HGUniversal Century

RMS-099 Rick Dias

A P-Bandai remold that finally gives the AEUG's first mass-production ace a body worth posing.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

Rick Dias · 1/144 · 2021

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2021

Runnersn/a

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

I like this kit more than I expected to going in.

It is a new mold built around the old HGUC Rick Dias silhouette, and it splits the difference between nostalgia and modern engineering in a way that mostly works. The proportions read right, the backpack and skirt detail is a real step up from the 2002 original, and the joints move further than that old kit ever did. It is not going to out-pose anything from the last five years of High Grades, and I get why some reviewers were lukewarm on it, but as an update to a genuinely important Zeta Gundam design it earns its shelf spot.

Best for: UC completionists and Zeta Gundam fans who want the AEUG's first real mass-production suit built right, not just posed stiffly

The full review

What it is

This is the 2021 P-Bandai retool of the classic HGUC Rick Dias, the mono-eyed AEUG suit that Anaheim Electronics built out of the lighter Gundarium gamma alloy after the One Year War. The mold shares tooling with the earlier Quattro Bajeena custom release and the Build Gamma Gundam kit, and it shows in the small refinements: separate thruster nozzles on the backpack, cleaner inner skirt piping, and a head unit that still hides the little vulcan phalanx gimmick under the mono-eye hood, a detail almost no modern HG bothers with anymore. Building it feels like handling a kit that respects the source material instead of just phoning in a reissue.

The catch

Being a P-Bandai exclusive means you are paying import markup and dealing with limited availability rather than picking it up off a shelf. The articulation upgrade is real but modest, elbows and knees now bend further and the hips have more range than the original mold, but the waist rotation is still stingy and the overall pose ceiling sits well below what a current-year HG can do. A few reviewers flagged that the kit leans on new surface detail more than new engineering, so if you were hoping for a ground-up modern frame, this will read as a half step rather than a full leap.

Who it's for

Pick this up if you care about Zeta Gundam and want the Rick Dias to actually look and move like the suit that led the Gryps Conflict infiltration missions, not the loose-jointed 2002 kit collectors have made do with for two decades. Skip it if you are shopping strictly by pose range or part count per dollar, because newer HG lines in the same price band will out-articulate it without blinking. For anyone building a UC mass-production suit lineup or specifically chasing the mono-eye AEUG machines, it is a worthwhile pickup once you accept the import cost.

The build story

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

Snap-fit assembly throughout, no glue needed, and gate placement on the newer parts is cleaner than you'd expect from a mold this design leans on older-era HGUC panel breakdowns for the core silhouette while adding fresh detail sections around the chest, skirt, and backpack, so the build alternates between simple, chunky old-school steps and fiddlier newer ones.

The elbows, knees, and hip joints all got upgraded over the original 2002 tooling, and it is noticeable in hand, the knees especially hold a deeper bend now. Weapon loadout is a clay bazooka, twin beam pistols that clip onto the backpack facing backward, and a beam saber, which is a solid spread for the price point even if it is not overloaded with extras.

Lore & trivia

01The Rick Dias was the AEUG's first mass-produced mobile suit and one of the earliest UC designs built from Gundarium gamma, a lighter alloy developed at Axis that let it carry more fuel than standard Gundarium-armored machines
02Many of the engineers credited with designing the Rick Dias were former Principality of Zeon personnel, which explains the mono-eye sensor and other Zeon-style design language on an AEUG machine
03Char Aznable, operating under the alias Quattro Bajeena, piloted a custom red Rick Dias during the AEUG's mission to steal the Titans' RX-178 Gundam Mk-II from Gryps, one of the suit's most iconic on-screen appearances
04This 2021 release shares its tooling with the earlier P-Bandai HGUC Rick Dias Quattro Bajeena custom and the HGBD Build Gamma Gundam kit rather than being an entirely new mold from scratch