HGDouble-Fake: Under the Gundam

MWS-19051G D Gundam First

A mobile worker's homemade cosplay of the Gundam, and it wears the disguise better than it has any right to.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

D Gundam First · 1/144 · 2025

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2025

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

I love a Gunpla that tells you a story before you even open the shield hand, and this one is basically a costume drama in plastic.

This is a civilian repair worker's mobile worker retrofitted by its pilot, Darry Neil Guns, to look like the legendary RX-78-2, and the kit leans hard into that patched-together, jury-rigged identity instead of just being a Gundam recolor. It reads as a distinct silhouette on the shelf, not a re-skin, and that alone makes it worth a look for anyone bored of straight UC reissues.

Best for: Deep-cut UC collectors and Char's Counterattack era completionists who want a kit that tells a story other than 'here is another RX-78'

The full review

What it is

This is a P-Bandai HG built around the idea of disguise. D Gundam First is a mobile worker dressed up to pass as the original Gundam, and Bandai committed to that bit with new sculpting rather than just reusing an old RX-78 mold with different stickers. Handing it a beam shotgun, a drill gun, a rivet gun, a magnetic anchor, and wired bombs alongside the expected beam saber and shield makes building it feel like assembling a scrappy field mechanic's toolkit, not a hero unit. The double-jointed elbows and knees plus the ball-jointed neck give it more range than I expected from a kit riding on a niche manga tie-in, and I found myself grinning at how much personality came through in the details, the knuckle crushers on the arms especially.

The catch

The obvious catch is availability and price. This shipped through Bandai's Premium/online shop channel, not general retail, so you are paying P-Bandai markup and hunting secondary sellers or waiting on reissue windows rather than grabbing it off a shelf. It also leans on the source manga for context, so if you do not know Double-Fake: Under the Gundam going in, the appeal of 'fake Gundam' can read as just 'slightly odd Gundam' until you look it up. Weapon load is generous but that means more small parts to keep track of, and being a mobile worker chassis rather than a proper Gundam-line frame, the proportions are a touch stockier than RG or MG RX-78 kits, which some builders will love and others will find off-model on purpose.

Who it's for

Get this one if you already have a shelf of Universal Century Gundams and want something that adds a wrinkle to the story rather than another straight repaint. The accessory count and the double-jointed limbs make it a genuinely fun build on its own merits, story aside. Skip it if you want an easy first kit, a cheap impulse buy, or a kit you can just walk into a shop and pick up, because the P-Bandai exclusivity means planning ahead or paying reseller prices. If you want the real RX-78-2 rather than its imitator, buy an actual Gundam kit first and treat this as the deep-cut second purchase.

The build story

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

This builds like a standard modern HG in terms of snap-fit assembly and molded color coverage, but the part count runs higher than a typical HG because of the weapon loadout. Gate placement on the accessories needs a bit more care than the frame pieces since several of the smaller weapons (the rivet gun, the wired bomb spares) have thin protrusions that are easy to stress if you rush the clip.

The engineering standout is the shared movable frame lineage with First Neo Zeon War era mobile suits, which shows up in how confidently the hips and shoulders hold a pose. The double-jointed elbows and knees do real work here, letting the drill gun and beam shotgun be posed two-handed without the limbs looking locked. Between the tool-like weapons and the beam saber pair, the accessory-to-price value feels generous for an HG in this band.

Lore & trivia

01D Gundam First is not actually a Gundam-type mobile suit. It is a mobile worker piloted by Darry Neil Guns and modified by him to resemble the RX-78-2 after Char Aznable's forces staged a decoy operation in U.C. 0090.
02The kit is tied to Double-Fake: Under the Gundam, an original Gundam side-story manga by Yuji Ushida that ran in Bandai's Model Journal magazine.
03Its movable frame and generator are described as coming from mobile suits used during the First Neo Zeon War, which is why the kit's articulation and proportions borrow from that later UC hardware rather than One Year War tech.
04The kit includes an unusually varied non-beam weapon set for an HG, among them a drill gun, a rivet gun, a magnetic anchor, and wired bombs, on top of the beam shotgun and twin beam sabers.