Review 061: The J4 Part - Did Bandai Made a Mistake?

The legendary "J4" of Freedom 2.0 – just a simple small part,but will surely give any builder the heebie-jeebies. Is there really something wrong with this part? Or is it just the builders’ fault?

If you don’t like accepting mistakes or accepting any advice when building, then you can ignore this article.

Also, all credit for the images used goes to their respective owners. I do not own some of the images used, and they were only shown for educational or research purposes.

I was actually surprised when I saw a lot of posts from builders who encountered the same problem with the J4 part. All of them were broken. And many builders said that everything was fine except for this part. This case also applies to the Daban Model since they just copied the kit from the original one. So back to the question – did Bandai made a mistake in designing this small part? The answer is both YES and NO. It will all depend on the builder’s approach. It can be considered YES, there’s something wrong with the part if you are not familiar with the design of this peg or part. And of course, NO, if and only if you are already aware of the issue. Some builders are not familiar with the design of this peg but have never encountered such horrible mistakes.

Let’s look at the design. It seems like a normal peg, right? Just like the rest of the pegs, I’m sure you have already seen them a thousand times. What some of the Gunpla builders didn’t notice is the canal-like design placed in the middle. This will be ignored and thought of as a fancy design by Bandai. But the truth is, there’s actually a purpose for that design. The female pegs from the thighs (J42) that should fit into J4 have a protruding line inside. You get the idea now? That hump, or protruding line inside the female peg, should align with the canal-like design on J4. How do I know? Well, it’s because I also built Freedom 2.0. I checked the website Dalong first regarding this issue, but the best way is still to see it for yourself.

 

Hey, why are you smiling at the images, you pervy little bastard? >w>

Anyways, these images are from my own review of Freedom 2.0 (Bandai). I did try fitting one leg without aligning the "protruding line" from J42 to J4. I tried twisting it slowly and then I saw stress marks already showing up. Of course, I will never push it far just for the review. And then I attached the other finished leg as hard as I could while trying to listen for a "snapping" sound. I did hear a faint snap and voilà – it can now move smoothly. I also did the same thing to the other leg.

Anyways, is Freedom 2.0 (or Eclipse) the only kit with this kind of peg design? No. A lot of the MG kits have it. Even with this picture from MG Barbatos.

You can see the peg with the canal-like design. That’s why you can’t pull out the arms or legs quickly, and it is because of that. Think of it as a simple lock from Bandai so that the arms or legs will not slide off when you’re posing it or get loose over time. So yeah, the best way is to make sure that all of the pegs, joints, etc., are fully fitted together. Now, I am not saying that it’s your fault if you made a mistake with this part. You may not be aware of this during the time it happened. I have made a lot of mistakes as well. I always ask other builders and look for solutions. I hope that this short article will remind others to be observant while building. Getting hyped with our new kits or models is fun, but it can change if we’re not being careful.

Update: 11/10/2022

After posting this to certain Facebook groups, someone commented that he built an MG Justice and there were no issues. So, it goes back to point if the person fitted the parts properly.