HGMobile Suit Gundam: The Origin MSD (Cucuruz Doan's Island spinoff manga)

RAG-79-G1 Gundam Marine Type [Gundiver]

A deep-cut One Year War oddball that spends almost none of its part budget on being a generic Gundam.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

Gundam Marine Type [Gundiver] · 1/144 · 2016

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2016

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is one of the best-designed obscure P-Bandai HGs I have looked into, and it earns that by refusing to be a reskin.

Around 80 percent of the runners here are new rather than recycled from the Gundam Local Type it visually descends from, and that shows up everywhere in the torso and backpack detailing. I would call it a hidden gem for anyone who already likes One Year War side stories, with one real asterisk: you are going to be wrestling foil stickers to get there.

Best for: One Year War lore fans and Origin MSD readers who want a genuinely different-feeling HG, not just another RX-78 palette swap

The full review

What it is

The Gundiver is the Earth Federation Navy's answer to underwater combat, built off the Aqua GM and Gundam Local Type but reworked enough that Bandai treated it as close to a new kit rather than a retool. What struck me researching this one is how much attention went into parts nobody was forced to spend attention on. The torso and backpack in particular carry a level of surface detail and part-line separation you do not expect from a 1/144 P-Bandai exclusive, especially around the orange accent panels that define the suit's silhouette. The gimmicked hand anchors that deploy on wire, plus a beam rifle that actually has a sealed cover to explain why an energy weapon works underwater, are the kind of small design touches that make this suit feel like it was thought through rather than assembled from spare parts.

The catch

The color separation ambition outruns the era's molding budget. Even with the foil stickers applied, builders still end up eyeballing or painting several areas that never get correct plastic color: the front skirts, the beam rifle's white and orange scheme, the dark grey and orange legs, the blue feet, and the orange head all need help beyond what's in the box. As a P-Bandai exclusive it was also only available in limited windows (original 2016 run plus a later reissue), so pricing and availability run less predictable than a mainline retail HG, and secondhand or reissue copies are your realistic path to owning one now.

Who it's for

Grab this if you already have a soft spot for the One Year War's stranger corners, the kind of builder who reads Cucuruz Doan's Island and wants the model to match, or if you specifically collect underwater and amphibious mobile suit variants where there is real scarcity of good kits. Skip it if you want a clean out-of-box result with minimal extra work, since the sticker reliance means a truly accurate build wants at least some panel paint or careful sticker work. It is not a good first kit and it is not trying to be one.

The build story

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

Builders coming off this kit describe assembly itself as straightforward HG-grade snap fit, nothing structurally fiddly, but the sticker sheet is dense and the foils for the backpack, feet, and head are sized large enough that placement has to be careful to avoid visible edges or bubbling.

The design payoff is concentrated in a few spots rather than spread evenly: the torso and backpack get the most sculpted attention and the most visual reward, the twin beam picks (short underwater beam sabers) store neatly on the right side skirt, and the underwater beam rifle's added cover detail is a nice bit of world-building you would not get on a standard rifle mold.

Lore & trivia

01The Gundiver was developed from the RAG-79 Aqua GM combined with design data from the RX-78-01[N] Gundam Local Type, which is why it carries a Gundam-style head despite being a Federation Navy amphibious unit.
02It appears in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin MSD, tied to the same One Year War Black Sea setting explored in Cucuruz Doan's Island material.
03Its armaments include torpedo pods, wire-deployed hand anchors, a forearm-mounted harpoon gun, hip-stored beam picks, and an underwater polarized beam rifle fitted with a protective cover.
04The kit was released in October 2016 as a Bandai Hobby Online Shop (P-Bandai) exclusive and was later reissued rather than added to general retail.