Kimi The Builder

The hardest three picks we have ever made

HELLO! We are back!

In today’s 617th edition of our Let’s Talk Gunpla segment, we will finally get into some of the 63rd Shizuoka Hobby Show 2025 Gunpla release announcements. But we’ll not be covering all of it in one sitting, we will instead start this off by discussing the three kits that we are looking forward to most!

So, without further ado. Let’s get into it, shall we?

[RETAIL] MG 1/100 ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos Lupus (MG)

Release Date: November 2025

Estimated price: JPY 7,150 (MYR 209.60* / USD 48.62* / EUR 43.42*)

*The price is subject to change, depending on the situation

Seeing a new MG release announcement never fails to put a smile on our faces. We have all been craving Bandai to announce a new Retail MG release announcement for a while now, so it is nice to see an announcement of an MG kit for the retail side.

Best of all? The kit that Bandai decided to drop the announcement of is a variant of the MG Barbatos that we have been waiting a very long time to see released as an MG version, so it is quite nice to finally see it finally getting a proper Retail MG treatment.

Yes, 6 years after the release of the original MG Barbatos, we finally get the follow-up to one of the best MG kits we have ever built!

So, what is to be expected here?

Well, for now, there aren’t a lot of details that Bandai dropped here. But it is clear from the Barbatos Lupus’s promotional materials that we are getting quite a whole lotta new upgrades here.

Well, when we say upgrades, what we mean here is that we are getting a new armor/weapons set (that has some interesting features) for the Base frame (or inner frame) of the MG Barbatos, and also, it does look like Bandai made a slight update to the articulation. But that is all we know from looking at all the promotional Materials we can get our hands on.

Any more than that, we have to wait till Bandai releases an official press release for this kit.

We might learn more about this in the coming months, but even with what we see here, it was enough to make us look forward to getting this badass kit.

[P-Bandai] RGM-79 Light-Type Guncannon [Sayla Mass’s Custom](HGGQX)

Release Date: TBC

Estimated price: TBC

*The price is subject to change, depending on the situation

When we first saw this, we admitted we didn’t want to believe that the HGGQX line is getting its first P-Bandai kit. We have been quite positive, seeing that most of the retail kit releases for this line have been Retail releases, even recolored kits were getting the same retail treatment, so we assumed that Bandai had finally decided to return to their old selves.

But apparently no.

Despite (we assume) strong sales for the few HGGQX kits that we’ve been getting, it wasn’t enough to deter P-Bandai from joining in on the HGGQX Fun.

But even with that said, admittedly, we are not that surprised to see this getting the P-Bandai treatment, since it doesn’t have a lot of screen time.

But what we are most surprised about this release…is that we didn’t expect to like this release a lot.

Even though it is technically just a recolored version of the upcoming Light-Type Guncannon. But still, seeing that iconic Tri-color scheme is pretty cool on this version of the HGGQX Guncannon. Admittedly, we prefer this version a lot more over the standard red that we got with the Retail version.

Plus, it is nice to see Sayla’s version come with the Gundam Hammer (or should we call it Guncannon hammer instead?). So even though we are getting a recolored version of the retail kit, at the very least, we are getting something more out of it to make getting this worth your time.

[P-Bandai] MG 1/100 ZGMF-1001/M Blaze Zaku Phantom (Dearka Elsman Custom) (MG)

Release Date: TBC

Estimated price: JPY 5,390 (MYR 158.01* / USD 36.65* / EUR 32.73*)

*The price is subject to change, depending on the situation

Yes, the third and last kit that we are most looking forward to is another P-Bandai kit, but what makes this one the one that we look forward to the most over the other release announcements, for one, it is an MG kit, and secondly? We are finally getting Dearka’s version of the Blaze Zaku Phantom!

We are aware that P-Bandai wasn’t the first one to finally give fans of the SEED Destiny of the Zaku variant most of us wanted, since that honor has unfortunately been given to the Chinese bootleggers. However, it is nice to know now that we are finally getting the official version.

But enough about that, the question now, that we are sure is running on your minds here, is what is new here?

Honestly? If you have built any variants of the MG SEED Destiny’s Zaku Warrior/Phantom series, we believe that this isn’t going to be any different. This is expected, since lore-wise, it is to be the expected here. But what we are hoping P-Bandai to do when they release the official details is to show us the decal design for this kit. Honestly, we are not sure if we will get a custom decal design for this release, but we would love to see P-Bandai design one just for this release.

It would be nice to have an MG SEED Destiny kit that gets the same decal treatment that we see on almost all the MG MSV kits.

But even if it doesn’t get that same treatment, it doesn’t matter to us all that much, because at the end of the day, we still see ourselves getting this one regardless. That is how much of a fan we are.

This concludes the 617th edition of the Let’s Talk Gunpla segment. Honestly, we had a blast talking about these three kits. Even though these three were our favorites from the Shizuoka Hobby Show Gunpla release announcements, it doesn’t mean the others aren’t as good as these three.

For a matter of fact, that isn’t the case here, because to be honest? This time around, we find ourselves having quite a hard time choosing which one to talk about, since we liked almost all the kits from this round of reveals and release announcements!

Anyway, we will be back soon with a new blog post! So we do look forward to seeing you guys then!

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