HGBuild Fighters

Jigen Build Knuckles 'Kaku'

A pocket-change parts pack that gives every HG on your shelf better hands and better poses.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

Jigen Build Knuckles 'Kaku' · 1/144 · 2015

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2015

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

I'll say this straight up front, this is not a mobile suit kit, it is a 36-piece hand-parts accessory set, and once you know that going in it is genuinely one of the best cheap upgrades you can buy for an HG collection.

I picked it up expecting a novelty and ended up using it on almost every HG build I did that year. The Kaku (square-knuckle) set reads as tougher and more grounded than most stock HG hands, and the fact that it fits nearly any 1/144 wrist peg makes it useful way past its own release window.

Best for: HG builders who pose their kits and are tired of the same three stock hand sculpts

The full review

What it is

This is a Bandai HGBC (High Grade Build Custom) release from July 2015, tied to Gundam Build Fighters Try, and it is exactly what it says on the box, a runner (or two) of hands. You get closed fists, open palms, and weapon-gripping hands in small, medium, and large sizes, left and right, 36 pieces total, all sharing the squared-off Kaku knuckle design the set is named for. Each hand has its own pivoting wrist joint built in, so it is not just a swap-in shape, it is a functional joint upgrade too. For less than the price of a coffee, I got a parts bin that made every open-palm shot and weapon grip on my HG shelf look more deliberate.

The catch

There is no story here, no runners of frame or armor, no accessories beyond the hands themselves, so do not go in expecting a kit in the usual sense. Sizing is the real practical hurdle, not every HG wrist peg is identical, and some suits (bulkier hands, oddly sized pegs) need test-fitting before you commit a set to a display pose. The plastic is unpainted single-color per hand (by size/type), so if you want the knuckle detail to actually read on the shelf you are reaching for a panel liner or a marker, the parts alone look a little flat and toylike straight off the runner.

Who it's for

If you build HGs and care about how your kits pose, especially open hands holding a weapon properly instead of the stock claw-grip, this is worth the few dollars every time you see it in stock. It is also a nice cheap first taste of aftermarket parts for someone who has only ever built straight out of the box. Skip it if you exclusively build RG, MG, or PG (wrist scale will not match), or if you only display kits in default stock poses where stock hands were already fine.

The build story

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

There is barely a build in the traditional sense, you are clipping small hand halves off a sprue and snapping them onto a wrist peg, so gate cleanup is minimal and fast, the fiddliest part is just keeping the tiny S-size pieces from launching across the room when you clip them.

The standout is the wrist joint baked into every single hand, it means you are not choosing between good pose and good grip, every hand pivots on its own. The open palms and weapon-gripping hands in particular fixed a real HG-era complaint, stock HG hands from this period often had a stiff, closed default grip that made weapon holding look awkward, and this set solves that for a fraction of the price of a full aftermarket detail-up set.

Lore & trivia

01The Kaku (square) version is one half of a matched pair, Bandai also released a Maru (round) knuckle version the same year with a softer, rounder fist sculpt, giving builders a choice of hand style rather than one universal default.
02HGBC stands for High Grade Build Custom, a Bandai sub-line built specifically to sell customization and detail-up parts rather than complete mobile suits, this knuckle set was one of its earliest releases.
03The design is themed after Gundam Build Fighters Try, the in-universe fighting-focused sequel series where character and builder skill are expressed through customized Gunpla combat, matching the martial-arts styling of the knuckle sculpt itself.
04It released in July 2015 at a list price of 480 yen, making it one of the cheapest official Bandai gunpla-adjacent products of that year.