Hasegawa 1/20 MechatroWeGo (3) Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

And now for something completely different...

In Japan, a company called Chubu Mechatronics developed a series of mechanical armored suits. The WeGo model was designed for elementary school children to commute to school in mountain regions, local travel, and for exploring. There are even custom WeGo mech suits available for obese children.

Of course this full-scale product is fiction and I'm not even certain if this MechatroWeGo is part of an anime series or manga. Whatever it is, there are die-cast models of these robots in various colors in 1/35 scale which are evidently taking the market by storm. You can even find these on Amazon!

Hasegawa developed three kits of the MechatroWeGo in 1/35 scale and each kit has two mech suits in the box. We did a quick-build of one of these here. Where that series was produced in armor scale (1/35), Hasegawa has followed-up with these armored suits in 1/20 scale, the same as the mech suits from the Hasegawa's MaK universe. With the larger scale comes much nicer detail not only for the mech suit, but also the included operator figure.

The kit is molded in colored styrene and presented on eight parts trees plus one tree of plated parts, one tree of clear parts, and one tree of vinyl parts. Hasegawa put a lot of detailing in this box. Among the features and options in this kit:

• Articulating (movable) ankle joints
• Articulating (movable) knee joints
• Articulating (movable) hip joints
• Articulating (movable) shoulder joints
• Articulating (movable) elbow joints
• Articulating (movable) wrist joints
• Articulating (movable) claws
• Detailed cockpit
• Optional pilot figure
• Hinged (movable) front entry panel
• Operator platform is extendable to surface level and back up inside cockpit
• Hinged (movable) overhead hatch
• Hinged (movable) head (open/closed)

Like the 1/35 versions, this kit is provided in multi-color plastic so you can snap these together without glue or paint. If you did that with this kit, however, you would be missing out on a much higher level of molded-in details. For example, the interior/cockpit of the mech suit has more detail that begs for paint. The operator's controls have much greater detail in the handles and view screen. The standing figure is designed to fit inside the mech suit or look great posed next to the suit.

This is a very nice looking kit and it begs for a nice vignette along with a suitable MaK figure and mech suit to have 'take your kid to work day' or 'parent's day' at school. You're only limited by your imagination!

My sincere thanks to Hasegawa USA for this review sample!