OLD Char's Counter Attack 1/144 Nu Gundam

Release 1987.12

Price ¥800

BANDAI BANDAI Japan product info

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

Box side view

Runners

This is the series where system injection runners were first introduced in earnest.

Along with the bolts, this kit also comes with a small Phillips screwdriver.

Polycaps and stickers. The stickers are vinyl material, which gives them a bit of an old-school feel.

OLD 1/144 Nu Gundam - Parts diagram (1/3)

Parts diagram

Manual

Straight build + Stickers

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

OLD 1/144 Nu Gundam - The torso, arms/legs, and shield all have bolt connection points. Many areas also come with cover parts

The torso, arms/legs, and shield all have bolt connection points. Many areas also come with cover parts, so the bolts aren't too exposed on the outside.

OLD 1/144 Nu Gundam - All of Nu Gundam's standard weapons are included, but the color separation is pretty lacking, so everyt

All of Nu Gundam's standard weapons are included, but the color separation is pretty lacking, so everything looks a bit bare.

The shield interior and the bazooka's warhead section do have a bit of color separation though.

Articulated fingers are included, and the right hand also comes with a dedicated rifle-holding hand.

The articulation on the arms and legs is right around the 90-degree mark, give or take.

The wrists do bend inward quite a bit though.

Beam rifle firing pose

OLD 1/144 Nu Gundam - Beam saber action pose (1/2)

OLD 1/144 Nu Gundam - Beam saber action pose (2/2)

Beam saber action poses

Bazooka pose

Together with the HGUC Nu Gundam released in 2008.

Together with the 1/144 First Gundam. Nu Gundam is much larger in the lore, of course.

Ahead of the theatrical release of "Char's Counterattack" in March 1988, related plastic model kits started hitting shelves back in December 1987. The very first one out of the gate was the 1/144 Nu Gundam, the main protagonist's mobile suit.

First off, the old-school Char's Counterattack lineup holds a special place in Gunpla history as the series that really kicked off the era of glue-free assembly. That said, it wasn't fully snap-fit — instead, key parts like the torso and limbs were joined using a bolt + snap-fit system. This bolt-based assembly approach was unique to the old Char's Counterattack series, and being quite an experimental attempt, it doesn't seem to have been particularly well-received. As a result, the direction shifted to fully snap-fit assembly for all Gunpla that followed.

This kit comes with a bunch of bolts along with a cute little Phillips screwdriver, so you can put it together without needing any separate tools. Since it uses bolt connections, the joins on major parts like the torso and legs are incredibly solid. The bolts are also covered up by other parts so they don't show on the outside — except for the inner thighs, where the holes are left wide open. For painters, those holes basically became something that needed to be filled with putty.

The second historically significant point is that this lineup was where system injection was introduced in earnest. System injection runners — where parts in multiple colors are molded together on a single runner — went on to become a standard feature of Gunpla from that point on.

Now, if we're talking strictly about firsts, system injection was actually first used on the 1/250 G-Armor released in 1984, and the first fully snap-fit kit was the 1/220 Gundam Mk-II from 1985. However, those kits weren't part of the regular 1/144 or 1/100 lineups — they were simpler kits with little continuity, so they felt more like experiments. The Char's Counterattack Gunpla lineup was the first to apply both of these important elements in a full-scale, sustained way, making it a major turning point in Gunpla history.

As the first kit in that lineup, the 1/144 Nu Gundam got a massive visual upgrade over previous Gunpla thanks to system injection, and the overall molded colors improved significantly too — marking the beginning of what you could call the second generation of old-school kits. The looks got better, but the articulation was still very much old-school. The leg articulation in particular is pretty frustrating, making it hard to pull off convincing poses, and the foot contact with the ground is poor enough that keeping it standing in a pose can be a real challenge if you don't balance it just right.

Joint strength is generally fine since polycaps are used throughout, but the grip on the articulated fingers is weak enough that holding the rifle is a struggle. So while the visuals and build experience were pretty revolutionary for a 1988 release, the joint engineering hadn't caught up yet, and the quality gap compared to the HGUC Nu Gundam is pretty noticeable.

Either way, the fact that it opened an important new chapter in Gunpla history isn't going to change, and it's definitely a landmark kit that brings back the romance of 1980s Gunpla and how fast it was evolving. :-)

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.