Welcome to the tenth review of Girlpla Guide Weekly!
Let’s get right to talking about Megami Device Jaeger Edelweiss, one of the three Busou Shinki collaboration kits produced.
Overview
Jaeger Edelweiss (properly designated Edelweiss, Jaeger Type, though we’ll be referring to her as Jaeger Edelweiss or Edelweiss interchangeably as the Internet does) actually occupies a very weird spot in the histories of both Busou Shinki and Megami Device in that she doesn’t quite belong in either.
As mentioned in last week’s review of Arnval, there were four kits that were known to have been planned for the Shinki collaboration; Arnval, Strarf, Taonyao and Jaeger Edelweiss. The first two were the mascots of the original toyline, while Taonyao was eventually scrapped with her designs used as the base for the PUNI☆MOFU subline and the tech that was intended for her body instead being used as the basis for the Alice Gear Aegis girls.
Jaeger Edelweiss stands out as the weird one that exists. You see, Jaeger Edelweiss is, as of the date of this writing, the first and only new Shinki to exist after the original toyline’s discontinuation in 2012. Designed by Shinki/Megami artist Humikane Shimada, Edelweiss was intended as the mascot of Konami’s revival project for Shinki, Busou Shinki R, announced back in 2015. However, as you may have noticed (or if you’ve read literally any of the articles on this site about Busou Shinki), this never came to pass.
With Masaki Asai having distanced himself from the project in 2020 (owing largely to Konami shutting him out of planning and generally being up to the shenanigans that may or may not have killed Busou Shinki 1.0 to begin with), the project having been dead silent for nearly 6 years since and with the only peeps out of Busou Shinki being Kotobukiya’s re-releases and recolors of the kits, Edelweiss remains as the only hint that Shinki was ever intended for a revival.
As such, she occupies a weird state; not quite belonging to the older breed of Shinkis despite being labeled as one of them, but not being quite a Megami despite having more in common with them.
Construction and Engineering
Jaeger Edelweiss, unlike Strarf and Arnval, doesn’t have the half-MMS/half-Machineca engineering that her fellow Shinkis possessed, owing to being an original design created in the era of Megami Device and so is fairly similar to an average pre-Block 2 Megami; high quality, good flexibility, nothing too bad. The joints are also fairly loose, requiring not much sanding if at all, and overall the kit is generally what you’d expect from Kotobukiya at the height of their powers.
If we had to nitpick, the hands for the armored form are somewhat too small for the pegs, so you may need to do some sanding or widening of gaps to get it to fit right. It’s also just a bit of a pain in the backside to have Edelweiss pose with her rifle held in both hands. The boots were also a little loose on the ankles on our copy, so you may want to have some rubber glue or PVA on hand to thicken a joint.
Aesthetics:
As with most Megamis, you will need to do some painting to get it to look box-accurate, but Edelweiss looks pretty good even out of the box. As a fairly rare elf-like kit (mostly the preserve of Guilty Princess and, if they have their way, Elf Village) with an incredibly cool-looking rifle that looks like it could’ve come out of Bloodborne and four really nifty-looking swords, really the only nitpick we DO have is that she really looks more like a Megami than a Shinki – which, really, isn’t much of a complaint.
Overall, one of the better looking Megamis, especially if you’re looking into getting her recolor.
Ease of Acquisition:
Retailing at ¥5440 (£26/$35), Edelweiss is currently out of print as of this writing, but plenty of online stores do have some stock left, and she’s still pretty popular on the second-hand market. Also, being a Megami Device kit, she’s liable to be reprinted at some point, so keep an eye out.
Personal Verdict?
Jaeger Edelweiss is definitely our favorite of the Shinki kits, and we have no doubt she might’ve done numbers had Konami followed through on their plans for Busou Shinki R. Alas, no such revival is forthcoming, but we’re still free to enjoy her. Overall, a very solid kit and if you can get your hands on her, Edelweiss is a nice addition to the shelf.
Overall score: 8/10; overall very solid with very few issues to complain about, but not quite as personally important to me, nor as flashy as some other kits we might mention.
Up next:
For the next three weeks, we’ll be reviewing Kuon Yakushiji and her variants (not including her Dreaming Styles), including her Megalomaria Dress Code version. We’ll be starting with her Touou High School variant, then comparing her to the Maria Kagaribi version, then finally comparing those to the Maria Kagaribi Dress Code version in Megalomaria.
Tune in next week for the next Girlpla Guide Weekly!
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