HGUniversal Century

RX-78-2 Gundam GIANTS Ver.

The best cheap RX-78-2 mold on the market, dressed up in Yomiuri Giants orange and black.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

RX-78-2 Gundam · 1/144 · 2019

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2019

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the excellent Revive Ver.

RX-78-2 wearing a baseball uniform, and that combination works better than I expected. The engineering underneath is genuinely one of the best budget HG frames Bandai has made, so the novelty colorway isn't hiding a weak kit, it's dressing up a strong one. I built mine expecting a gimmick and ended up with a Gundam that poses better than kits twice its price. The catch is entirely about the theme, not the plastic.

Best for: NPB baseball fans and Gundam collectors who want a genuinely well-engineered RX-78-2 in an eye-catching orange and black colorway

The full review

What it is

This kit is one of twelve HG RX-78-2 releases Bandai put out in 2019 for Mobile Suit Gundam's 40th anniversary, each one recolored to match a Nippon Professional Baseball team. This version is molded in Yomiuri Giants orange, black, and white instead of the usual white, blue, red, and yellow. Underneath the colorway it is the same Revive Ver. sculpt that redefined what a budget HG could do when it landed, with a hinged head joint that finally lets the Gundam look up and a knee and ankle setup that holds deep lunges without buckling. Building it felt like getting a genuinely great kit and a fun conversation piece in the same box.

The catch

The elephant in the room is that you are still building the classic RX-78-2 shape, just in orange. If you already own a Revive Ver. RX-78-2 in the standard colors, you are paying again for the same engineering and the same parts breakdown, not new tooling. It leaned on stickers for some of the finer color separation on the original release and this version is no different, so the vents and small chest details still need a steady hand or a sticker swap to look sharp up close. It was also a regional Japanese collaboration release, so outside Japan it typically shows up through resellers or secondary listings rather than a standard retail shelf, and prices can run above what the base Revive Ver. costs.

Who it's for

I'd point this at two kinds of builders: NPB baseball fans who want a Gundam that actually represents their team, and RX-78-2 collectors who like variant colorways enough to build the same mold more than once. Anyone building their first Gundam and hunting for pure value should just start with the standard Revive Ver. HGUC RX-78-2, since the engineering is identical and it's far easier to find. But if the Giants orange speaks to you, or you just want a version of the original Gundam that doesn't look like every other RX-78-2 on the shelf, this is a fun way to get there without any compromise on the build itself.

The build story

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

The build itself is exactly as approachable as the standard Revive Ver. release: short runners, clean gate placement on the outer shell parts, and snap-fit joints that don't fight you during assembly. Nub scars land mostly on the inside of limb segments where the seam line already hides them, and the polycap joints in the hips and shoulders feel sturdy rather than loose out of the bag.

The real standout is how much pose range Bandai squeezed into such an inexpensive frame. The hinged head, the double-jointed knees, and the ankle roll let it get into a low stance or a raised rifle pose without the feet losing contact with a display base. Accessories match the standard RX-78-2 loadout of beam rifle, beam saber, and hyper bazooka, and the orange and black molded plastic does the heavy lifting on the Giants theme so the finished kit reads as a team colorway even before any panel lining.

Lore & trivia

01The RX-78-2 Gundam GIANTS Ver. was one of twelve HG RX-78-2 kits Bandai released in 2019, one for each Nippon Professional Baseball team, to mark Mobile Suit Gundam's 40th anniversary.
02The lineup was unveiled at a Gundam 40th Anniversary collaboration event at Gundam Base Tokyo in early 2019.
03The kit is built on the HGUC RX-78-2 Gundam Revive Ver. mold, a 2014 re-engineering of the original 1980 HG that added significantly more articulation without a large jump in part count.
04The Revive Ver. frame's hinged head joint was a notable upgrade at release, letting the RX-78-2 tilt its head upward, something earlier HG versions of the suit struggled to do.