HG 1/144 Gundam 00 Diver Review

This is the High Grade 1/144 Gundam 00 Diver. This gunpla was built and is used by Riku Mikami in the Gundam Build Divers anime series. Riku built the Gundam 00 Diver using the 00 Gundam as a base, utilizing the best parts of the kit and personalizing it with customized parts. This kit is very well made, and boasts some really great articulation. The build is easy and straight forward, making it a good choice for new builders.

•DETAIL•
The detail in this kit is very impressive for 1/144 scale kit, and the design is beautiful. Not much panel lining is needed on this one, with the majority of it being on the legs. There are also a few spots that you may want to consider painting. Most of them have sticker decals that you can use in place of paint, but I find paint to be a much more long lasting solution. If you want to limit the amount of necessary paintwork, then the only parts that need paint are a small square on each of the lower arms, and the inside of the blasters on both sides of the GN swords. A black panel lining pen can be used to fill in the vents on the sides of the head, as well as to fill in the openings on the GN Drives. I didn’t have the tools to do it, but if you do, you can use green paint instead of a black panel lining pen to give the give the GN Drives an activated appearance.

•ACCESSORIES•
For accessories, you get two transforming GN swords, two GN beam saber hilts, two sets of weapon holding hands, one set of gun holding hands, and one set of open hands. Now, despite getting two GN beam saber hilts, this kit does not include actual beam blades for them. I really don’t know why they decided to do it that way, but you can use the beam blades from another one of your kits if you want to have it holding the GN beam sabers. If not, the two hilts store securely in the back of the lower body. Thanks to variety of hands you get with this kit, it can pretty much hold most High Grade 1/144 weapons. The GN swords have a neat little gimmick, which I’ll get into later.

•ARTICULATION•
The overall articulation of this kit is fantastic! The head can move and down, tilt side to side, and can rotate a full 360 degrees. The rotation at the shoulders is a little bit obstructed by the verniers, but can each still rotate about 180 degrees forward, and 90 degrees backward. The shoulders also can each swing out forward a bit. Each arm can swing all the way outward, gets a full 360 degrees of rotation at the biceps, a little bit farther than half a bend at the elbows, and interestingly enough, the wrists can actually bend back a little bit. The hands can each rotate a full 360 degrees, and can also tilt and pivot. The body can bend both forward and backward a bit at the abdomen, and gets a full 360 degrees of rotation at the waist. The legs can each move all the way forward and almost all the way backward, can move all of the way outward, and each get a full double bend at the knees. Lastly, the feet can each move pretty far forward and a little backward, and each tilt side to side.

•GIMMICK•
This kit has a couple of cool gimmicks. First, the verniers above the arms aren’t attached to the arms at all, but to the backpack. This lets you move them with the arms to help keep them from obstructing the movement of the arms too much. The second gimmick this kit has is that the GN swords can actually change into any one of two modes; Sword Mode or Rifle Mode. The transformation is extremely simple, and really just involves a tilt of the handle and a piece underneath the base of the swords.

•My ISSUES WITH THE KIT•
I love the design and overall articulation of this kit, but I definitely have one issue with it. The weapon holding hands only get a very loose hold on the GN swords, and the piece on the swords that’s supposed to attach to the arms doesn’t even peg in. Meaning it does nothing at all to keep the swords from falling out of the hands. I’ve found that if you fiddle with the swords in the hands long enough, you can get the hands to hold onto them a little bit tighter. You shouldn’t really have to, though. I think that instead on including two sets of the same weapon holding hands that they should made a pair of hands for this kit that could securely grip the GN swords. I also kind of wish that the GN beam sabers came with beam blade parts.

•FINAL THOUGHTS•
Overall, I really like this kit. It’s a really great representation of the Gundam 00 Diver as it appears in the anime series, and the high level of articulation makes it easy to get this kit in some really dynamic looking poses. This is a kit, which while being really good for beginners, is also a lot of fun for builders of high skill ranges to build. It’s also very affordable, retailing in Japan for ¥1,000 (about $10 USD), and currently selling from a lot of other dealers for $10 to $13. Whether you’re new to the world of Gunpla or you’re a seasoned veteran, the High Grade 1/144 Gundam 00 Diver makes a great addition to any collection, and I highly recommend the kit if you’re looking for something fun to build or you’re looking to get you Gundam Build Divers collection started. ^u^