Kit Review

Straight build + Stickers + Panel lining

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

HGUC Gustav Karl [Unicorn Ver.] - Detail shots (1/4)

HGUC Gustav Karl [Unicorn Ver.] - Detail shots (2/4)

Detail shots

HGUC Gustav Karl [Unicorn Ver.] - Weapons and accessories. The only extra hand included is a right hand for holding the beam

Weapons and accessories.
The only extra hand included is a right hand for holding the beam rifle.

The beam saber is stored inside the side skirt.

Grenade launcher on the left forearm, opened up

You can swap in a separate sub-arm to reposition the shield out in front.

The blue section on the shoulder can rotate a bit too.

Only one leftover part.

Limb articulation.
Given the chunky proportions, it looks like they did their best.

HGUC Gustav Karl [Unicorn Ver.] - You can extend the knee and lower the structure on the back of the leg to get a slightly wi

You can extend the knee and lower the structure on the back of the leg to get a slightly wider range of motion at the knee.

There's also a gimmick where you can pull the shoulder out and swing it forward.

HGUC Gustav Karl [Unicorn Ver.] - Beam rifle firing pose (1/3)

Beam rifle firing pose

Grenade launcher attack pose

Beam saber pose

With the HGUC Jegan.
It's gotten massive!

HGUC Gustav Karl [Unicorn Ver.] - Even compared to the HGUC Gundam GP-02, which was already a pretty big kit, this one is cle

Even compared to the HGUC Gundam GP-02, which was already a pretty big kit, this one is clearly bigger.

Straight build

The Gustav Karl from Hathaway's Flash has been released as an HGUC in its Unicorn version. A lot of people might be wondering "wait, was there even a mobile suit like this?" — but with source material running thin, even something like this gets the HGUC treatment. It shows up only briefly in the final episode of Mobile Suit Gundam UC and in Mobile Suit Gundam NT, which is the excuse for the Unicorn version, but either way, it's definitely a fresh addition to the lineup.

In the lore it's supposedly a redesign of the Jegan, but no matter how you look at it — size, style, anything — it's hard to find any resemblance to the Jegan at all. It's probably more accurate to just think of it as a brand-new design that leans hard into a big, chunky aesthetic.

First off, it's on the larger side for an HGUC, and those chunky proportions give it a real commanding presence. The colors are on the darker side too, which adds to that overall impression of a heavy, powerfully built machine. The color separation is solid as you'd expect from an HGUC, so the straight build looks great, and the articulation is actually not bad considering the bulk. There's a gimmick where you can shift the knee and the structure on the back of the leg to widen the knee's range of motion — though honestly, maybe because it's so thick, it doesn't make a huge visible difference. On the other hand, the gimmick where you pull the shoulder out and swing it forward works pretty effectively.

With a big kit like this, joint strength is always the biggest concern — and this is where it falls a bit short. Overall it's not too hard to get it into poses, but the hip ball joints feel a little loose, and the shoulders tend to pop off during posing. Given the size of the kit, this really needed more thought and fine-tuning; the joint design feels a bit half-baked.

Weapons include a beam rifle and beam saber. The shield mounted on the backpack can be repositioned by swapping the sub-arm. It doesn't use a poseable sub-arm, but the fixed connection is solid. On top of that, the grenade launcher on the left forearm can be opened up, and the beam saber can be stored in the side skirt.

There's a slight disappointment on the joint strength front, but the chunky design and the novelty of the mobile suit itself are definitely worth some credit. It might be unfamiliar territory, but if you're into this kind of style, it's a genuinely unique kit that's a lot of fun to build. :-)

HGUC Gustav Karl [Unicorn Ver.] | 2019.2 | ¥2,400

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.