From B-Club to P-Bandai: The History of Special Edition Gunpla

Limited-edition Shin Musha Gundam on P-Bandai.

Have you ever looked at the online storefront at Premium Bandai (P-Bandai for short) and wondered why special editions became such a big deal? It turns out giant robot fans have been fascinated by shiny, see-through, or alternate colorways of their favorite kits for 40 years! Let contributor John Carlo Rayas tell you all about the history of limited edition Gunpla.

Most Gunpla model kits are available from multiple vendors for an extended period of time. However, there are certain special-edition kits that are more limited. It involves timing, strategy, and more than a little bit of luck for fans to get their hands on these items.

Bandai has been producing and releasing limited-edition Gunpla kits for the past 40 years. Let’s take a look back at the history of these special-edition Gunpla.

B-Club: A Brand Built By a Need for Garage Kits

When robot anime experienced a popularity boom in the 1980s, various enterprising entities sold model kits and garage kits left and right. Bandai saw an opportunity in both markets. Primarily, the toy distributor sold widely available Gunpla kits. But on the side, it began peddling its first limited edition products through a magazine called B-Club.

B-Club released its inaugural issue on November 15, 1985. Chief Editor Satoshi Kato himself called the publication an “experimental hobby magazine,” even though it was an official Bandai publication. Unlike its contemporaries at the time, like Animage, Newtype, or even Bandai’s own Monthly Making Journal, B-Club’s focus is on an older generation of otaku who wanted more than the plastic model kits Bandai and others were releasing at the time. With that in mind, B-Club released not only articles, but resin mods for existing Gunpla kits.

One such example is the backpack mod for the 1/144 Zaku, released in 1985, to coincide with Kazuhisa Kondo’s “MS Gundam Senki” manga, which appeared in B-Club magazine at that time.

This resin mod includes a backpack similar to the Zaku Minelayer MSV variant, a pair of Vernier thrusters to be glued on the sides, and an instruction packet.

These modifications would become the basis of how Bandai would release its special edition model kits going forward.

B-Club did not restrict itself to releasing modifications to existing Gunpla. It also offered resin model kits of obscure mobile suits from the franchise. A great example of this would be the 1/144 Z-Gustav, a suit that only appears in the Side Story of Gundam Zeta manga series. Like its more mainstream Gunpla counterparts back in the day, B-Club released these kits in only one color, usually gray or pale yellow. Unlike more widely available Gunpla counterparts, however, these kits did not come with weapons or any other accessories. Note the lack of holes in the hand joints. Additionally, these resin kits offered little to no articulation, depending on how each part was molded during the production process.

A resin model of the obscure 1/144 Z-Gustav.

Though B-Club ceased publication in 1998, Bandai retains the B-Club name for its self-produced resin kits and conversion mods to this day. The death of the magazine would also open the B-Club name to more conventional model kits to be produced under their name.

For example, in 1997, a special edition of the 1/100 Master Grade RX-78GP01 was given as a prize for the “Bandai PlaModel Powerful Campaign” and was released under the B-Club banner. This edition of the kit replaced white pieces with subdued silver, the inner frame got a gunmetal plating, and the rest of the parts got metallic versions of their normal colors.

Special-edition 1/100 Master Grade RX-78GP01

Gunmetal plating on the inner frame

Promotional Gunpla Releases

Outside of B-Club and P-Bandai, Bandai also released some kits that were only available for a limited time. These kits were either in commemoration of a special event or used as prizes for certain competitions or lotteries.

The first reported limited Gunpla release was an MSV edition of Char’s Zaku II in May of 1984. This special MSV version of Char’s Zaku II was a prize for the Gundam W Exciting Present promo. No, the “W” does not stand for Gundam Wing, a show which wouldn’t come out for another decade; it stood for “Double.” This model kit also became the grand prize for the “Gundam Exciting Campaign” lottery that happened in the same year.

The Zaku Minelayer re-release came with a box that had Kunio Okawara’s signature.

This 1/144 scale Gunpla was a special re-release of the Zaku Minelayer kit with a red paint job and new weapons. It also came with a box that has Kunio Okawara’s signature, thus signifying the rarity of this product. Only 6,000 people get to win this special edition Zaku Minelayer, at least for the W Exciting campaign.

