Kimi The Builder

Now it’s time for us to talk about the HGs.

HELLO! We are back!

In today’s 618th edition of our Let’s Talk Gunpla segment, we’ll discuss three more kits showcased in the 63rd Shizouka Hobby Show 2025. There is still quite a lot of kit to go through, we admit, but we try to cover as much as we can in these few days.

We know that some of you might not be as interested since the kits that are left to talk about are mostly HG releases. But honestly? These kits that we are going to discuss, which we actually find to be as interesting as the PG and MG kits announcements that we already covered recently.

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

[P-Bandai] HG 1/144 Gundam Zilius (HGG8)

Release Date: TBC

Estimated price: JPY 2,700 (MYR 209.60* / USD 48.62* / EUR 43.42*)

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

This is a fascinating one.

For a manga series that hasn’t officially seen release, and one that isn’t based on any of the universes. We think it is quite bold of Bandai to give this unproven manga series a Gunpla release.

Granted, the design looks badass. But at the same time, we think it is a risky move by Bandai here.

Then again, maybe this is why the HG Zilius gets a P-Bandai treatment, so if the manga ends up failing, Bandai wouldn’t end up with boxes of unsold HGG8 Zilius.

Anyways, enough about that. Let us now talk about this kit.

Design-wise, we admit that when we first saw it, we thought the HGG8 Zilius was an HGIBO kit. Because it does have a lot of the same design cues from the IBO series.

Heck, even its Gunpla kit looked like it reused a lot of bits that looked familiar to those who have worked on any HGIBO kit. We can see all the familiar IBO joints and parts on the leg unit, shoulder joints, and its head unit.

But at the same time, it also had bits that looked like it was taken from the UC timeline. The designs that look especially evident on the chest area and its weapons.

But even with that said, the one thing that we know for sure from what we have seen so far of this kit is that this is one very interesting release. We hope the manga gets a good reception, so we might have Bandai reconsider giving Zilius the proper Retail treatment.

[Retail] HG 1/144 ASW-G-61 Gundam Zagan (HGIBO)

Release Date: TBC

Estimated price: TBC

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

Speaking of HGIBO kits, Bandai also announced two new HGIBO kits during the Shizuoka Hobby Show event. Which we admit is nice, since it has been quite a while since we heard of new HGIBO releases for the retail side. However, out of all the HGIBO kits for the retail side that we saw, this is the one that really caught our eye.

Why?

Well, mostly it’s because it looked like the IBO Version of the Sandrock Armadillo (that is, if you paint it in black). Since we are fans of the Sandrock Armadillo’s design, it is a no-brainer why we decided to discuss this release over the other.

So, what do we think about this release?

Unfortunately, that is the only thing we can comment on, since there isn’t much about this kit online, other than its looks. Although we admit that the other reason why we opted for this one over the other is that we are interested in knowing how all those thick armors would work on the thin IBO Gundam frames.

But it does seem like we might not have to wait long to learn more about this release, since Bandai did mention that they will drop the official word on this in June.

And as soon as they do, we wouldn’t be surprised if we end up getting this badass HGIBO kit on release day.

[P-Bandai] HG 1/144 Gundam Naion (HGTWFM)

Release Date: TBC

Estimated price: JPY 3,300 (MYR 97.99* / USD 22.96* / EUR 20.27*)

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

Admittedly, when we saw this teased in the manga, we all knew that if they ever decided to release this as a Gunpla, we would be more than happy to get this.

So, imagine our surprise (and excitement) that not long after the manga reveal, Bandai teased us with the prototype kit of the Gundam Naion at the Shizuoka Hobby Show.

So, what do we think about this kit, after seeing the prototype version? Well, besides its war-winning looks, we believe that everything that we see here shares no similarities with anything we’ve seen from this series. Even though we admittedly thought at first that even though most bits that we saw here were new, we assumed, after looking at it at first glance, that the chest unit looked like it might be similar to Gundvölva’s chest unit. But after spending some time comparing this to the HGTWFM Gundvölva’s chest unit to the prototype pictures closely, we don’t think that is the case here.

Why?

Design-wise, the HGTWFM Gundam Naion’s chest unit might look the same, but it is thicker, and some sections on the chest unit don’t look anything like the Gundvölva’s chest unit design. Honestly, it’s much safer to say that the Naion’s chest unit design is inspired by Gundvölva’s chest unit design.

Despite not knowing much about this upcoming HGTWFM release, we admit that just the looks alone were enough to convince us to pick this one up. But we have a feeling that this will be one of those kits that will be hard to preorder.

This concludes the 618th edition of the Let’s Talk Gunpla segment. Admittedly, there are a lot of HG announcements this time around to talk about, both from the P-Bandai side and the retail side, and interestingly, most of them are quite interesting to look at.

We are looking forward to continuing this discussion in the next post, since there are still a lot of interesting HGs to talk about!

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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