R-Gun Powered

Super Robot Wars has a lot of different types of mech designs. There’s giant super robots who can shoot rocket punches right next to real robots with machine guns and beam sabers. One of my favorite designs is the R-Gun, as shown here in 1/144 model kit form.

The R-Gun is a part of the Project SRX piloted by Viletta Nu, and Mai Kobayashi. It’s a personal trooper that is capable of turning into a large cannon known as the Metal Genocider (Metal Destroyer in the US release). Unfortunately this model kit is not capable of doing this. Despite that, it’s a very nice model.

From the back, R-Gun doesn’t look very much like the usual Gundam. A lot of the back frame work is free to see, for what would be a transformation if it was in place.

This model kit is just like the usual Kotobukiya model kit. It has decent articulation. The arms and legs are on ball joints attached via polycaps. The arms can only go 90 degrees. Thankfully the legs are double jointed and the ankle articulation is supple.

The R-Gun has several hands. Two closed fists, a hand holding for the Double Magna Rifle, and three hands for holding the Beam Gladii. The Double Magna Rifle can only be held in the right hand, and the Double Beam Gladius can only be used in the left hand.

The way the Beam Gladius works is the wings that R-Gun has on its back. The R-Gun grabs onto the fins and pulls them out and then they work just like beam sabers. The construction of these is nice, and all of the details are molded into different colored pieces.

Originally the R-Gun was released just like this. And by itself, I think it’s a bit of a plain model kit. However Kotobukiya then released another version that not only included the original parts for the R-Gun, but also the upgrade parts that turn the mech into the R-Gun Powered. There are extra guns that the R-Gun is given, known as the Hyper Twin Launchers.

Unfortunately, there’s a bit of part swapping needed in order to change the mode. There’s a solid molded piece of the fin and a different back thruster as well. Switching the thrusters is easy enough, but the problem comes with the Fin piece. The white fin on the side need to be entirely removed which is a pain and makes me worry that it will break off. It’s a very tiny detail though, so you don’t need to do it and some times I don’t even bother switching it if I feel lazy about it since it’s such a tiny nit picky detail.

However once you do switch the parts, the R-Gun Powered becomes quite impressive. The guns are even taller than the R-Gun by itself. It really enhances the look of the model.

But with such large guns, there are some slight balance issues. However thankfully Kotobukiya considered this and also included a stand as well. The stand is on a ball joint that pegs right into R-Gun’s back side. The stand suits R-Gun very well, and makes it possible to strike any dynamic poses you may want with these parts.

R-Gun is a decent model kit, but the R-Gun Powered parts make it all the better. This is one of my favorite mech designs and Kotobukiya did an excellent job of turning it into a model kit.