The fearful Qubeley Papillon, main gunpla of the Nemesis team from Finland makes its Gunpla debut in the Gundam Build Fighters line! Controlled by Aila Jyrkiäinen in the Gundam Battle World Championships, it is famous for its ability to swiftly defeat each and every opponent it faces in battle through mysterious means.
How does it fare as a model kit though? Let’s find out!
Looks 8.5/10
It sports a fantastic shade of turquoise all over with various orange markings around the body. It also has sections of pink in the same locations as the original Qubeley. Amongst the entire Build Fighters gunpla roster, I feel that it is the best color wise. It is a very subtle yet striking one due to its great color choice.
Its new set of sharp binders makes it feel like it has a pair of butterfly wings, fitting for its name of Papillon. A graceful yet fearful gunpla design!
Articulation – 6.5/10
Although Qubeley Papillon sports a great look overall, It suffers with somewhat weak articulation ability. To be fair, the base of the model kit is from the original HGUC Qubeley kit from 15 years ago and the Qubeley in design isn’t very model kit friendly to begin with.
Just to name, the head has near zero horizontal movement and the legs cannot bend very far.
With a stand however, the Qubeley really shines as it is a model (and mobile suit) not meant for the ground after all. The binders have a huge variety of motion that does not get in the way of the arms, but the arms cannot bend that far up anyways.
Weapons – 8.5/10
It does not have many weapons as far as handheld weapons comes but it does have a nice pair of clear beam sabers and its Lance Bit weapon which is a Lance that can be used like a Funnel weapon albeit rarely seen in the show proper. It has the same weapon loadout as the original; mounted beam machinegun, beam saber hilts and 10 funnel bits stored in the tail binder. You get a set of clear funnels too (but you can’t see them!)
While it is not impressive in amount, all the weapons shown in the show are replicated in the model kit so no issues in this section!
Fun Factor – 7/10
I have never built a Qubeley before to be honest and this is actually my first. I really enjoy building it actually! The construction behind the binders is really cool and to see it completed feel really great. It is also one of those unique mobile suit designs from its era and you will definitely not get tired of building Qubeleys. My only gripe is the countless stickers it has all over the body for its Embody mode though. Some of them are placed on rounded surfaces which makes it’s a little challenging to get them in place properly.
Extras – 7/10
It has a number of hand parts to use for posing it in mid-air, and it also comes with the basic Gunpla stand too. As I mentioned earlier the Qubeley Papillon really shines best when posed with a stand and I’m grateful that it come with a basic stand to do that at least. Other than these two it actually has little in the way of extra parts unless you count the spare Qubeley runners you can keep.
Overall – 7/10
Looks – 8.5
Articulation – 6.5/10
Weapons – 8.5/10
Fun Factor – 7/10
Extras – 7/10
Overall – 7/10
The Qubeley Papillon is fantastic looking model kit from the Gundam Build Fighters line that suffers from articulation issues due to the age of the original model kit.It also has quite a number of stickers used all around the model kit due to size and cost issues of it being a High Grade kit. If you can get past these small issues, the Qubeley Papillon is a great addition to your gunpla collection.
Definitely a great kit to get for Aila fans, and there are many!
