RE100Universal Century

XM-07B Vigna-Ghina II [Jupiter Battle Ver.]

A P-Bandai oddball that turns a rubber snake into the most memorable weapon on my shelf.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

Vigna-Ghina II [Jupiter Battle Ver.] · 1/100 · 2021

GradeRE100

Scale1/100

Released2021

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

I did not expect a hose with a hand on the end of it to be the reason I recommend this kit, but here we are.

The Snake Hand is a genuinely clever build, a PVC-wired whip arm that holds a pose instead of flopping, and it turns an otherwise mid-tier RE/100 into something with real personality. Strip that gimmick away and you have a competent, slightly plain F91-lineage suit with good articulation and a shot lancer that telescopes out like a proper spear. It is not an all-timer, but it earns its spot.

Best for: F91 lore fans and gimmick-chasers who want a posable Snake Hand more than they want a showcase inner frame

The full review

What it is

This is Giri Gadeucca Aspis's Jupiter War era Vigna-Ghina II from the Steel 7 manga, an upgraded Vigna-Ghina built on F91 bones with shelf-nozzle wings standing in for VSBR fins. The headline feature is the Snake Hand, a segmented whip arm strung on a lead wire that you can bend into an actual grab or strike pose and lock a stand under. I went in treating it as a joke weapon and came out impressed, it holds shape without drooping, which a lot of wire gimmicks in this hobby do not manage. Add in a shot lancer with an extending spearhead, twin beam sabers, and a trigger-finger swap hand, and the loadout punches above what I expected from a Premium Bandai release nobody was clamoring for.

The catch

RE/100 as a line skips the full inner frame you get on an MG, so the engineering under the armor is simpler than the scale suggests, and this kit leans on molded color plus stickers rather than deep part separation for some of the smaller trim. Builders online flag that a few panel details only really pop once you go over them with a marker or panel liner, this is not a kit that looks fully finished straight off the runners. The Snake Hand's own weight also means it will not self-support in every angle, you are picking a handful of poses where the wire actually holds rather than treating it like a fully free joint.

Who it's for

Grab this one if the Crossbone Gundam manga side stories interest you, or if you just want a genuinely different weapon gimmick to break up a shelf of standard beam rifles and shields. The articulation is good enough (double-jointed knees and elbows, swinging shoulder armor, multi-directional torso) that it poses well even without the Snake Hand doing any work. Skip it if you want a kit that looks gallery-ready right out of the box with no panel lining, or if you are chasing full MG-style inner frame engineering, the RE/100 line was never built for that and this kit does not pretend otherwise.

The build story

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

Assembly is closer to a straightforward HG-style build scaled up than a fiddly MG project, the parts count is lower than a Master Grade and the gate placement is manageable for a mid-level builder. The Snake Hand is the one section worth slowing down on, threading and seating the lead wire correctly is what makes the difference between a segment that holds a pose and one that sags.

Where the kit earns its keep is the accessory loadout: two beam sabers, the shot lancer that extends and retracts its spearhead, a dedicated stand for posing the Snake Hand on its own, and hip and torso joints that give you real dynamic range for a suit this size. Shoulder armor swinging clear of the legs is a small touch that pays off every time you try a wide leg pose.

Lore & trivia

01The Jupiter Battle Ver. depicts Giri Gadeucca Aspis's personal machine from Yuuichi Hasegawa's Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam: Steel 7 manga, set during the Jupiter War of the UC 0130s.
02The base Vigna-Ghina II is an upgraded Vigna-Ghina built with F91 Gundam derived technology, swapping in XM-05 Berga Giros shelf nozzles as flexible wing units in place of the original's fin nozzles.
03This kit was a Premium Bandai (Bandai Hobby Online Shop) exclusive released in April 2021 at 4,620 yen, meaning it was never carried through general retail channels.
04The shot lancer weapon type used by the Crossbone Vanguard forgoes beam energy for electromagnetic acceleration, driving its tip through armor rather than melting through it, and its spearhead can be launched separately as a projectile.