HGBuild Divers

MHF-01DR Load Astray Double Rebake

Two Divers, one frame, and a transformation gimmick that's more fun to explain than to pose.

MechaGrade Score

3.4/5

Load Astray Double Rebake · 1/144 · 2020

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2020

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the rare HG built around a real idea, two rival Divers refusing to give up their separate fighting styles, so the kit lets you flip the same frame between a ranged Cuadro front and a melee Reverso back.

I like it a lot as a concept kit and a shelf piece, but the execution has real friction once you start posing it. If you go in wanting a display transformer rather than an acrobat, you'll have a great time.

Best for: Build Divers fans who want the Cuadro/Reverso swap on the shelf more than a kit built to be thrown into dynamic melee poses

The full review

What it is

The Load Astray Double Rebake is Koichi Nanase and Tsukasa Shiba's shared Gunpla, built around the idea that two Divers with completely different combat styles refused to compromise and just combined their designs into one frame instead. You get a double sided ball jointed neck so the head can face either direction, and a minor parts swap turns the suit from Cuadro (front, ranged focus) into Reverso (back, melee focus). Handling that swap on my desk was the best part of the build, it is a genuinely clever bit of engineering for an HG price point, and the hook shaped wired weapons on the shoulders are a fun, unusual accessory that reads straight out of the show.

The catch

The gimmick fights the posing a bit. The shoulder cape gets in the way constantly when you try to bring the Cuadro arms up into anything dramatic, and the back mounted bulk that makes Reverso mode work also chokes the knee bend once you flip into it. Bandai also leaned on stickers for parts that should have been molded color, the yellow Reverso chest pieces and the white shoulder armor both come as decals rather than plastic, so panel lines under them look flat and the color boundary is never as clean as I want. None of this is dealbreaker territory, it is more the kit constantly reminding you it is solving a hard transformation problem at 1/144 scale.

Who it's for

I'd point this at Build Divers fans and anyone who likes an HG with an actual mechanical idea behind it rather than a straight suit reissue, the Cuadro/Reverso swap is worth the price of admission on its own. Skip it if you want a kit that poses aggressively out of the box, the cape and back bulk mean you'll spend real time fighting the frame for dynamic action shots. If you're the type who touches up stickers with a marker or just does not mind them, most of the complaints here fall away and you're left with a clever, characterful little kit.

The build story

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

Gate placement is typical HG fare and cleanup is quick, the trickier part is just getting comfortable with which small parts move between Cuadro and Reverso configurations, it's worth dry fitting the swap once before committing to final assembly order.

Articulation on paper is strong for an HG: swiveling ball and socket shoulders that raise horizontally, hip joints that swing both front and back, double jointed knees, and a limited tilt/pivot ankle. In practice the cape and back bulk eat into that range depending on which mode you're in, so the engineering promise is better than the final pose count. The hook shaped wired weapons and the transformation gimmick itself are where the part count clearly went, and that's the right call for a kit built around a story beat rather than a generic loadout.

Lore & trivia

01The suit is piloted jointly by Koichi Nanase and Tsukasa Shiba, who originally planned two separate Gunpla before combining their designs into one shared frame.
02It switches between Cuadro (front, ranged focus, controlled by Koichi) and Reverso (back, melee focus, controlled by Shiba) through a physical parts rearrangement rather than a simple re-pose.
03Design-wise it traces back to Lord Astray Z, a Gundam Astray variant from the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray: Princess of the Sky manga.
04It released in November 2020 as HGBD:R kit number 38 in the Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE lineup.