It’s currently Christmas Eve as of the time of this post so Bandai Spirits was kind enough to announce two more kits I’m sure many are looking to forward to buy. Except that both are Premium Bandai releases, but you know by now how to deal with that. So here we go!
Only appearing in the ending credits of Mobile Suit Gundam THE ORIGIN: Advent of the Red Comet, we are getting a kit of the HG RX-78-02 Gundam [Rollout Color]. It’s basically a white and red recolor of the well received HG RX-78-02 Gundam kit. Personally, I’d refer to it as the “Rollout Type” as there are other changes besides the obvious color swap.
As mentioned, this variant only appeared in the ending credit sequence and so, it’s been designated as part of Mobile Suit Discovery (or MSD). At a quick glance, besides the colors, one notable difference between this design and the vanilla The Origin Gundam is the absence of the iconic Gundam v-fin and it instead has side antennas similar to the Guncannon First Type, which got an HG kit back in 2016.
Looking closer, the solicitation mentions that it’s not only the obvious head side antennas that were different. New parts were also included to build the chest vents, arms, waist unit, and legs of this Gundam variant. The torso unit also uses the Gundam [Early Type] variant though I assume this would also come with parts to build the Middle Type. The same set of weapons from the original kit are also shown here. On that note (and thankfully), I won’t be getting two copies of this kit, unlike the original, as this one is only meant to be built in one configuration.
If the copious amounts of RX-78-2 Gundam kits released this year isn’t enough, and that includes me, then this guy is a must buy. It’s different enough though it is basically a color swap. Either that or the HG RX-78-02 Gundam kit is just that good to justify another purchase!
HG 1/144 RX-78-02 Gundam [Rollout Color]
April 2021 / ¥2,600
