High Grade

High Grade is where almost everyone starts, and where a lot of us happily stay. It is the 1/144 workhorse of the whole hobby: cheap enough to buy on a whim, quick enough to finish in an evening or two, and stocked with more mobile suits than any other line by a wide margin. If a suit exists somewhere in the Gundam universe, the odds are good that it has an HG.

The tradeoff is that an HG asks a little more of you if you want it to shine. Older kits lean on stickers for color that the newer lines separate in plastic, and articulation varies a lot across two decades of releases. A modern HG, though, builds clean, poses well, and takes panel lining and a flat topcoat beautifully, so the ceiling sits much higher than the low price tag suggests.

The line is as healthy as it has ever been, with steady new releases spanning every era from the One Year War to the latest streaming series. For a first kit, or a tenth, HG stays the easiest yes in Gunpla.

New to the grades? Read the full grades guide to see how HG stacks up against the rest.