HGBuild Fighters

PF-78-3A Gundam Amazing Red Warrior

An HG that hands you five weapons and dares you to have less fun than this.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

Gundam Amazing Red Warrior · 1/144 · 2015

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2015

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This kit is built for showing off, not for deep posing, and once I accepted that it clicked into place as one of the more purely enjoyable HG builds I've done.

It comes loaded with a hyper bazooka, beam gatling, gunblade in two lengths, and a beam rifle, so you are never short of a loadout to hand it. The molded color is close enough to screen accurate that I barely reached for a paint marker. It is not a technical showcase, it is a toy box, and as a toy box it delivers.

Best for: Build Fighters fans and weapon-collector types who want a display piece stacked with gear rather than a deep-articulation project

The full review

What it is

The Amazing Red Warrior is Meijin Kawaguchi's tuned-up take on the old Perfect Gundam from Plamo Kyoshiro, and Bandai used the HGBF line to hand it over with basically every accessory the character carries on screen. Out of the runners it snaps together clean, no glue needed, and the red, white, and gunmetal plastic does almost all the color work itself. What got me was the sheer volume of stuff in the box, a hyper bazooka, a beam gatling gun, short and long gunblades, a beam rifle, and a saber, all of it sized right and clip-able to the backpack or hands without a fight. It reads like a kit designed by someone who genuinely liked drawing this suit.

The catch

Articulation is the honest weak point here. The front skirt armor does not swing up much, which chokes off forward leg movement, and the ankles do not have a lot of range either, so dynamic ground poses fight you more than they should for a suit built around speed. A few reviewers also flagged rough nub marks in visible spots, the front of the forearms in particular, so cleanup with a hobby knife and a bit of sanding is worth the ten minutes it takes. None of it is a dealbreaker, but do not go in expecting RG-level poseability just because the accessory count is high.

Who it's for

If you want a mid-2010s Build Fighters kit that looks the part on a shelf and comes with enough hardware to photograph five different ways, this earns its spot easily and it is still cheap for what is in the box. Skip it if articulation is your main criterion, the hip and ankle limits will bother you more than the price will please you. It also makes a genuinely fun beginner build since nothing requires glue and the color separation is handled almost entirely by the plastic itself.

The build story

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

Assembly is snap-fit start to finish with no glue called for, and the sprue layout keeps part count reasonable for an HG this loaded with extras. The double-jointed elbows and knees go together easily, and the ball-jointed neck gives good head tilt and swivel right out of the bag. The one spot to slow down on is trimming gates along the forearms before assembly, since that is where seams show up most on the finished figure.

Where this kit earns its keep is the loadout: five distinct weapons that all actually fit the hands and backpack mounts without filing or fuss, plus a chest-and-skirt missile-pod reveal gimmick that is a genuinely nice touch for an inexpensive HG. Shoulders swing forward and the arms rotate on a ball-and-socket for decent upper body posing, even though the hips and ankles hold the kit back from full dynamic range.

Lore & trivia

01The Amazing Red Warrior is Meijin Kawaguchi's personal rebuild of the PF-78-3 Perfect Gundam III 'Red Warrior', the suit originally piloted by Takeshi Iori in the Plamo Kyoshiro manga, and the design is framed in Build Fighters Try as Kawaguchi's tribute to Iori.
02It first appears in Gundam Build Fighters Try episode 11 and is treated in-story as a nearly legendary Gunpla thanks to its upgraded thrust and maneuverability from flexibly mounted shoulder vernier units.
03The backpack-mounted weapon is designed to be swapped for different fights in the show, which is why the HG kit ships with so many interchangeable ranged and melee options instead of a single fixed loadout.