you are paying for a repaint and one extra weapon rather than a new engineering pass. Also skip it if loose joints are a dealbreaker for you, a little superglue or joint tightening is basically expected here.

The build story

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

Assembly is quick and beginner-friendly, gates are placed where you would expect on an HG and cleanup is minimal. The frame underneath the armor plates is simple by design, this is not an inner-frame kit, so most of your time goes into snapping on the bulky shoulder, chest, and leg armor rather than wrestling with joints.

Shoulder and hip articulation is solid enough to get dynamic poses, and the double-jointed arms let the side armor act as knuckle guards without blocking elbow bend too badly. The stated weak points are consistent across builds, side skirts and handguards loosen with repeated posing, so a drop of thin cement or a joint-tightening trick pays off if you plan to display this one in an active stance rather than parking it standing still.

Lore & trivia

01Amida Arca pilots the Hyakuren as a member of Naze Turbine's mercenary company, and the two eventually marry over the course of the series
02The Amida's Hyakuren kit released in December 2015 as an upgrade release of the earlier standard HG Hyakuren, adding a newly sculpted rifle not included in the original kit
03Amida is not an Alaya-Vijnana system user, unlike the show's Gundam-type pilots, yet she is portrayed as one of the more skilled pilots in Iron-Blooded Orphans, holding her own against Gjallarhorn ace Julieta Juris
04The Hyakuren line represents Teiwaz's mass-produced frontline mobile worker-derived suits, making Amida's personalized version a rare named variant rather than a generic grunt unit