Kimi The Builder

Another HG kit with swappable armor?

HELLO! We are back!

In today’s 621st edition of our Let’s Talk Gunpla post, we will discuss P-Bandai’s latest Gunpla release announcement! Yes, we, P-Bandai, finally released more details on one of the P-Bandai kits that we are interested in. One that P-Bandai already teased during the recent Shizuoka Hobby Show event. Only to find ourselves having mixed feelings about this one.

And yes, we are aware that Bandai just dropped new (more like an update) Gunpla release announcements, and we will get to them eventually, but for now? We’ll talk about this one first.

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

HG 1/144 Gundam Zilius (HGG8)

Release Date: July 2025

Estimated price: JPY 2,970 (MYR 88.18* / USD 20.82* / EUR 18.22*)

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

Honestly, when we saw this release announcement, we expected to see something familiar. We expected to see a mishmash of different parts from other HG lines in this particular release.

But instead, what we get here is something completely new and unfamiliar.

Typically, this would be something we would celebrate because, as builders, we constantly seek new experiences, and when we first learned about the HGG8 Zillus, we were admittedly excited about it. Unfortunately, the more we learn about the HG Zilius, the more unsure we are about it.

Let us explain why.

Recently, we have been lucky that Bandai has been doing some fantastic work in translating what we see on screen and Manga panels into Gunpla form. Unfortunately for the HG Zilius, they missed the mark on this one.

Why do we say this?  

When we compared this to the one teased in Gundam 8’s promotional materials, we admit that the gunpla version looked underwhelming when compared to its illustrated version. Yes, we are aware that it is not easy to translate illustrations into physical items, but seeing how spoiled we are with other Manga-based Gunplas, is it wrong to expect more from this one?

Another thing that bothers us is that there is one section of the kit that looks unfinished. It looked so bad that we thought they had people who worked on the SD kits (obviously, we are not talking about those who worked on the MGSD kits, because if they were requested to work on this, we might not be complaining) to make this one.

What part are we talking about here? Well, to be more specific, we’re bothered by the unfinished look of the HGG8 Zilius backpack unit. Not the entire thing, of course, just a section that we think is supposed to be the binders. The reason why we are unsure is that it looked like there was supposed to be a part attached to it, but it seems to be missing, or someone forgot to put it in.

Maybe they’ll fix it in the final release, or they might not. Regardless, seeing this does kill some of our excitement in getting this kit.

Admittedly, it’s not all bad. Even though we feel that the designers for the HGG8 Zilius failed to recapture the badass look of the manga and someone forgot to properly put everything together, this is still a good-looking HG kit, it is still a kit that comes with decent articulation and best of all and also the one reason that might make us want to get this kit is that it comes with quite an interesting gimmick too.

What gimmick are we talking about here? Well, we learned that the armor set can be taken off. From the looks of it, this gimmick is similar to what you get with the HGUC G-Line, which means we can easily detach the armor set and leave the HGG8 Zilius in ‘lite armor mode’. Honestly? This feature alone makes this release a worthwhile purchase.

But the best part about this release is that even the ‘light armor’ mode looks pretty cool, too. Even though we do think that the light armor mode does look a bit like a slightly modified version of the 30MF kit. But then again, we don’t mind it because, from our own experience building a 30MF kit, they are really fun kits. So at the very least, we can expect this to be a fun kit to work on.

However, it does make us wonder if Bandai is trying to tell us that the HGG8 Zilius will come with expansions. From the looks of it, we think that is the case here. But then the manga isn’t even out yet, so we don’t want to be making any assumptions just yet.

For now, we shall see what the mangaka had in store for us all first before making up our minds on it.

This concludes the 621st edition of the Let’s Talk Gunpla segment. Honestly, there is a lot to unpack this week, especially since Bandai finally dropped more details on the upcoming PGU v Gundam.

Of course, we will return to discuss all the new information that we got from the recent Bandai showcase in the next post. Especially the one that we are now convinced will be on everybody’s gunpla radar, the PGU v Gundam.

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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