Sunday, July 10, 2011

1/35 MG AV-98 Ingram 1 Review


Completed my Ingrams collection at last!

With Ingram 1 finally built, i completed my Patlabor collection and one of my milestones also reached this year. There is a specific reason why i bother to collect all of the Ingrams, i believe that the value of the mecha as a model kit greatly increased when it can interact with other model kit which has special relationship in the series and such example are the Granzon and Cybuster which i reviewed recently and obviously the Ingrams.




At this point i don't think i have anything to explain about the Ingrams since most of the information regarding the mecha has been covered in my previous reviews of Ingram 2 and 3. Anyway Ingram 1 is the lead Labor in Special Vehicle division 2 and the posterboy of the series as it is piloted by the lead protagonist, Noa Izumi. The only difference between the 3 Ingram units in terms of appearance are the Head design and the shoulder armor. Ingram 3 is also the only Ingram unit that is equipped with ECM to neutralize electronic devices.


Noa Izumi is one of the more recent police who joined Special Vehicle division 2 in the series and she is the best Labor pilot in the division. She had a rather tomboyish personality but get along with everyone in SV2 really well. Noa is chosen to pilot the Ingram 1 after the Labor aptitude test where she got the highest score and also manage to match Kanuka really well in the test. She really take care her Labor up to a point where she gave her labor a name; Alphonse which i recall it is her dog's name and she also wax her labor on regular basis.


Definitely the Patlabor lineup doesn't reach up to the quality of Master Grade despite it has the title of MG. Probably this is why Bandai has not labeled any kits other than Gundams as Master Grade since this lineup. The Articulation is pretty bad and the plastic is really frail. During the building process of this kit, the upper body armor crack because probably i exert too much force to attach the part which you might notice slight crack near the collar.


Just like the other MG patlabor kits, this kit comes with 2 statues; one for the cockpit and the other one stand alone. This time the stand alone statue is Asuma Shinohara, the field instructor for Noa Izumi who happens to be the heir of Shinohara Industry the biggest labor manufacturer in the world. Due to bad relationship with his father he decided to become a policeman, in the series he is quite close with Noa though there is no romance between two of them implied in the series. If i had experience in painting the statues, i would have painted the figure already.


Every Ingram are able to extend their arm to get the Revolver Cannon in stored in their leg in case they need the weapon fast. Probably it is one of the best gimmick that this kit able to deliver since the kit able to replicate the pose really well.





Too bad the Ingram kits are really hard to pull off the trademark pose of the Patlabor where the Ingram hold the gun with two and in the center due to limited articulation of the kit. In terms of Marksmanship, Ohta has better skill compared to Noa though Noa could use her gun pretty well.



First of all the Ingrams are not hugging with each other! In Patlabor the fights are done in Grappling since the main objective of the police labor is to subdue the target rather than neutralizing(or kill) them. The police mainly use Judo techniques as the part of their grappling moves as it is proven pretty effective in Labor fights. One Judo throw should be enough to incapacitate the labor pilot in most occasions.


In the OVA only Noa able to match the piloting skill of the Griffon pilot which lead to intense brawl between them though Noa still manage to win in the end.


I am really glad that i could finish my Ingram collection, probably the hardest one to get is the Ingram 2 because it is the rarest one at the time when i look for these 3 kits. i might not have done the best job for these kits since i didn't use my whole skill during the construction of the kit. You can expect to see some group shots of the Ingrams in the near future and please look forward for it!

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