OLD Gundam 0083 1/144 Gundam GP01

Release 1991.6

Price ¥700

BANDAI BANDAI Japan product info

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Box side view (1/3)

Box side view

Runners

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Parts layout (1/3)

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Parts layout (2/3)

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Parts layout (3/3)

Parts diagram

Manual

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Weapons with no color separation and no stickers — pretty bare-bones

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Two right hands are included depending on the wrist angle, but the sculpting looks seriously old-scho

Two right hands are included depending on the wrist angle, but the sculpting looks seriously old-school.

Articulation on the arms and legs is under 90 degrees — pretty limiting.

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Rifle shooting pose (1/3)

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Rifle shooting pose (2/3)

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Rifle shooting pose (3/3)

Rifle firing pose

Beam saber pose

Together with the 1/144 First Gundam.

OLD 1/144 Gundam GP01 - Together with the 1/144 Gundam NT-1 from 0080. The NT-1 came out later, yet the GP01 looks way worse

Together with the 1/144 Gundam NT-1 from 0080. The NT-1 came out later, yet the GP01 looks way worse by comparison.

Together with the HGUC Gundam GP01 released in 2000.

In June 1991, alongside the launch of the OVA "Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory," the 1/144 Gundam GP01 was released as the very first kit in the line. This kit goes down in history as one of the most universally panned Gunpla ever made — I picked it up right when it came out and built it, and I still vividly remember how disappointed I was.

As you can tell just from the photos, it's a pretty big step backward in terms of color separation and proportions. Compared to the kits that came before it — 0080, Char's Counterattack, the F91 series — the quality is noticeably worse, and it shocked a lot of people at the time. It seems like there were various internal issues at Bandai back then, but the end result was this unfortunate kit that went down as one of Bandai's biggest blunders.

As you can see, two molded colors and a few seals were used, but the color accuracy still feels half-baked, and the stiff proportions on top of that make it look unmistakably old-school. The joint strength is decent enough and the articulation is about average for a kit of its era, but the hands are really chunky and don't grip well, so even just holding the rifle properly is a struggle.

You can always paint over the molded color issues, but the proportions and the old-school joint structure are a real pain to rework. Compared to the earlier series where just snapping it together was plenty of fun, this kit is a lot less accessible for casual builders — and even modelers who enjoy painting and customizing found it to be a surprisingly tricky kit to work with.

That said, building it again 26 years later, it felt slightly better than I remembered — though that's probably because I had it filed away as an absolute disaster in my memory. Either way, it's hard to shake its reputation as Bandai's most half-hearted Gunpla effort, and there's really no reason to recommend it today. It's basically a dark chapter in Bandai's history. :-)
[ Updated at 2017.10.6]

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.