This kit - officially known as the Gundam Local Type (North American Front) is the kit I wanted to buy, but I only did so after I let my inner child convince me to do so.
We’ll get into the history and details of this mobile suit in due time, but let’s just get one thing out of the way first - if a generation of pre-teens somehow got hooked on Gundam by watching shows set in the Universal Century, rather than by watching shows such as Gundam Wing or Gundam Seed, this is the kind of mobile suit they would be sketching in their notebooks.
You’ve got the basic Gundam body painted black and orange (because it looks cool), with an extra cannon strapped to its shoulder (because more guns = more cool), and a shield that can hold not one, but two beam sabers on the bottom in order to turn it into some weird shield/spear/pitchfork hybrid (because offense is so much cooler than defense - so why not turn the defensive gear into a weapon?).
And of course, this is to say nothing yet about the visor that goes over its eyes, making it look like a Gundam who wears sunglasses all day long.
I can just imagine a fourteen year old drawing this thing up as a doodle, throwing the shades on as a final touch, and thinking its cool factor has now hit the stratosphere.
And I would agree! For some reason the recoloring, combined with all the other tweaks, really work for me. Maybe it boils down to the fact that this is a rare Gundam variant that doesn’t go too far with its changes, but also avoids not going far enough. It feels like an offshoot of a familiar design, rather than a (forced and awkward) evolution into something more.
That makes sense considering the history of this MS. The Gundam Local Type debuted in Gundam The Origin: Discovery (or MSD for short), a “design series” in which mecha designers were given free reign to come up with new mobile suit concepts without having to worry about fitting them into an upcoming show/OVA/manga/etc. The other purpose of MSD, so far as I can tell, is to retcon/revise the lineage and evolution of both Zeon and Federation mobile suit designs to better fit with the alternative history proposed in the actual Gundam: The Origin storyline. Basically, the mecha sketched out for MSD are considered canonical, but some were either never manufactured, or were simply so limited/obscure that we never got a chance to see them.
According to my research, the Gundam Local Type is one of many prototype RX-78 units created by the Earth Federation. Basically, they made some units out of spare parts and used them to perform different kinds of tests (including underwater combat, Earth-based combat, endurance tests, etc). As far as I can tell, this particular version of the Gundam Local Type - with the black paint job and shoulder cannon - is a singular, one-off unit that roamed the wastelands of North America and absolutely shredded any Zeon forces it came across. However, the Federation never officially acknowledged its existence, and the only evidence for it came in the form of a fuzzy video recording made by a Zeon pilot who faced its wrath. To use a bad pun, it was a truly Black Ops mobile suit.
In a way, the Gundam Local Type is what you would get if the Gundam Ground Type was meant as a test unit, rather than a practical, frontline machine. It even has rails on the shoulder armor, just like the Ground Type, eaning it (presumably) can be equipped with a parachute! Perhaps this similarity to one of my all-time favorite Gundam designs is another reason why I like this one so much.
Regardless, I really like the idea of a weird test Gundam running around in the desert, blowing stuff up and looking awesome while doing so. It lets my inner child have fun, while the adult in me doesn’t have to think very hard about how it fits into the big picture. I cannot wait to get this built to see how it looks in person.
Leftover Thoughts
- Turns out they eventually did create a story featuring this North American Local Type Gundam. It is featured in a manga named Gundam The Origin: Cucuruz Doan’s Island. Despite the seemingly silly title, the name Cucuruz Doan has significance to some Gundam fans. Apparently the story of the manga is exactly what I described earlier in this post - a bunch of Zeon forces are patrolling the barren wastes of North America, and the Gundam Local Type keeps showing up and kicking their asses. What’s funny is that despite the fact that the story is told from the perspective of the Zeon, the very first mobile suit to be listed in the “Mechanical” section of the manga’s promo website is the Gundam Local Type:
It truly is the star of the story, and for good reason. It really does look that sweet.