Here it is folks - the Real Grade ν Gundam (aka Nu Gundam).

I’ve been wanting to build this one for a while now, but it’s a bit pricey, and, well, huge. I figured I’d wait until some sort of special occasion to justify getting it (preferably some special occasion that coincided with having the requisite time needed to work on it).

As I recently announced, I got a new job, and it just so happens that I’m taking a week off in between to rest and recharge. Funny how things work out sometimes.

So let’s dive in. Fair warning - there is a lot of lore and backstory surrounding the Nu Gundam. I’m going to write about it as best I can, but it’s going to get wordy. Feel free to skip all or most of this post if that bores you.

Oh, and before we begin:

Spoiler Preface!!!

This post contains some spoilers for the film Char’s Counterattack. You have been warned

About the Nu Gundam

Without delving too far into Universal Century history, let’s just say that after being semi-absent from the events of Zeta Gundam, and fully absent during ZZ Gundam, One Year War ace Amuro Ray eventually found himself back in the Earth Federation Space Force, as the ace pilot of the Londo Bell task force.

Londo Bell was a special group that was intended to be the “tip of the spear” in any counter-insurgency efforts against Zeon remnants. Of course, being an ace pilot (and the legend of the One Year War) has its perks, and so Amuro was allowed to personally design a new mobile suit. And it’s a good thing too, because in the year UC 0093, Amuro’s arch nemesis Char Aznable returns to the scene with a Neo Zeon army aiming to drop as many large objects on the Earth as possible. Amuro would need some heavy firepower - say a new Gundam. And thus was born the … Nu Gundam.

The Nu Gundam was based on all the best features and performance metrics from every previous Gundam. It also boasted features that took advantage of Amuro’s Newtype abilities. For example, it was one of the first mobile suits to have a psychoframe, which embedded Zeon’s weird and experimental Psycommu technology throughout the entire frame of the mobile suit. Essentially, this allows a Newtype pilot to control the mecha with their thoughts and emotions (which in theory gives them unparalleled control and reaction times).

In addition to the Psychoframe, Nu Gundam was equipped with six fin funnels.

Another Zeon technology, fin funnels are basically small drones, usually equipped with a beam cannon. Newtype pilots can telepathically command them during battle, and they’re useful in all the ways you might expect (distracting multiple enemies, hitting a target from their flank, etc).

While funnels originated within Zeon, the Nu Gundam greatly improved upon the concept. Zeon funnels were typically E-cap-based - once they ran out of energy, they were rendered useless. Nu Gundam’s funnels were bigger, with their own onboard generators. This meant they operated longer and fired more powerful shots.

It also meant they could form a protective shield around the mobile suit:

This all adds up to a darn powerful mobile suit, but when we see the Nu Gundam in Char’s Counterattack, it isn’t technically finished. Char’s plans were already in motion, and Amuro couldn’t afford to wait any longer. This means that the Nu Gundam is performing at less than 100% of its potential during the film.

And yet: once Amuro sorties for the final battle, he drops a f*#king train on Neo Zeon. He takes on both Cyber Newtype Gyunei Guss (who spent the rest of the film terrorizing the Federation in his Jagd Doga), and Quess Paraya (piloting a freaking mobile armor) at once, and the only thing he loses is his shield.

Finally, he squares off against Char for their final, fated battle. It plays out like a highly technical boxing match, in that it looks fairly close to the untrained eye, but then one fighter just decks his opponent for a TKO. Later on, you look at the judges’ scorecards, and you realize that it was actually quite a one-sided bout.

There is a moment near the end where Char realizes that Nu Gundam is so tough that even it’s beam saber is somehow stronger. And when they both run out of weapons and begin to grapple. the Sazabi is almost immediately overpowered, at which point Nu Gundam proceeds to punch the everliving snot out of it:

When the fight is over, Char is forced to flee in his escape pod, while the Nu Gundam is so fully intact that it’s able to catch the pod and fly around with it. Char’s desire for a fair fight with Amuro ends up being his undoing, as it leads to a final battle that plays out like a squash match.

Overall, Nu Gundam doesn’t get all that much screentime in Char’s Counterattack, but it uses that time to deliver some of the most thorough and efficient ass whoopings in the entire Universal Century.

And it wasn’t even 100% completed.

No wonder it has a long history as Japan’s favorite Gundam.

About the Visual Design

If you’ve never seen Nu Gundam before, you might look at it and think to yourself “what’s the big deal? It looks like any other Gundam”. That’s a perfectly reasonable reaction. In fact, it’s how I felt the first time I saw it.

And hey, maybe that’s how you’ll always feel. But as someone who’s really come around on the design, in my (current) opinion, the fact that it looks like “any old Gundam” is a large part of the appeal.

If you look at enough mobile suits from the UC 0090’s, you’ll notice that a lot of designs from the decade are a little too extra.

They get really big and heavily armed (and heavily armored), which forces them to use tons of thrusters to keep them fast, which in turn makes them bigger still. While this trend is less common among mass production suits, it is extremely prevalent with prototypes and one-off customs. And it causes a lot of them to look a bit much.

The Nu Gundam doesn’t completely escape this trend, as it is significantly taller than all previous Gundams. But beyond its height, nothing else about it is all that deviant from the classic Gundam design. It’s not any chunkier, and it still has a standard issue loadout (bazooka, shield, rifle, beam sabers)¹. It is a design that manages to compete with the big monsters of the era without betraying its legacy.

It’s also got a great color scheme. It’s use of black instead of blue adds a tremendous contrast to the red and yellow. The whole thing feels much more … serious … compared to the original Gundam color palette.

And don’t forget those fin funnels, which make this the rare example of a Gundam with an asymmetric design:

In this case, I think it works great. The funnels sort of look like a wing or a cape or something, and they give the Nu an even more heightened sense of grandeur.

All in all, the Nu is a serious, no-nonsense riff on the classic Gundam design, one that feels entirely appropriate for the epic, life and death conflict it was built for. You wouldn’t want all your Gundams to look like this, but you want this one to.

About the Model Kit

There is so much to say about this kit, but we’ve already gone on so long. Here are some quick facts:

• The Real Grade Nu is almost as tall as some Master Grades
• It is super detailed
• Despite its fin funnels, it doesn’t topple over as easily as you might think, but it still can if you aren’t careful
• Its fin funnels easily lock into place when deployed, and don’t flop around (which was apparently a problem with the recentish Master Grade version of the Nu)
• It has some insane articulation that, at least at the time of its release, could not be found in any other Gunpla
• The box is freaking huge
• I’m kind of scared to build this

Other Fun Facts

File this under “Because nothing is ever easy in Gundam fandom” …

By the time of the events of _Char’s Counterattack”, Amuro had his own Ace Pilot Logo - that of a White Unicorn sort of in the shape of the letter ‘A’:

This is not to be confused with the unicorn logo used by the pilot and crew of the Unicorn Gundam:

And yet confusion abounds regardless:

As far as I can tell, Amuro’s logo was his alone, and was not carried over to anything in Gundam Unicorn. And normally I’d say that it’s an easy mistake to make, if not for the fact that the White Unicorn logo looks like the letter A. Why would anyone else adopt it?

Before We Go

One last photo of our boy taking out the trash:

In the wise words of Barney Gumble: