Comparing the Magnifier 1/20 RX-78 GP04 & Hobby Crazy 1/35 RX-93-2 Hi-Nu

Comparison between the Magnifier 1/20 RX-78 GP04 & Hobby Crazy 1/35 RX-93-2 Hi-Nu head bust I got recently from various suppliers. They might not be original Bandai items but I must say the effort they put in to reproduce the kits are quite good. No doubt the quality of the plastics is not as good as Bandai's but sometimes, we just have to play around with other kits to know how much effort and QC was placed by Bandai for their own products. Makes us appreciate the original kits more too.

RX-78 (Blue) & RX-93 (Red)

Let's look at the overall feel of the kits. The finishing for the RX-93-2 is comparatively not as detail as the RX-78 (and I'm not comparing in terms of scale cause both are different even just by looking at them individually. Maybe because of the bigger surface area on the 1/20 Head Bust that they could fit in more details but I doubt that is the case. After assembling both kits, I find that the Hobby Crazy kit's parts don't hold together that well and require the assistant of Mr. Cement to hold it together. Which is quite sad as if I decide to paint them at a later stage, there's more peeling and prying involve and that more often than not will leave blemishes and marks on the kit.


In terms of lighting system, yes, both kits can light up! The RX-78 only have build-in slots to light the eyes and the front camera and if you wish to light up the other areas as well, you will have to modify the slots in to accommodate the LEDs. The RX-93-2 trumps the Magnifier kit in that as it came with 5 areas for you to light up if you choose to. If they produced better details on their parts, the kit would look fantastic when all the lights are on. The switch for the RX-78 is placed at the rear and can be a challenge for big hands as the slots are pretty close to the neck. The RX-93's button is positioned to the front but I redirected the wiring towards the bottom and rear as I modified it a bit during my build and put in more lights so the switch and batteries sit on an external box. Articulation of the head for both are quite Ok. Up, Down, Left and Right turns are possible but if you plan to occasionally "transform" the kits to show the inner parts, the RX-78 gives you more areas of display as it can open up to 11 areas as compared to the Hi-Nu's 3 and the 3 areas of opening doesn't have much details to shout about anyway.

Easier to wire and light up the Magnifier kit than the Hobby Crazy kit

In term of additional goodies, the Hobby Crazy kit comes with additional runners to allow you to choose either the Blue or Orange shells. Especially if you're a builder like me who likes to have different colors for each kit, it creates a variant from afar. Especially to people who can't differentiate one kit from another, they can tell that it's two different type rather than the usual question I get, "Why you get the same toy (gasp!!) again?"

Smaller and less details, the fitting is tight too so wiring the Hobby Crazy kit is a hassle

All in all, the Hi-Nu was a fun but sometimes frustrating to build even though it has less runners to work with while the RX-78 was a breeze. Avoiding the stickers for now in case I decide to paint them at a later stage. Took me approx. 1 & 1/2 day to put the Hi-Nu together (just straight OOB build without stickers) while the RX-78 took me about 8 hours from start to finish (OOB without stickers as well). I avoid putting stickers on my kits at the moment as I might decide to paint them later when I'm done with my backlog of kits. Maybe then I'll take some photos of the kits and put them in my Facebook Albums.

You can get the head busts from the various suppliers you normally go to so I'll just skip the "where can I get this" part. I might decide to sell some of the spare kits I have but I'll share those details in a separate post.

Ratings:



BUILD QUALITY :

Magnifier:
Hobby Crazy:



COMPLEXITY :

Magnifier:
Hobby Crazy:



DETAILS :

Magnifier:
Hobby Crazy:



VALUE FOR MONEY :

Magnifier:
Hobby Crazy:

Michael Yip

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