Release date: July '24 (US Date)
Print date on my runners: July '24
Original kit: No, this is essentially the HG Lfrith with some additional runners and a different color scheme.
Price: $24.00 (not including nasty flat $10.00 P-Bandai shipping costs!)
The photos of my kit are finished with G-Rework decals that are not included with the kit.
My first non-knockoff Premium Bandai kit! I have to admit, while I had seen Premium Bandai boxes online and knew that they generally were not full color boxes, it was kind of underwhelming to see in person. I know it's not really anything premium and is more just an annoying way for Bandai to sell kits, but I wanted it to feel premium, I guess.
Complaints about the box (and the entire Premium Bandai business model) aside, this is mostly a very good kit and I am mostly happy with the purchase.
The Lfrith Pre-Production model appears in the WFM Prologue episode, which has the roughest rendition of happy birthday ever seen in any media. I think the Lfrith has a slightly Evangelion-esque design - the panel lines sort of end up looking like a musculature and the lack of a v-fin and an overall simple head compared to the typical Gundam design help evoke this feeling as well. It's a design that's hard to not find at least something to like, and if you don't like the ridiculously sized Chelonian launchers on the back then I kind of question what you do like about giant robots.
Starting off with the generalities: everything in the Witch From Mercury line is very good, there are no polycaps in the joints and the detailing is excellent. While no polycaps is typically listed as a positive for most builders I see reviewing, I kind of have mixed feelings on this. It may be because I haven't been in the hobby for long enough to have my polycaps get crappy, but it can make movement feel a bit stiff - of course the flip side of that is that any poses will be held pretty well. Unfortunately, the Lfrith Pre-Production Model also shares the absolute worst trait of WFM kits: a complete and total lack of hands. The only hands that are included with this kit are the bog standard grasping hands, just like every other WFM kit. This particularly sucks for the Lfrith because the only accessory included is a beam rifle, leaving the other hand just... ready to hold something.
This would be more tolerable for a grunt suit, but something feels off about a suit appearing in such a heart wrenching and crucial scene in WFM. Give me a spread hand or something, so I can do a desperate, dramatic pose.
Overall, this was a very painless build. Sprues are generally well placed and there aren't any notably finnicky or difficult parts to assemble. There are no painfully obvious seams on this kit except for the top of the backpack.
The only real complaint about the build is one of repetition: it's very boring cutting out all of the little Chelonian mine/missile things. Likewise for finishing them off and detailing them. Again, this is a complaint solely leveled at the tedium of the task. Bandai very easily could have just molded these bits into the plastic and shoved in some color correcting stickers or expected you to paint them. You have to clip out 20 of the same piece, and then even more as there are some with alternate positions intended for more dynamic posing with the WFM display bases.
The assembled build stays together fairly well - the only real weak point is the feet. They're fairly narrow and don't support the weight of the kit very well with the sizable launchers. Without the launchers, everything is perfectly stable. This is definitely a side effect of this kit basically being a re-color plus extra parts of the HG Lfrith. I have to image some extra thought would've been put into the weight aspect were this not a P-Bandai kit. The feet also detatch from the kit very easily; if you bend them slightly too far, they effortlessly come out of the joint attaching them to the leg.
I find the Chelonian launchers a bit disappointing as well. The doors are fragile; they don't feel like they're going to break, but they have a bad habit of coming out of their hinges if you put pressure on them the wrong way. These pieces also don't stay together very well; the outer pieces tend to come away from the inner frame that holds all of the mines, which further comrpomises the doors. The harder you can press the outer pieces into place, the better. I think I finally got mine assembled solidly after thinking I had done something wrong and tearing them down a few times.
This kit is color separated very well, mostly helped by the fact that the Lfrith Pre-Production really is just animated as a mostly blue hunk of metal. This kit has notably better color separation than other WFM kits that I've built, actually. The Demi Barding needed color correcting stickers or paint for the tops of the shoulders and several spots on the chest. The Calibarn had to have paint on the thrusters on the back as it did not have any correcting stickers included. This you can basically build without worrying about anything.
The kit includes foil stickers for the usual spots (eyes, head cameras, beam rifle sights) with only one area of the kit really needing color what I'd refer to as color correcting stickers (that is, specificaly to fix an area of the model that is not the correct color, versus adding a detail to the eyes), and those are white spots on the sides of the flaps over the verniers on the front of the legs. This is an extremely minor correction that is easy to either paint, just use the sticker, or ignore completely. It really doesn't look noticeably off if that entire flap is simply left blue.
The mines/missiles also have foil stickers for the center part, with 20 green foil (intended for mines in the launcher), and an additional 6 in green and 6 in red for the additional 6 included with open legs (to be displayed as launched with the WFM display bases). I once saw a post that said "every sticker is a challenge from god to learn to paint," so I used a metallic green gundam marker for the eyes, cameras, beam rilfe and mines. This isn't painting, but it looks better than a sticker. I did paint the white spots on the flaps, though.
The one sticker I was disappointed in was for the...Permet conduit things? visible in the chest of the kit. For the Calibarn, this piece is very impressive; it's some sort of foil printing that Bandai did directly onto the plastic.
For the Lfrith Pre-Production... this is just a sticker that goes onto the body and is then covered with a clear piece. It still looks fine, there's nothing to really complain about with it, I just had different expectations with this piece from the Calibarn.
For the most part, I like this kit very much. The aesthetic is cool, the launchers look cool... it gets the "go on a shelf and look cool" part of Gunpla right. It has a much different vibe to it than the regular HG Lfrith and it seems a bit more threatening.
That being said, it does just feel like something is missing. The lack of extra hands is a major disappointment, as it is with every WFM kit, as is the one beam rifle leaving the other hand empty. Of course, anyone with a few Gunpla probably has a few extra beam sabers kicking around so you could just shove something in there, but it would've been nice to get something else.
I would say this is recommended if you can get it. When I purchased mine, it was not on a pre-order like most P-Bandai items are, and it was simply available and in-stock. WFM is popular overall, so I imagine this kit will be fairly available and in the rotation. I do not think this is a kit that is cool enough or unique enough to pay scalper prices for it.