HGUniversal Century

RX-78-2 Gundam (Tokyo 2020 Olympic Emblem)

The best HG mold Bandai has, dressed up in the colors of a Games that almost didn't happen.

MechaGrade Score

3.9/5

RX-78-2 Gundam · 1/144 · 2020

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2020

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the excellent HGUC Revive RX-78-2 wearing a limited-edition blue and white paint job for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and once you know that, the review basically writes itself: it inherits every strength of one of the best HG molds Bandai ever made.

I built mine expecting a novelty piece and came away impressed by how much the Revive engineering still holds up years later. The Olympic dress is a nice bonus, not the reason to buy it, the reason to buy it is that this is genuinely one of the most poseable, best-engineered HG kits in the whole line.

Best for: collectors who want the definitive HG RX-78-2 with a piece of Tokyo 2020 history baked into the runners

The full review

What it is

Under the commemorative decals this is the 2015 HGUC Revive RX-78-2, the kit that reworked the original Gundam with a big articulation bump without ballooning the part count. Everything snaps together clean, the color separation on the blue and white Olympic scheme is handled almost entirely in molded plastic rather than paint, and the whole thing goes together in an evening without glue. It comes with a Tokyo 2020 branded display base with the Games emblem on it, plus the usual beam rifle, hyper bazooka, shield, two beam sabers, and four hand options. Building it felt less like assembling a novelty tie-in and more like building a genuinely great kit that happens to be wearing a special outfit.

The catch

The sticker sheet is small and mostly there for the Tokyo 2020 emblem markings, so panel accents rely on the molded colors doing their job, which they mostly do. Seam lines show up on the back of the calves and forearms where the joint halves meet, more visible on the white and blue parts than they'd be on a standard color scheme. A few builders note the shoulder ball joints can pop out of the polycap when you swing the arms far forward, and the display stand's tilt angle is limited. None of this is unique to this release, it is the same Revive mold quirks that have been reported for years, just easier to spot on light-colored plastic.

Who it's for

Buy this one if you already like the RX-78-2 and want the best-articulated HG version of it, with a bit of Olympic-history novelty as a bonus, since the emblem and stand tie it to a specific moment (the Tokyo Games were delayed a year and this kit predates that delay). Skip it if you just want a cheap first Gundam kit and don't care about the collectible angle, since the standard-color HGUC Revive is easier to find and does the same engineering without the premium some sellers charge for the Olympic branding. Skip it too if you want an inner frame or MG-level detail, this is still an HG at heart.

The build story

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

Gate placement is typical modern Bandai, mostly on flat surfaces where nub scars are easy to clean up with a side cutter and don't fall on visible curved edges. Parts fit snugly without being a fight to assemble, and nothing needed force. The two-tone blue and white scheme means you're relying on the molded plastic to do the work the stickers usually cover, and it mostly delivers, though a couple of trim lines would have benefited from paint if you wanted to go further than out of box.

The standout here is the articulation carried over from the 2015 HGUC Revive redesign: a ball-jointed neck, double-jointed knees and elbows, a waist that rotates close to 360 degrees, and thighs that swing and rotate independently of the hip skirt. For an HG kit it holds a squat or a lunging sword pose without the legs looking stiff, which is rare at this price point. The four hand options (gripping, trigger-finger, open palm, fist) cover every accessory in the box, and the hyper bazooka has a storage adapter so it doesn't just sit loose in the hand for display shots.

Lore & trivia

01This kit reuses the 2015 HGUC Revive RX-78-2 mold, the same version that reworked the classic Gundam's engineering with a major articulation increase over the original HGUC release.
02It was released in June 2020 with a Tokyo 2020 Olympic emblem decal set and a branded display base, ahead of the Games being postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic.
03The Odaiba life-size Gundam statue that first stood in Tokyo's Shiokaze Park in 2009 was itself built to help support Tokyo's Olympic bid, tying this commemorative kit to a longer history of Gundam and the Olympics in the city.