Spoiler Preface!!!

This post contains what some may consider a spoiler about a scene in the final episode of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Personally, I think that’s a stretch, but I know how the Internet can be. You have been warned.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the first, the original, the anime-styled version of the RX78-2 Gundam:

Articulation

We know this Revive Gundam is supposed to have excellent articulation, so let’s put it to the test. First, a split:

Not a complete split, but a pretty good one. In fact, looking at this photo, I think I could have straightened out the left leg a little more, in which case it would be even better. Suffice to say that this is far better than what I was able to pull off with the Barbatos.

I always like to test if a model can stand on one foot, and this one passes the test. I’m not sure if this was a full forward knee bend, but even if it is, it is quite good.

This shot not only shows the knee bend again, but also shows just how far back the leg goes. This is a problem for a lot of High Grades. Many of them can barely move their leg back at all. In many cases, this is due to the fact that their rear skirt armor is not only very large, but also immobile. It simply blocks the leg after only a few degrees of motion.

In this case, the skirt armor is still immobile, but it is also very short. This gives the leg plenty of clearance, at which point the double bend of the knee joint takes care of the rest.

The elbow bend is lovely. It is only a few degrees short of bending fully in half, which is more than enough articulation for anything you might wish to do.

This photo does a great job of illustrating exactly why the articulation on this kit is so good. It isn’t just the double bend of the joint that makes it work. The other key factor is the size of the joint mechanism. This allows for a lot of space between the two points of articulation, which in turn allows the arm to bend extremely far before the forearm touches the upper arm.

I have to imagine that the simple, blocky shape of the armor is also a factor. If the Gundam was more ornate, or bulkier, this would not work as well.

Such good articulation means that the Gundam can easily reach back and grab a beam saber:

I have done similar poses to this on less flexible models, and the results were awful. In some cases it looked close, but not close enough, and in other cases if felt as if the arm was going to break off. On the Revive Gundam, however, this is one of the easiest poses you can pull off.

If there is one aspect of the articulation that is poor, it would be the terrible bend at the waist:

However, it can easily rotate at the waist:

I’ve seen many builders half-jokingly claim that this kit has such great articulation because the engineers at Bandai wanted to make a High Grade kit that could replicate “The Final Shot”. This is a famous scene from the final episode of Mobile Suit Gundam - the titular mobile suit has lost its head and left arm, and in its final act it fires its beam rifle straight up to take out its opponent:

This is actually an extremely difficult pose to pull off with a model kit. This is because, in the Final Shot, the Gundam isn’t just lifting its arm upward, like so:

Rather, the Final Shot is achieved by swinging the arm out to the side until it swings all the way up. This is why it is so hard to pull off with a model kit. Most arm joints are simply not designed to have that king of range.

This kit, however, pulls it off with ease:

So how does it do it? The main factor is a specially designed torso joint. (Most) Gunpla use a ball and socket joint at the shoulder, and on modern High Grades, the socket is made to swing out and forward. You can see what I mean below on the HG Maganac:

Since it can swing forward, it gives the arm extra cross body range, so the model can more easily grip its weapons.

However, on the Revive Gundam, the joint instead swings out and upward:

There is one other contributing factor - second factor is that the shoulder armor is just the right size, so it doesn’t collide with the body as the arm rotates upward.

Conclusion

I will not go so far as to say that the Revive Gundam is the undisputed champ of articulation (Its ab crunch, for example, is rough). However, the articulation is incredible in all the places where it needs it most. As we will see in the next (and final) post, the more natural an action pose looks, the better, and the best way to make it look natural is when the joints don’t look like they’re being strained to pull it off.