RGUniversal Century

RX-93-ν2 Hi-ν Gundam

Six fin funnels, double-jointed everything, and somehow it still fits in your palm.

MechaGrade Score

4.4/5

Nu Gundam · 1/144 · 2021

GradeRG

Scale1/144

Released2021

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the best RG Bandai has put out and it earns that reputation honestly.

The frame is fully assembled rather than built around a skeleton you glimpse in pieces, the multi-link armor gimmick makes the chest and shoulders slide open as you pose it, and the sheer number of accessories crammed into a 1/144 box is genuinely startling. I did not expect a kit this small to hold this many dynamic poses this well.

Best for: RG collectors and Char's Counterattack fans who want the definitive Hi-Nu at 1/144 without stepping up to MG money

The full review

What it is

This is Bandai's RG take on Amuro's final mobile suit, the upgraded Nu Gundam from the Beltorchika's Children novelization, and it is loaded. Six fin funnels, a hyper bazooka, a beam rifle, a shield, three beam sabers, a machine gun, and twin head vulcans all come in the box, and building it feels like assembling a tiny war machine rather than a toy. The RG frame is complete before you ever touch the outer armor, so every joint already looks mechanical, and the multi-link system means the shoulder and chest plating physically slides and separates as the arms move instead of just sitting there for show. It is fiddly in the way good RGs are fiddly, small parts, lots of them, but the payoff when it is standing there fully armed is real.

The catch

Funnel assembly is the tax you pay for that loadout. Each of the six fin funnels is its own multi-piece build, and several builders report the peg connecting the funnels to the backpack rack is loose enough that they pop off or droop when you handle the kit, so the common advice is to pose it once and stop touching that area. The fin funnels also do not fold flat against the backpack the way you would expect, the joint is tight enough that full retraction is a stretch. Like any RG at this scale you are working with small, easily lost parts and light adhesion in a few of the joints. This is not a beginner kit and the funnel gimmick is more fragile than the rest of the engineering suggests.

Who it's for

If you already like RG scale and want a Char's Counterattack centerpiece without committing to the MG or PG price and size, this is the one to get. The articulation is wide enough to pull off nearly any pose from the film, the color separation on a suit this detailed is impressive for 1/144, and the accessory count alone makes it feel like better value than most RGs at a similar price point. Skip it if you want a kit you can handle roughly or display with the full funnel array constantly rearranged, the backpack attachment is not built for that. First-time builders should cut their teeth on an HG before tackling this one, the part count and funnel sub-assemblies will punish an unsteady hand.

The build story

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

Runner cleanup is standard RG fare, lots of small gates on tiny frame pieces, and the funnel sub-assemblies alone take a real chunk of the build time since each one is built up from several parts rather than snapped together as a single piece. Fit across the frame is tight and confident in most places, which is what you want on a suit this detail-dense, but a few of the funnel attachment points feel like the weak link in an otherwise well-engineered kit.

The articulation is where this kit earns its reputation. The head sits on a ball-and-socket that also swivels independently, the torso tilts and twists through a wide range, and both elbows and knees are double-jointed, which lets it hold aggressive, dynamic poses that a lot of 1/144 kits simply cannot. Color separation on the inner frame and armor panels is handled almost entirely through molded plastic rather than stickers, and between the multi-link gimmick and the six-funnel array, the accessory-to-size ratio here is genuinely one of the best in the RG line.

Lore & trivia

01The RX-93-ν2 Hi-ν Gundam is Amuro Ray's mobile suit as depicted in Beltorchika's Children, the novelization that reworks the ending of Char's Counterattack, making it a completed version of the Nu Gundam rather than the prototype seen in the theatrical film.
02The suit carries six fin funnels instead of the standard Nu Gundam's set, reflecting its status as an upgraded, more heavily armed variant built by Amuro's allies at Anaheim Electronics.
03This RG kit released in September 2021 and was built to showcase Bandai's then-current RG engineering standard, with reviewers at the time calling it among the best RG kits Bandai had produced.