Release date: June, 2004 (per Dalong)
Print date on my runners: December '23
Price: $21-$25 as of April 2025
Series: Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket
The photos of my kit are finished with Bandai decal sheet GD-53. These decals are identical to the sticker sheet included with the kit, but it will look more clean than using the stickers.
Uhh... I haven't actually seen 0080 yet. I'm still in the midst of ZZ. ZZ rules. I will destroy Glemy Toto. The Looney Tunes shit at the start of ZZ especially rules. Get on board, fuckos. We just turned Kamille into a vegetable, it's time to decompress. So says Tomino.
Anyways, the NT-1. This shit rules. Just take the RX-78 and combine it with some of the design stylings from Zeta/ZZ and this is what you get, and it is perfect. Look, I hate painting the yellow/black vents but they look so damn good, and those leg thrusters that most of the Zeta/ZZ suits had? Art.
But possibly the coolest thing? And the thing that apprently doesn't even show up in the anime? That shield.
Who knew just putting a kind of graffiti looking "ALEX" on a shield would be so awesome? I have to be honest, just seeing that shield was what made me want this kit and I didn't really pick up on how close this suit was to the RX-78 until I was building it. I mean.. it's kind of in the name considering it's the RX-78 NT-1 but I was just blinded by the shield.
This is sort of an odd kit. It's doing its best to break away from some of the early HGUC pitfalls, but it just doesn't quite manage to fully get away. This was a time when the people designing kits were finally starting to think in terms of "maybe there's a better way than just having the limbs be in half," but not quite of the time where a beam saber was more than just a plstic chopstick.
This is a kit from 2004. It looks like a kit from 2004. This time, I managed to take my own before pictures!
Here it is, as naked as it came with and without the armor attachments:
Pretty bare! This kit does come with a few color correcting stickers. Here's what it would look like with only the color correcting stickers applied, except this is paint:
Looking a little bit better, but still pretty bland. As with all high grades, the pieces are there, you just need to give it some extra love.