The RG God Gundam is Domon Kasshu's second Gundam in the radical 'G-Gundam' fighting show, wherein the nations (the orbiting space colonies) compete for world leadership by choosing representatives to fight with, rather than fight wars, on the impoverished Earth below them.
This is the titular mobile suit that complements Domon's peak performance with the 'Undefeated of the East' martial arts style. When he dons his fighting suit the 20m tall robot mimics his movements.
Aesthetics:
This rendition of the God Gundam is in the 'Real Grade' style and as is typical of the line, it is not anime accurate, but is based on what a Gundam would look like in reality and features a ton of details, color separation and different proportions.
Plastics come in White, light grey, dark grey, saturated blue, deep red, yellow, metallic green, metallic orange, transparent pink and clear.
The only color correction is two pairs of gold stickers for the inside of the shoulders, underneath the white caps.
Speaking of which, both have a big gate on them that are hard to get to and clean up, which leave very visible non-undergated marks on the most prominent parts of the model.
I have no idea why, but sometimes Bandai does this and it's annoying. Be careful, because this plastic is a little glossy and marks easily.
There is a lot of detail everywhere suitable for panel lining. The kit comes with a sticker decal sheet as is the norm for RG's, but it also has a lot of tiny (sub 1mm) stickers that require a lot of patience and a needle to place with. I would avoid using the stickers on the blue areas, as the clear borders will show up very obviously.
Visually it's a busy model with a lot of spread out high contrast colors, but it is based on a nearly 30 year old show, which is full of homages to the prior ones and the colors on this are of course the classic gundam colors.
Mechanics:
This model is completely full of movable parts. It's honestly a little on the overwhelming side.
The posability/articulation is off the charts. The only thing that doesn't move are the fingers on the hands (as normal), pretty much everything else does and all of it has a high range of movement.
Notably the arms have an extra double hinge inside the shoulders, so they can extend out and form a 'crossed arms' pose, something the 20 year old MG models were also known for.
The chest has two opening hatches for the center jewel, the lower legs have opening hatches with moving vents inside, the blue arm covers shift forward and the blue fingers and claws all move around, the shoulders open, all skirts move and the side skirts have hinges that move them out of the way of the legs, the toes bend and the feet swivel nearly 90 degrees to each side, the lower arms swivel around, there are panels that dip on the inside of the thighs when the legs are bent, the entire neck swings forward, the wings open and flap, the beam saber holders turn, the core lander detaches and transforms, the shoulder hatches open to reveal guns and I'm sure there's a bunch of other things I'm missing.
Oh I remembered, there's an ab crunch forwards and to the sides.
Oddly enough, there's no opening pilot's hatch, something Bandai has started not implementing on the last few RG kits.
Equipment:
This is a "kung fu" mobile suit, so it has no held guns (those are molded in and color separated, one on each shoulder and four on the head).
You get:
2 Beam saber handles with 2 unique "katana" style beam saber effects
2 fists
2 spread open hands
2 "spear" hands (all fingers held together pointing forwards) - These feature a wrist joint so you can point them ahead, up or down.
2 holding hands (for the beam sabers)
2 wider spread open hands in metallic orange
1 "Erupting Bakunetsu God Finger" hand (it looks like the 'live long and proper' vulcan peace sign) also in metallic orange
1 Core Lander (that plugs into the back of the Gundam, it's what the wings are attached to)
1 attachable ring holder in clear plastic with 3 plastic rings in yellow, orange and red.
Conclusion:
This kit is a little difficult to assemble, I would not recommend for a beginner in the hobby. Tons of tiny parts.
The greatest strength of this kits is also its weakness - Too many moving parts. When you go to pose one thing, three others move and not every part is easy to get to even with my relatively small fingers.
The 'good smile' stand fits perfectly, which I HIGHLY recommend for it! (standard round peg, goes into the butt)
It definitely feels like Bandai is pushing the limits of what an RG can do with this thing, it is very impressive. A must have for RG collectors.
