The First Gundam Anime Color version has been released in SD form, and interestingly it's based on the BB Senshi Perfect Gundam/Full Armor Gundam body rather than the original BB Senshi First Gundam body. I guess the base body was decent enough quality on its own that it got re-released as a standalone kit like this. ^^
The proportions are quite different from the original BB Senshi First in a number of ways — the feet are bigger and longer, the shoulders are narrower, and overall it looks a bit tall and lanky for an SD. Also, unlike the BB Senshi First, there are no open gimmicks for the shoulder armor or head armor, and the weapons are just the basics: beam rifle, beam saber, and shield.
So the main appeal here is getting this slightly different First Gundam body in anime color, and it is a clean kit with solid proportions, articulation, and color separation — but the ¥800 price tag is a bit puzzling. The overall content is actually less than the existing ¥500 BB Senshi Gundam, yet it costs ¥300 more, which is honestly hard to wrap my head around.. ;; I'm sure there are reasons behind it, but there are no plated parts, no extra pieces — just a bigger box and a ¥300 price hike..?
That said, in the grand scheme of things the price difference isn't huge, so for die-hard First Gundam fans this is still a worthwhile SD kit to add to the collection, and you could just chalk it up to being a limited event-type kit and move on. Anyway, I'd already thought the First Gundam base body was pretty nice when I built the BB Senshi Perfect Gundam and Full Armor Gundam, so it's great to see it get a standalone release like this. :-)
SD Gundam RX-78 (Anime Color) | 2009.7 | ¥800
AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.
