Gundam Kyrios
The third member of the Gundam 00 team is the requisite transforming Gundam called Kyrios. The dual nature of the Gundam is reflected in the dual personalities of its pilot. The mysterious Allelujah Haptism hides a darker side that makes him the ultimate super soldier. Towards the end of the series, the character and mobile suit became so entwined that it made even skeptics of the design real fans, myself included.
Kyrios, like the other first seasons Gundams of 00 all share a similar aesthetic as they all share a central chest orb (GN Drive) with gray cables connecting each limb to the torso. These cables are represented by gray bars on the arms and legs. My Kyrios unfortunately has a defect on the right thigh. Other than that the paint apps are typical HCM Pro quality. Everything is sharp with little to no overspray or globbing.
Kyrios is a peculiar design to say the least. Its most obvious feature is its sheer depth. Thanks to its large wings, tail, and nose portions, you really wouldn’t want to hug Kyrios.
Despite its numerous protrusions, Kyrios is well articulated. It has a full range of movement in its hips and shoulders and even has doubled jointed knees and elbows. The upper torso is mounted on a balljoint although out of the box its snapped down into its fixed position for flight mode. Kyrios comes equipped with one beam machine gun and two beam sabers although I don’t recall them ever being used. It even comes with two unlit sabers for storage in the rear skirt armor. Now I have not detached these parts from the runner because on a 1/200 scale toy these are about the size of a grain of rice.
Kyrios’s most visible accessory is its shield. This simply snaps onto the back of the arm and it fixed in place.
When Allelujah shifts to his alter ego, Hallelujah (the “H” is important) this defensive tool becomes a wicked claw. In the middle of the claw is a removable spike.
During combat, Hallelujah would run headlong into enemy formations in order to grab and impale his foes. The claw itself can rotate and hinge upward.
This way Kyrios stores its gun for fighter mode has always been weird. You have to attach this bracket to the right arm and detach the gun’s handle. This is how its done in the show so I guess I can’t complain too much. It’s strangely toyetic.
Conversion to fighter mode is fairly easy and almost entirely self contained. You do have to remove the shield spike as there was no room for it to retract on a toy of this size. For the most part, Kyrios makes a pretty sleek space fighter. The included stand is for fighter mode only and can only display the figure horizontally. It doesn’t have any built in weapons so it mostly relies on its beam machine gun. Often times during the show it was seen with a large weapons container used for carrying missiles and bombs. I’m not entirely sure why this was omitted from the toy, but I guess Bandai did not want include a hollow plastic box that’s as big at the toy itself.
Kyrios’s fighter mode has a nice and aggressive look, even from the front. I like the false green window and retractable antenna.
Kyrios looks absolutely ridiculous from the bottom. The sad thing is this is exactly how it looks in the show. Poor Kyrios looks very unhappy like that. Overall the HCM Pro Kyrios is another real winner. If you’re looking for a desktop defender or yet another entry in your HCM Pro army, Kyrios is a great toy right out of the box. My only real complaint is the price, 3000 yen MSRP. Kyrios is just a little too bare bones to really justify that price even with the transformation. I got this toy on sale and I’m quite satisfied with it.