HGGundam Build Divers Re:RISE

TRY Slash Blade

An 880 yen box that turns any HG on your shelf into the hero of its own finishing move.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

TRY Slash Blade · 1/144 · 2020

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2020

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

I did not expect an accessory kit to be this satisfying to click together.

The Try Slash Blade is not a mobile suit, it is a weapon and cloak expansion built to hand off a giant sword or a dramatic beam cape to whatever HG is standing in front of you, and for what it costs it earns its spot on the shelf. It will never be the main event, but as a supporting piece it punches well above its price.

Best for: HG collectors who already have a Try Burning Gundam or similar Build Divers kit and want a cheap way to add a signature weapon and a dramatic cloak pose

The full review

What it is

This is a small support kit, not a stand-alone mobile suit, and once I understood that going in it was easy to appreciate what it actually does well. In the box you get a beam cloak that can fold down into a massive sword, a rifle, two beam sabers, a beam effect part, an HG universal grip, and a simple display base. It is built to pair with the HGBD:R Try Burning Gundam or Gundam TRYAGE Magnum, but the universal grip means it will clip onto most HG hands without much fuss. Clicking the cloak from its heroic cape form into the aggressive slash blade form is the whole reason to own this, and it is a genuinely fun little transformation to fidget with.

The catch

There is no inner frame, no articulation to speak of, and no mobile suit body here, so if you were expecting a kit you can pose on its own, this is not it. It only makes sense as an add-on to a kit you already own or plan to buy, and the foil seal detailing means a little bit of the finish relies on stickers rather than molded color. Because it is a niche accessory release tied to a specific Build Divers sub-line, it is easy to miss at retail and harder to find secondhand once it goes out of print than the mainline suits it was designed to support.

Who it's for

Buy this if you already have a Try Burning Gundam, a Gundam TRYAGE Magnum, or another HG you want to hand a dramatic sword or beam cloak to for a display shot or a diorama, and you do not mind that it contributes zero articulation of its own. Skip it if you are looking for a kit to build and pose on its own merits, this one only works as a supporting cast member. At under 1,000 yen it is a low-risk way to add real presence to a display shelf that already has a body to plug it into.

The build story

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

This is a fast, low-stress build with a small parts count and snap-fit construction that Bandai clearly aimed at beginners, so gate cleanup is minimal and there is nothing fiddly enough to slow down an experienced builder either. The cloak-to-blade conversion is the one part that takes a little patience the first time through, mostly in figuring out which panels fold where, but it clicks together cleanly once you have done it once.

The engineering payoff is entirely in that transformation. Folding a broad beam cloak down into a single oversized sword in a few motions is a clever bit of design for an 880 yen accessory pack, and the included beam effect part and two beam sabers give a display figure a lot more visual variety than the base kit alone. The universal grip is the sleeper feature here, since it stretches the kit's usefulness across your whole HG shelf instead of locking it to one specific mobile suit.

Lore & trivia

01The Try Slash Blade is listed as HGBD:R item #41 in the Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE High Grade line, released in Japan on December 19, 2020 at 880 yen.
02It represents the support armament of Gundam TRYAGE Magnum and was designed to be directly compatible with the HGBD:R Try Burning Gundam.
03The kit's beam cloak can be folded into an oversized sword form, giving builders two distinct display configurations from the same parts.