I finished building and detailing the HGUC Moon Gundam over the weekend and I can say that it is indeed the best HG kit of 2018, which is also five years ago. That’s not saying it can’t compare with modern releases like those from The Witch from Mercury, but it does have a couple of things going for it.
For starters, the Moon Gundam has a simple color scheme. The body is mostly solid blue violet with a red mid-section and yellow vents. All you basically need is to ink those panel lines, put black paint on the yellow vents and you’re set. It doesn’t have the smart parts layering you’d see in modern kits. But still, the amount of detail on this HG kit clearly matches some RG kits as it was meant to be displayed along with the RG Sazabi.
Speaking of parts layering, and area it would’ve benefitted would be the head. Newer kits tend to have complex build processes for the heads to require minimal or no paint. This is understandable as the head is indeed the smallest part, and those details would be hard to paint. Granted, it wasn’t that difficult to paint but I would incline to believe a 2023 kit of the Moon Gundam would have a more complex head assembly.
What I would say as the highlight of this kit is the construction of the leg units. They are packed with plastic thanks to the inner frame. And we’re not just talking about skinny inner frames like those of the Gundam Frames from IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS. These are legitimate inner frames you put the armor on which produces a very solid construction, which is also thanks to the absence of polycaps.
In any case, I really like how this kit turned out and I’m glad I decided to go with this guy. Since I finished this build earlier than expected, I haven’t planned on the next build, though I’m hoping to receive those Gundam Build Metaverse Entry Grades so that I can have some relatively easy ones before my trip to Japan.
