Real Grade Nu Gundam

August 22, 2019

Welp, it’s pretty much a given at this point that if there’s a new Real Grade, I’m going to do a snap build and review it. But honestly, I’m still only buying the ones I like. It’s just that I’ve liked all the ones that have been coming out lately.

Now I’m afraid we’re going to have to start this review with a confession that I somehow forgot to take the usual “here’s what’s in the box” pic. I don’t know what happened, but you can check out my Youtube review if unboxings are what your plants crave. The short version is, it’s a big box, and there’s a lot of stuff in it, so we’re going to be here a while.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the build starts with the feet.

The assembly is a bit unusual because of that big spherical joint that you’d expect to see in the hips. Also, you may have noticed right here that there are no MS joint parts – taking a picture of the B sprue is another thing I forgot to do, but as you’ll see further down, the only MS joint parts on the entire kit go into the funnels, the suit itself has none of them at all.

Anyway, we continue the assembly with the legs. Here’s one of them and all the parts needed to construct the other.

Yeah. That’s a lot of parts. Between that and the total absence of an MS frame, I think it’s fair to say we’ve officially crossed over into “Master Grade at 1/144th scale” territory now.

Assembly of the legs starts with the knee and then continues with the upper thigh. Notice the internal mechanism here. This is the sliding armor plates gimmick that’s been absent from RG kits since the Tallgeese because they apparently couldn’t make it happen without an MS joint frame. Well, it’s back.

The rest of the leg then goes together about as you’d expect, although there’s still quite a bit of moving stuff inside the inner frame because the ankle armor moves.

And then you add the armor. As you can see in the final pic, the upper thigh armor moves as you bend the knee, and the ankle armor can also move a bit.

Next is the waist unit. The interesting part here is that the hinged hip joints are separate, which means that you can actually unlock the legs separately, meaning you no longer have to dislocate both legs if you just need a bit more motion in one of them. Pretty nifty.

Otherwise the waist unit goes together, well, like a waist unit. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the way the skirts attach to the main unit is very simple, straightforward and therefore stable.

We continue with the torso which, as you can see here, is very flexible.

It loses some of that articulation once it’s all put together, but it’s still pretty impressive.

And of course the kit also has expanding shoulder joints for extra poseability.

The rest of the torso assembly is just adding the remaining armor pieces, which isn’t anything complicated or unusual.

The arms, as you can see below, are not identical. The left arm has this contraption that allows you to store a beam saber handle in it. This is actually a pretty nifty gimmick as the beam saber pops out when you slide the blue armor piece up.

Next is the shoulder armor, and we have a Headless Hessian.

The head is also not terribly complicated, but that’s ok. I’m still getting shivers everytime I think about what it was like to put the Crossbone Gundam‘s head together, so the simplicity and the reasonable parts size here were very welcome, and it still looks fantastic.

Assembly of the backpack starts, as is often the case, with the boosters.

Next you build the attachment point for the funnels. Or actually, you build two of these. The kit includes the second one that you attach the P-Bandai set with the other six funnels to.

And then we add the attachment point for the large beam saber, which can actually rotate to hide the hole the saber plugs into.

And finally, the funnels. These consist of quite a few parts because there’s a lot of nice color separation. Unfortunately, though, not all of them really fold all the way. That doesn’t get into the way of mounting them on the backpack at all, which works well – you can pick the kit up and shake it, and the funnels won’t come loose. But it’s still a bit OCD-inducing, if I’m honest.

Well, and that’s the Nu Gundam all put together sans stickers and weapons.

But hark, quoth I, what’s this you say? Accessories?

There actually aren’t that many, but what’s here is really solid. You get the beam rifle, the bazooka, the shield, a regular and the large beam saber, an array of open, closed and holding hands, a tiny Amuro and a really good action base adapter that plugs into the backpack. Also pictured is the extra attachment part for the funnels.

My only gripe with the accessories is that the shield doesn’t really clip onto the arm that well. It’s serviceable, but it also likes to fall off, and it ends up in a position where it’s hard to get any cool looking poses. I usually like to display my Gunpla with their shields, but with this one, it went back in the ziploc bag.

And speaking of posing and displaying and action base adapters, here’s the glamor shoot.

Also, to cap things off, I’ve got two size comparisons.

I think the pictures speak for themselves. The Nu is so big that it makes the Mk-II look like they’re not even the same scale. Like the Sazabi, it’s almost the size of a regular Master Grade.

If you can’t tell from the pictures, this is one of those kits that are just fun to play with because it’s so solid. Like all the more recent RG kits, the Nu marries excellent poseability with sturdiness and beautiful looks. I really feel like Bandai has found the sweet spot now where these kits are exactly as complex as they need to be, without any over-engineered or flimsy parts, and so they’re not only just as beautiful as the Real Grades have always been, but also rock-solid and really fun to build because everything goes together easily. The Sazabi is still my favorite Real Grade, but it’s really close. And I can’t wait to see what’s next for this crazy line of little engineering marvels.

Written by spacehamsterzh Posted in Gunpla Tagged with bandai, build review, gundam, Gunpla, nu gundam, real grade, review