HGAnno Domini

GN-001/hs-A01D Gundam Avalanche Exia`

An HG that piles on so many booster packs it forgets HGs are supposed to be simple, and I love it anyway.

MechaGrade Score

3.7/5

Exia · 1/144 · 2010

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2010

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the HG that convinced me HGs can carry real engineering ambition.

Bandai took the base Exia frame and buried it under Avalanche and Dash unit armor, and instead of that turning into a stiff brick, the shoulders alone pick up five points of articulation just to let the extra boosters swing clear. It is genuinely the most articulated HG I have built from that era. The tradeoff is a build that fights you on cleanup and stickers that do not hold up their end of the color scheme.

Best for: 00V lore fans and HG builders who want maximum pose range and gimmick density over a quick, clean build

The full review

What it is

The Avalanche Exia' is the space-capable version of the atmospheric Avalanche Unit Setsuna used during the Meteor Nacht arc in Gundam 00V, swapping the leg thrusters for a Dash Unit so it can operate off-planet. As a kit it is Exia's HG frame wearing a full suit of GN particle condenser armor, and Bandai clearly wanted the armor to do more than sit there. Nearly every panel on the torso, shoulders, and legs opens or rotates to expose the boosters underneath, and you can swap in the extended GN Claws or rack the spares on the included display stand. Building it feels less like snapping together an HG and more like assembling a small transforming mecha with a checklist of alternate configurations.

The catch

The stickers are the weak link. Builders who have run this kit report they are some of the worst Bandai put out in that period, sized inconsistently against the panels they are meant to cover, so getting a clean paint-free build takes real patience or a trip to the hobby knife. Gate placement is rough too, with thick nubs scattered across nearly every small part, meaning more nib-cutting and sanding than a typical HG demands if you want clean edges. And despite all that engineering, the finished kit is nose-heavy enough that Bandai includes a stand because it genuinely struggles to hold a standing pose on its own.

Who it's for

Grab this one if you are into Gundam 00V specifically, or if you want to see how far Bandai will push HG-scale engineering when the gimmick calls for it. The articulation and the booster-reveal panels make it a satisfying display piece once it is done, and the price point keeps it an easy pickup even with the extra build time. Skip it if you want a relaxing weekend build or you are sticker-averse and not ready to hand-paint the trim, because this kit will make you work for a suit that actually looks finished. New builders should go in expecting an above-average HG in both difficulty and reward.

What works

Shoulder and torso panels alone carry five points of articulation just to clear the booster packs, making it the most posable HG of its generation
GN Claws can be built in expanded form and the spares mount right on the display stand, so the accessory loadout doubles as a small diorama piece
The Avalanche and Dash unit swap options mean you get two distinct silhouettes from one box

Worth knowing

Stickers are undersized and misaligned against their panels, making a clean no-paint build genuinely difficult
Thick gates on many small parts mean heavier nub cleanup than a standard HG
Front-heavy once fully armored, and Bandai's own included stand is a tell that it will not hold a standing pose reliably

Sold? Grab it.

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The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

Expect more time at the cutting mat than the HG price tag suggests. The gates run thick across the armor pieces and the booster housings, so if you care about visible seams you are trimming and sanding well past what a typical 1/144 HG asks for. The sticker sheet is the other time sink. Several builders single it out as an unusually rough one for Bandai, with panels and stickers that do not match up cleanly, so plan on some careful trimming with a hobby knife if you want the color separation to read right.

Where the kit earns its keep is the articulation built into the armor itself. This is not just limb movement, the shoulder assembly alone carries five separate joints so the Avalanche pack's booster fins can rotate open and closed, and the same logic runs through the torso and leg armor. You can build the Dash Unit for the space-loadout look, swap to normal leg verniers for the atmospheric version, and pop the GN Claws into their extended form or mount the spares on the stand. For an HG, that is an unusual amount of configurability packed into one box, and it is the reason this kit still gets brought up in 00V circles years after release.

Lore & trivia

01The Avalanche Unit was developed to solve a real weakness in the original Exia, its GN particle propulsion could not match the speed of certain aircraft and spacecraft, so the Avalanche pack stores GN particle output for release in a single ten-minute high-speed burst.
02The Dash Unit variant exists specifically because the atmosphere-focused Avalanche Exia needed new leg-mounted thrusters to operate in space, which is what makes this suit the Avalanche Exia' rather than the base Avalanche Exia.
03The suit's signature deployment comes from the Meteor Nacht incident in Gundam 00V: Battlefield Record, where Setsuna F. Seiei took the Avalanche Exia' out as vanguard to help fragment an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.