🚧 🚧🔨🔨 Welcome to Otaku Revolution 3.0

Rolling out the new site slowly, fixing things and updated a decade of content, also slowly. If you encounter any issues please shoot me a message on Bluesky or Instagram.

LGG – Intro

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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – What Gunpla kit should I start with?

Alow me, to once and for all, answer this most burning of questions, ‘I’m new to Gunpla, what should I build?”

Have you ever built a model kit before?

 No…

 Yes…
 

Pick a High Grade or RE/100 grade kit.

Doesn’t matter what kit you get, go with whatever design you like the best.

  

Any damn kit you like

Seriously, you got this

Seriously. Stop. Don’t overthink this.

If you haven’t built a kit before you can’t go wrong with the simplicity of a High Grade or RE/100 kit. The complexity is low, the part count is low. The process isn’t fundamentally different than any other kit, even Perfect Grades.

Yeah, some HG kits are better than others. It is a product line that has been around for over two decades now (in its current form). But this isn’t about building the best kit, this is about you. You building a design you like. You, getting to know the build process. If you mess up, break something, that’s okay. I’d say a majority of us in this hobby look back at our first few kits and cringe a bit. read more

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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – What is Gunpla?

Whenever folks ask me about my hobbies I have to bring up Gunpla. They then, very predictably, ask me what Gunpla is. Most don’t have the background for a long answer and I usually I just tell them, “Gunpla are model robots based on an animated Japanese franchise.” Sometimes I make a comparison to military or car models. Short, simple and to the point.

The long answer is that Gunpla is the term used to describe plastic models from the Gundam franchise, gun + pla. Back in 1979 there was an animated series in Japan (anime) called Mobile Suit Gundam. Since then it has developed into an expansive franchise with additional series, movies, games, and toys. Not long after they released the first series Bandai started to make plastic model kits of  the show’s mobile suits. Over the years the model line has developed with the franchise. As production technologies improved Gunpla models became more and more sophisticated featuring a wide range of gimmicks and detail. The cost of a Gunpla kit can range from $10 to over $300 depending on the size and complexity. read more

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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – Terminology

Here’s a handy reference to some of the terminology commonly used in gunpla and modeling communities. ’twas written by Sonar over at the Gundam Australia Forum and used with permission.

Be sure to check out the thread where this all started as it may have received updates not present here.

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00 – “Double Oh” refers to the animated series Mobile Suit Gundam 00

0079 – “Double Oh Seventy Nine” – Refers to the pivotal year of the Universal Century time line where the One Year War was fought, and the original Mobile Suit Gundam TV series was set. read more

Falldogby Falldog••0
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Layman’s Gunpla Guide – Buying Kits & Difficulty Grades

First timers might be wondering where exactly to start. There have been hundreds of kits released since 1980, if not thousands. Over the years the complexity and engineering has (generally) improved as Bandai’s production technologies and design methods advance.

Size and Scale

Gundam models, like most other plastic models have an accompanying original to model ratio, or scale. A 1/100 kit would be roughly 100 times smaller than actual size of the object the kit represents. A 1/60 scale kit would only be 60 times smaller resulting in a larger model. read more

Falldogby Falldog••0