MGUniversal Century

RGM-79 Powered GM

The GM Kai in a bigger jacket, with a bazooka to make up for the lack of a beam rifle.

MechaGrade Score

3.7/5

Powered GM · 1/100 · 2016

GradeMG

Scale1/100

Released2016

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is a genuinely satisfying build wearing a strange face.

Bandai took the excellent MG GM Kai platform, bolted on an oversized GP01-style backpack and beefed-up knee thrusters, and the result is a kit that poses better than its screen time ever suggested it should. The frame underneath is proven and the articulation is real. The catch is that this was a Bandai Premium exclusive, so you are paying online-shop-exclusive money for what is, structurally, a GM with a jet pack.

Best for: UC completionists and 0083 fans who already like the GM Kai frame and want the test-mule backpack version on the shelf

The full review

What it is

The Powered GM depicts the test unit from episode 1 of 0083, a standard GM Type C fitted with an early prototype of what would become the GP01's oversized thruster pack, plus reinforced shock-absorber knee joints for the extra thrust. Bandai built this kit by taking the MG GM Kai mold, borrowing backpack tooling related to the ver.ka Gundam and Mk II lines, and adding the new parts that make it the Powered GM. What that means on the table is a kit that already has its kinks worked out. The frame fits together cleanly, the proportions read right out of the box, and that big backpack gives an otherwise plain grunt suit real shelf presence once it's mounted.

The catch

You end up with a genuinely large pile of leftover runner, mostly Mk II parts and Ver.Ka offcuts that never get used, which feels wasteful for the price. Decals are sparse and mostly cosmetic, so color separation leans on molded plastic more than sticker sheets, which is good for looks but means panel lines and any painted accents are on you. The bazooka-holding hand pose is the one recurring complaint, it takes some fiddling to get a grip that looks natural. And because this was a Bandai Hobby Online Shop exclusive, it was never cheap and is now tougher to find at a reasonable price than the mainline GM Kai it's built from.

Who it's for

Get this one if you already like the GM Kai's frame and want the 0083 prototype backpack variant, or if you're chasing a complete Stardust Memory MG lineup. It's also a fair pick for someone who wants strong articulation on a budget-suit design without stepping up to a Gundam-tier kit. Skip it if you only want one GM in the collection, the standard MG GM Kai gets you the same excellent frame for less money and less leftover plastic. Also skip it if you need heavy decal work to feel satisfied, this kit wants you to trust the molded color instead.

The build story

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

The assembly leans entirely on GM Kai era engineering, so gate placement and part fit are already sorted out, nothing here feels experimental or unresolved. Cleanup is standard MG-level fiddly around the small knee thruster add-ons and backpack struts, but nothing that trips up someone who has built an MG before. Because the kit recombines parts from three or four other molds, expect a noticeably bigger spare-parts bag than you'd get from a purpose-molded kit.

The knee shock-absorber units are the mechanical highlight, they're not just cosmetic, the extra hardware there visibly reads as the 30 percent thrust boost the suit is supposed to have in-universe. Loadout covers a beam saber with spare blade, hyper bazooka, bullpup machine gun, and a shield, which is a full weapons set for a suit that barely appears on screen. Articulation carries over the GM Kai's 360 degree waist rotation and wide leg range, so it holds bazooka-bracing and thruster poses well once the hands are seated properly.

Lore & trivia

01The Powered GM appears in the opening episode of Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory as a test unit, fitted with an early prototype of the large thruster backpack later used on the RX-78GP01 Gundam GP01.
02Its reinforced knee shock-absorber units with integrated auxiliary power were said to increase thrust output by roughly 30 percent over a standard GM.
03The kit was built by reworking the MG GM Kai mold with backpack tooling shared with the Ver.Ka Gundam and MG Gundam Mk II lines, which is why the finished build leaves an unusually large batch of unused parts.
04This MG release was a Bandai Hobby Online Shop exclusive, which kept it out of general retail circulation compared to the standard MG GM Kai.