Kit Review

Straight build + Panel lining

The universal size reference — a cigarette pack comparison. It's quite a small kit.

Upper body close-up

Articulation is pretty average..

HGUC Gundam NT-1 - Interestingly.. if you remove the red part on the cockpit area, you can see the interior cockpit structure

Interestingly.. if you remove the red part on the cockpit area, you can see the interior cockpit structure is lightly molded in there.
A random little bonus on a part that doesn't even open??

The gatling gun on the forearm is designed to be removable.

Gatling gun action pose

Action po~se

Kneeling firing pose. The skirts don't move independently, so it looks a bit awkward.

If you pull the waist out a little it does rotate in all directions, but the look is a bit...

Together with the MG NT-1 big brother. The HGUC feels a bit slimmer. (especially the legs)

The Chobham Armor, one of the NT-1's signature features, is also included.

Chobham Armor equipped.

Chobham Armor action po~se. Come at me~

Beam saber action pose (the beam saber definitely needs to be painted~)

Comparison shot with the MG NT-1 big brother and the Chobham Armor.

HGUC Gundam NT-1 - Together with the main RX-78 variants. You can see that not only is it short, but the body itself is notic

Together with the main RX-78 variants. You can see that not only is it short, but the body itself is noticeably small and slender.
Maybe it's because the torso is so short..

Together with all the 0080 HGUC kits released so far.

HGUC Gundam NT-1 - Straight build photo before panel lining. The NT-1 is one of those kits where the difference with and with

Straight build photo before panel lining.
The NT-1 is one of those kits where the difference with and without panel lining is really dramatic.

After a steady rush of 0080 releases, the 8th 0080 HGUC has finally arrived — the main protagonist unit, Gundam RX-78 NT-1. (That came out fast, didn't it-) Overall, true to the 0080 HGUC lineup, it's been reborn with a sleek, slender proportions.

First impressions of this kit will probably go something like this for most people. "Whoa.. why is it so small??"
Of course the kit itself is a standard 18m-class MS, similar in size to the original First Gundam, but somehow it feels like it was designed to be just a touch shorter too.. and more than anything, the body (especially the upper half) is represented on the smaller side due to the unit's design characteristics, so it comes across as really tiny. As you can see in the RX-78 group shot above, the torso is noticeably compact. The head is small too.. it even feels smaller than the previous GM Command. I guess it has its own compact charm, but panel lining this thing was a bit of a struggle..

The proportions are way slimmer than the MG, which gives it a nice look overall. Some people feel the upper body is too short (especially the waist), making it look a bit unbalanced, but I think it comes across as a well-shaped kit on the whole. Color separation is generally very good, though some of the small yellow details scattered around the body have been left out. The molded color, just like the MG, has the white parts done in an extremely bright, pure white. Even compared to other RX-78 variants that are also in the white family, the NT-1 stands out as noticeably bright and pale. With the MG, that bright white had a distinctly matte quality that actually looked quite nice, but the HGUC has a slightly semi-gloss surface, and some people feel the stark white plastic looks a bit cheap (almost like a food toy). I can see where they're coming from, but I think it's passable enough.

Articulation is about average, though the double-jointed ankles are a bit better than most, so depending on the pose, ground contact tends to be pretty solid. The front skirts don't move independently, which makes some poses look a bit awkward — though it shouldn't be too hard to fix with a little modification.

The detail is quite well done for such a small kit, and I'm satisfied with it. One big plus compared to other HGUCs is that it comes with a noticeably large number of seals. Both the standard mode and the Chobham Armor configuration come with seal markings that rival the MG — it really does feel like the main protagonist unit gets special treatment.

The Chobham Armor, one of the NT-1's defining features, has surprisingly great detail for its small size — honestly on par with the MG. It's also much easier to attach, and you get a nice sense of weight from it. (A bit small, sure, but still..) The forearm gatling guns are, understandably given the scale, done as removable rather than opening-type, but the gatling guns themselves feel relatively too large and thick, which gives a slightly awkward impression.

Overall it's a recent kit with not much to complain about.. but for some reason the arm joints tend to pop out fairly easily, and the backpack's beam saber also falls out too readily — minor gripes, but they're there. Also, the V-fin area (?) on the body is handled with seals, but the molded V-shape underneath means the yellow seal doesn't sit flush and keeps lifting up. Some people might also be disappointed that the beam saber molded together with the hand — a bonus that's been included in recent releases — is missing here. And as you can see from the photos, without panel lining it's an incredibly plain-looking kit in a straight build. The difference panel lining makes is really quite dramatic.

Maybe it's the gap in years, but this is one of those HGUCs that actually feels better in quality than the older MG. It came out with solid quality befitting the protagonist unit, but the noticeably small body and the very slender proportions might be a sticking point depending on personal taste. I'm a big fan of 0080 and the NT-1, and the quality of this HGUC NT-1 is genuinely good, but honestly.. I'm not quite sure why I don't come away from building it feeling totally wowed... There's this inexplicable sense of emptiness.. Why does the GM Command appeal to me more?? Is it just too small? ^^;

HGUC Gundam NT-1 | 2004.6 | ¥1,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.