Entry Grade 1/144 RX-78-2 Gundam

Release 2020.9

Price ¥700

BANDAI BANDAI Japan product info

Runners

Small gates are used on all parts.

Parts diagram

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Manual (1/4)

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Manual (2/4)

Manual

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Weapons loadout. The beam saber only comes with the handle — no beam effect part included.

True to its Entry Grade status, the inside of the shield is nice and simple.

The shield can be mounted on the backpack.

A hole for a stand is also provided.

Excellent limb articulation

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - The waist articulation is excellent too. Each segment of the waist moves independently, and when

The waist articulation is excellent too. Each segment of the waist moves independently, and when you bend it sideways, one of the segments almost disappears completely.

The ankle range of motion is great too.

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Dynamic action poses (1/8)

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Dynamic action poses (2/8)

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Dynamic action poses (3/8)

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Dynamic action poses (4/8)

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Dynamic action poses (5/8)

Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam - Dynamic action poses (6/8)

Dynamic action poses

With the HGUC Gundam Revive.

In 2020, Bandai kicked off a new series called EG (Entry Grade). The EG label had actually appeared before on a handful of event-exclusive kits, but this time it's launching as a proper lineup. It started with a few kits similar to fixed-pose Figure-rise Standard sets, and then in September, the First Gundam was released under the new numbering of EG-EX No. 1.

The First Gundam is, of course, an Entry Grade kit — meaning it's aimed at beginners, built around the concept of snapping parts off easily with small gates and no polycaps. But it caused quite a stir by coming out at a surprisingly impressive level of quality. As you can see, the straight build alone achieves nearly perfect color separation as a given, and on top of that it delivers dynamic articulation that puts HG kits to shame. The flexible waist articulation in particular blows away the HGUC First Revive, which itself was a relatively recent renewal.

And despite having no polycaps, the joints feel oddly smooth yet stable, making it a real joy to pose. That said, given the grade, the inside of the shield and some interior areas are on the simpler side, and there's no beam effect part, so posing with the beam saber drawn isn't possible.

So here we have a ¥700 kit that somehow packs in decades of Bandai know-how — a genuine best-bang-for-your-buck masterpiece that almost makes you feel like Gunpla is entering a whole new era. Thanks to the small gates, you can just pop the parts off the runners and snap everything together without any gate cleanup, so it's not hard to see why people are calling it "Bandai's version of LEGO." (Though cleaning things up with nippers does make it look a bit neater.)

Anyway, for a kit marketed as entry-level, it's pulling off something almost fraudulent — delivering a golden balance of color separation, buildability, articulation, and joint strength that beats out every other grade. At first glance it might look like something for younger kids or casual builders, but it also hits longtime hardcore fans with an intense sense of "how far we've come" and a genuinely fresh kind of excitement. Personally, I'd love it if all future Gunpla came out as EG kits — this one gets my highest possible recommendation. :-)

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.