Bandai HG 1/144 G40 Gundam is a redesign or re-imagination of the Grand-daddy RX-78-2 Gundam by industrial designer Ken Okuyama and director Kou Matsuo for the 40^th anniversaries of Gundam in 2019 and 2020 and was released in Dec 2019!

Ken Okuyama is a world-class designer and has worked for General Motors and Porsche in which helped in the design of the new generation of Porsche 911 (996) and Boxster. Hence the inspiration G40 torso represents the curved shape of a motor vehicle.

But my G40 is inspired by Casval ‘s Gundam which was featured in PSP game ‘Gundam Battle Royale’ which adeptly named and piloted by Char Aznable where he has reverted back to his real name Casval Rem Deikun hence the model of his RX-78 has a suffix ‘C.A.’

In the PSP game, the Casval’s Gundam is tuned to Casval preferences, resulting in having better mobility and reactions speed than the original RX-78-2 Gundam, and it was also deployed into combat against the original RX-78-2 Gundam.

Having said that, the original back story of the G40 Gundam as featured in a short film ‘Mobile Suit Gundam G40’ was developed by Kamaria Ray (Amuro’s mum) instead. Which given it is designed by Amuro’s mum, which is why it has a less mechanical profile than the original RX-78-2 profile that is design by Tem Ray.

Enough of the back story, I bought by G40 from Galactic Toys which is a toy company from USA. Before Brexit, I would often buy kits from Galactic Toys due to it no fuss and quick postage to UK. But at the moment since Brexit, with the additional cost of VAT and import charges, it is no longer cost effective to be shopping for Galactic Toys if you are posting it to UK. However if you are in USA and Europe, please have a look at the website and they do tend to have a good selection of kits and sales. Also by shopping with them by clicking on the link/banner below, you are also indirectly supporting me as I am affiliated to Galactic Toys.

The G40 kit and designed I would say has lots of mixed views, I have to be honest not a big fan of the design initially and I am probably in the same camp as most old school Gunpla collectors. However, as this is a special kit and which I believed is a limited run hence I am quite keen to bag one to add to my backlog collection since I have several other variants of the RX-78s.

Thus, when I was planning this project, I wanted to bring out it distinctive design and profile, hence I just thought it’s round edges does play an homage to the Neo Zeon’s design and presto Casval’s Gundam!

In my re-imagination, Tem Ray (Amuro’s Father) along with his professor Torenov Y. Minovsky has deflected to Zeon and they have developed an RX-78 specifically for Neo Zeon’s New Types pilots. The RX-78/C.A. has a rounded edge similar to most of the Zeon mobiles suits such as the Zakus, Gelgoog and Dom etc. Hence the G40 rounded edges fits nicely into my imagination.

My G40 is painted in Reddish paint scheme to represent the ‘Red Comet’ signature and also used the Casval’s Gundam colour scheme as template; which like all other mobile suits previously piloted by Char (aka Casval).  

In similar style to the Federation’s RX-78-2 Gundam, my Casval’s Gundam is armed with a beam rifle similar to the first beam rifle developed by Zeon which was used by the Gelgoog; and is also supporting a Mega Bazooka which is kit bashed from a Dom.

The kit out of the box includes 2 x Beam saber (Beam effect), Beam rifle and a Shield.

The kit itself is simple to put together and parts separation are relatively good especially around the head unit  where the vulcan guns and air vents are separated therefore making painting different colours easily. Other features of the kit are that it is created using the same 3D design production process as a normal industrial design. The forearms joints were design to be similar to those of human skeleton; which as a whole demonstrates greater movement than the human body in many aspects to allow more dynamic poses.

The G40 Gundam as previously mentioned is part of the 40^th anniversary, and over the years there have many other variants or revived version of the RX-78 released by Bandai. Where are some of my other RX-78 projects namely the Original RX-78-2 which comes with a Core Fighter, Revived Version of the RX-78-2, 2x Origin Ver of the RX-78-2, EG RX-78-2 and Beyond Global Ver of RX-78-2.

Every variants of my RX-78-2 has its own colour scheme such that it has its own ‘personality’ such as the Black Psycho Gundam, G3 colour scheme, ‘Old School’ Full armour green and Thunderbolt ver.

This is my collection of mobile suits that are piloted my Char Aznable the ‘Red Comet’. So far in my completed project I have Origin Zaku 1, Origin Zaku 2, and Gelgoog Marine (customised as Char’s personal machine).

My Red Comet G40 is designed and rightly so the new leader for my Zakus.

This is a side-by-side comparison to my recent completed project Sinanju, and you can see the Unicorn era mobile suit are much taller and bigger than the original UC era.