How giant robots changed my life

I was 7 years old. We were just entering Primary 1 (that’s the 1^st grade for you Americans) and the Pencilbox wars were in full swing…

What was the pencilbox wars, you may ask? Well, as kids, we were always attracted to gimmicks; pencilboxes included. And between the doldrums of class, crying pants-wetters and stupid spelling lessons, we would pretend that our pencilboxes were battlestations or tanks, engaging in maneuvers rivaling the ferocity of the Gulf War. Rubbers became tanks, pencil sharpeners became hurricane emitters, pencils were now ICBMS… Even I was caught up in this madness. Eventually my parents got me one to placate my tantrums, but little did I know it would change my life forever. It was a picture of a robot.

It was a picture of a robot on my pencilbox, to be exact. A white shining metal giant, armed to the teeth with laser cannons and emblazoned with the words ‘Gundam’ on it, it would stay in my psyche for the next few years… Fast forward to my 10^th birthday. This ‘Gundam’ robot had been backburning in my mind now, and since this was the days before the Internet, little means existed for me to find out more about it.

It was around this time I got into plastic modeling. My first affairs were rather sad, misshapen, glue-encrusted things. Obviously, at that age, I had absolutely no idea what I doing. They weren’t cheap too, being the massive plane kits from Revell and Monogram. So it was by no surprise that my parents initially balked when I innocently requested for a Gundam model for my birthday.

But when they did get me one, man, was I blown away by what I saw. Instead of the sad grey the plane kits usually came in, this one was molded in full color… It had loads of weapons and nigh posability, before the week was out I had already worn out its joints. I was hooked. I had to have more! My teenage life was then dedicated into getting into Gundam, finding out more about the myriad series it had, watching the crappy Chinese dubs whenever I could, eking out my pocket money savings to get more kits… which I promptly built crappily. By that time, my encyclopedic knowledge of Gundam made me a minor celebrity among some other like-minded individuals that I managed to get into this genre.

It’s now the 21^st century. By now, I've been doing this for over 10 years. I'm older, still girlfriend-less, and more cynical somewhat... Gundam has grown big, and currently, the world of Gundam is split into two; the ever-enduring Universal Century (UC) and the shitty Gundam Seed franchise. Why did I call Gundam Seed shitty? I’ve got oodles of reasons, but I’ll leave those for another time. As for Gundam models, or Gunpla, as the chic like to call them now, I currently travel three paths; HGUC, vintage, and again shitty Gundam Seed.

Let me tell you about my preferences. I’m kind of an Out Of Box (OOB) fan; I don’t really modify my kits. Also, I’m a 1/144 scale builder. This is where the majority of Gunpla kits reside so the variety is large. Besides, I don’t have the resources to build a MG 1/100 kit. Coming back to the kits, HGUC stands for High Grade Universal Century, which feature classic UC designs done up all with the most advanced model technology Bandai can field. Vintage is those old kits way before the High Grade standard, hard to build, but having a quaint feel to them. And finally the Seed kits. I have mixed feelings for this line. There’s a large pool of kits, but the down side is that the designs are really fucking unimaginative. UC designs are the culmination of the works of some of the industry’s greatest talents, like Kunio Okawara, Yutaka Izubuchi, Mamoru Nagano and God himself, Hajime Katoki, but the Seed MS design are basically cookie cutter copies of themselves; minimalist, flat and spindly. And what the fuck is up with engrish acronyms like ZAKU, GOUF and DOM? Unimaginative idiots.

Still, beggars can’t be choosers and I usually end up buying them, but rarely and only those designs I feel strongly about. Here in Malaysia, Gunpla building is quite big, with a few major contests within a year. I’ve joined the main forum there, Zero-G. There’s a lot of talented people there that can give a pointer to the budding modeler or so, so do pay them a visit.

So as now you can see, Gundam has become a very important part of the fibre of my being. It's something that I can't live without and can't get away from. Problem is, girls don't really like guys who do these types of stuff...