MGAnno Domini

GN-001 Gundam Exia

A blade-covered acrobat of a kit that looks incredible standing still and needs a steady hand to stay standing at all.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

Exia · 1/100 · 2009

GradeMG

Scale1/100

Released2009

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is one of the best looking MGs of its era and one of the more frustrating ones to actually pose.

Exia's slim, armor-light frame translates into a genuinely dynamic silhouette on the shelf, and the leg splits and waist rotation are a real treat since there's no side skirt armor in the way. But the elbows only bend to about 90 degrees instead of the usual 180 you get on most MGs, and the whole thing is light enough on its feet, literally, that it can topple over in an aggressive pose. I like this kit a lot. I just keep one hand near it.

Best for: MG builders who want Exia's blade-heavy silhouette and don't mind babysitting a slightly top-heavy pose

The full review

What it is

Exia is Celestial Being's melee specialist, and Bandai built the kit to match that reputation: sparse armor, exposed inner frame at the joints, and seven blades worth of loadout crammed into the accessory runners. Assembling it, the sheer amount of thin, exposed frame detail on the limbs is what got me, this is a kit that reads as busy and mechanical even before you add a single weapon. Because there's no side skirt armor, the waist articulation is unusually good for an MG from 2009, full leg splits, real hip swing, poses most kits from that generation just cannot hit. It is an original mold with nothing recycled, and it shows in how cohesive the whole design feels.

The catch

The elbows are the headline complaint and mine agree with the reports, they bend to roughly 90 degrees rather than the 180 you expect from an MG, which flattens out a chunk of the pose library everyone wants from this kit. The GN Blade holders on the backpack are loose and the beam sabers pop out of their mounts more than they should, so expect to reseat weapons constantly during a photo session. Add in joints that are fragile relative to the suit's own weight, and standing poses with the sword extended can genuinely tip over if you are not careful about the base and stance.

Who it's for

Buy this if you want Exia specifically, if you want a kit whose silhouette actually earns its screen-accurate armor-light design, and if you don't mind some fussy weapon management for a great looking result. Skip it if elbow bend range or rock-solid standing stability matter more to you than screen accuracy, there are other MG frames in the 2009-2012 window that pose more confidently. For most Gundam 00 fans and anyone who wants a display piece built around dynamic leg and hip poses over aggressive arm poses, this earns its shelf space.

The build story

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

The build itself moves fast for an MG, the part count sits in the 300-ish range and the frame goes together cleanly with good gate placement on the exposed inner-frame pieces, which matters here since so much of the frame stays visible in the final build. Cleanup around the thin limb detailing takes a bit more patience than a typical MG since there is less armor to hide seam lines.

Where it shines is the torso and neck engineering, three points of torso articulation plus decent neck movement give the upper body more range than the elbow limitation would suggest, and the exposed GN Drive and frame detailing pay off visually once assembled. The finger articulation is a nice touch for sword grip poses, and the accessory spread (two daggers, twin beam sabers, long and short GN blades, the signature GN Sword) means you are rarely short of something dramatic to hand it.

Lore & trivia

01Exia is piloted by Setsuna F. Seiei, a former child soldier from the Krugis Republic recruited into the paramilitary organization Celestial Being.
02The name Exia is generally traced to exousia, the Koine Greek word for authority, tying into the suit's angelic-order naming convention used across Celestial Being's Gundams.
03Exia's sparse armor placement is a deliberate design choice in the show, trading protection for the mobility and close-combat range its GN Drive and GN Particles were built to exploit.
04The MG was popular enough that Bandai later scaled Exia up into a Perfect Grade release, a rare honor for a suit from Gundam 00's first season.