Building a RX-78-2 Gundam [Beyond Global]

The RX-78-2 [Beyond Global] HG 1/144

Last year I was reintroduced to the Gunpla hobby, partially due to discovering the Cutting Mat podcast. As a result, I ended up building a few Bandai plastic kits, including a Gouf and a Zaku II from the Gundam Universal Century, and Eva Unit 01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Gunpla, Bandai created a redesign of the original RX-78-2 Gundam, deemed the [Beyond Global], in their HG 1/144 scale. The model was intended to show how far Bandai has come since 1980 with their injection molding technology. For less than $25, it seemed like a great kit to build and see what Bandai could achieve for such a low price point!

Building a RG Eva 01

“God's in his heaven. All's right with the world!”

Over the last few months, I have started to build various Bandai Gundam kits. Not needing to paint the models and their impressive level of articulation makes them a nice change of pace from Games Workshop models. Although I have always loved Gundam, particularly the Universal Century, due to its exploration of how war affects people, my favorite animated series growing up was Neon Genesis Evangelion. While the series has its share of mecha battles, its look at depression and mental illness is was what gave it its most lasting impact. Therefore, I was excited to see that Bandai started to make Real Grade versions of the different Evangelion Units, the first of which being Shinji Ikari’s Eva 01. Having assembled two RG models so far, a Zaku II and Char’s Sazabi, I decided it would be fun to see how the Eva Units compared, and got Eva 01.

Building a Bandai RG MS-06F Zaku II

"Victory is the greatest tribute we can pay those who sacrifice their lives for us! Rise, our people, Rise! Take your sorrow, and turn it into anger!" - Gihren Zabi

Last month, I rediscovered the world of Gunpla when I built a MS-07B Gouf model created by Bandai. It was a fun learning process, one that resulted in a nice looking model with relatively little time investment. The Gouf was one of Bandai’s cheaper models, a High Grade (HG, 1:144 scale) kit with relatively few parts. Taking what I learned, I wanted to try to build one of their more complex kits, seeing what sort of articulation and color differeationation the kits could have. This led me to their Real Grade (RG) line of models. RG models maintain the 1:144 scale of their HG counterparts, but have an increased part count and many have an internal skeleton underneath the armor plates, reminiscent of the larger Master Grade kits (1:100). I found one of the original RG models (circa 2010), a Zaku II, and wanted to let you know what I think of it.

Building a MS-07B Gouf (1/144 scale)

Zeon!

A few years after the three of us started playing Warhammer 40,000, the Japanese animated series Gundam Wing started airing on television in the USA. This was our first exposure to an animated show with a mature storyline, one with a long-form narrative that evolved over nearly 50 episodes. It was also our first real exposure to giant mechs (outside of a precursory knowledge of them in Warhammer 40,000 in the form of Titans). Gundam Wing is a science fiction war drama that sought to humanize the horrors of war, which is something that Games Workshop often misses with its focus on grimdark spectacle. Despite being very involved in building plastic models from Games Workshop, we never really got deep into assembling Gundam models (Gunpla), partially because the kits were not readily available where we lived. Our recent interview with the Polysmith, a master of creating cool mechs, got me to start thinking about trying my hand at building one of the Gundam kits, along with discovering a Gunpla-themed podcast called the Cutting Mat. A few years back I experimented with integrating scale model tanks into Warhammer 40k. These model kits are a lot different from Games Workshop kits, containing substantially more pieces, all rendered in very thin plastic, a feature that Gundam kits share. I ended up building a HG 1/144 scale MS-07B Gouf, a mobile suit I always liked from its appearance in the 08th MS Team.