OLD Gundam 0080 1/144 Hygog

Release 1989.5

Price ¥700

BANDAI BANDAI Japan product info

Box side view

Runners

Dedicated polycap runner

Clear runner and seals

Parts diagram

Manual

Straight build + Stickers

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Rear view with jet pack removed

Comes with a variety of accessories.

OLD 1/144 Hygog - You can mix and match the three differently angled claw parts, but the fit is pretty loose and they fall of

You can mix and match the three differently angled claw parts, but the fit is pretty loose and they fall off easily..

Hand missile unit attached

Limb articulation is roughly this much..

OLD 1/144 Hygog - Hand missile firing pose (1/3)

Hand missile firing pose

Firing the palm beam cannon with the hand missile unit attached to the left arm.

Prone pose

OLD 1/144 Hygog - Remove the middle leg segments and swap the arms for the hand missile units to recreate the underwater navi

Remove the middle leg segments and swap the arms for the hand missile units to recreate the underwater navigation mode.

Underwater navigation mode

Front view

Together with the 1/144 Gogg.

Together with the 1/144 Z'Gok E.

Together with the HGUC Hygog released in 2003.

The fourth kit in the old 0080 series is the Hygog, and those long, gangly limbs and hunched proportions are nicely captured here. Compared to the HGUC though, the arms are shorter and the shoulders are smaller, so it does look a little less imposing.

At first glance those elongated arm joints look like they might be a concern, but thankfully the joint strength on the multi-joint sections themselves isn't bad. The problem is the swappable claw parts — there are three different angles to choose from, but the fit is loose and they pop off easily, and the entire elbow section tends to come apart pretty often too.

The rest of the joints are generally decent enough for a kit this size, though the knee joints and toe parts have a tendency to fall off, and the tank-style hand missile units that plug in where the arms go in underwater navigation mode also have a weak hold and come loose easily. So the joints themselves are fine, but the swappable parts overall have pretty poor retention, which makes the kit a bit of a pain to handle.

That said, it does come with a good variety of accessories, so you can recreate hand missile firing scenes and the underwater navigation mode, and it's set up to pull off some suitably dynamic Hygog poses. Also, like the Z'Gok E, the mono-eye is provided as a separate clear pink part — and given the Hygog's design, the mono-eye really stands out, so the color separation effect looks especially great here.

The HGUC is better in every way — overall build quality, molded colors, proportions, you name it — so there's not much reason to recommend this old kit at this point. That said, the silhouette itself is pretty distinctive and not bad at all, so if you're looking for a fun, low-commitment build, it's worth picking up for the cheap ¥700 price tag. :-)
[ Updated at 2017.9.1 ]

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.