1984 would also see Gunpla being used as a promotional release for a manga series. To promote the series Plamo Kyoshiro, Bandai and Kodansha gave away 2,000 1/144 Full Armor Gundam Custom kits as a prize in January 1984. The model kit would also be given away at the 1984 Kodansha BonBon Fair.

Unlike the MSV version of Char’s Zaku II, no new weapons or molds were created for this kit. The only difference between this and the regular MSV release is the color scheme, which is based on how the Plamo Kyoshiro manga’s protagonist painted his own Full Armor Gundam kit.

1986 was the year the Z Gundam series of kits got a limited release, starting with a gold-plated version 1/144 Zeta Gundam that was to be given away as a prize for Bandai’s “1986 New Year’s Special” promo.

The box for this kit has the words “LIMITED For Best Modeler” printed on it. However, we couldn’t find additional information about how the contest actually worked or what other prizes were made available.

In 1987, Bandai distributed a gold-plated re-release of the 1/144 RX-78-2 Gundam to celebrate the Gundam franchise’s 10th anniversary.

This release also coincided with the advanced theatrical release of Char’s Counterattack, which fans could obtain by winning a lottery inside an SD Gundam gashapon capsule.

Gold-plated RX-78-2 Gundam

Unassembled with instructions

Bandai also released a gold-plated reprint of its 1/100 RX-78-2 a year later. This time, however, it could be purchased in model shops and had a “limited version” sticker on the box to differentiate it from the regular release.

The RX-78-2 was not the only plastic model kit that had a gold-painted release in 1988. A re-release of the 1/144 MSV Prototype Gundam was also sold in model shops. The same applies to the gold-plated versions of the 1/144 and 1/100 Hyaku Shiki from the Z Gundam line.

While gold-plated Gunpla still existed as the decade rolled into the 1990s, as seen in the golden versions of the 1/144 GP01 and F91 kits for the “All Gundam 3D Contest II,” promotional Gunpla now came in colors other than gold.

The unassembled silver-plated HG V2 Assault Gundam.

This next entry might be nothing new nowadays, but the special edition of the High Grade (HG) 1/100 V2 Assault Gundam was a sign of things to come. The difference between this kit and those that came before it is that the main body was coated in silver paint instead of the usual white. No pictures of the built model kit were found on the Internet. However, photos of the unbuilt kit are circulating online, from Japanese Gunpla sites to Yahoo Auctions.

The 1990s also saw the very first Gunpla coated in all black. This would be the JAF-CON special edition release of the 1/144 Wing Gundam.

According to one listing in Yahoo Auctions, Bandai gave these away at JAF-CON. I cannot find any article or blog post stating the year when that specific JAF-CON occurred.

The Gundam X line also got JAF-CON exclusives. This time, however, all three 1/100 HG Gundam X kits given away at JAF-CON 1996 had clear plastic molding except for the polycap runners.

As Bandai entered the new millennium, it released even more promotional Gunpla into the wild. The Bandai Museum sold full-plated 1/100 versions of the Aile Strike Gundam and the Freedom Gundam.

Aile Strike Gundam

Freedom Gundam

These were only available for a limited time starting on November 29, 2003. The 1/144 SEED line also received a limited release. In 2004, we got a red version of the 1/144 Calamity Gundam.

As you may have noticed, Bandai seems to have decided to keep the gold plating to a minimum and instead focus on producing other color variants or versions that were only seen in non-animated media. Case in point, the 1/144 Deactive-Mode Strike Gundam.

This was the standard for special edition Gunpla releases moving forward, not just promotional releases. Gone are the days of color swaps (until Bandai releases a thing or two in some event). Instead, these are the days of rare Mobile Suit variants.

Limited Model Releases

The title says it all. Limited models are mobile suits that fans normally would not request as Gunpla releases. While the Gundam franchise is not the focus of this model kit series, the line spawned six kits: two from Gundam Wing, three from Gundam X, and one from Gundam: 08th M.S. Team.

Unlike their standard-edition contemporaries, these plastic molds have only one color. These kits are also sensitive to solvent evaporation due to the plastic material in these molds. They also do not contain any movable parts that people would usually expect from Gunpla.

The reason for this considerably lower level of quality might be because Bandai had Neon Genesis Evangelion’s popularity on its mind. It wanted to ensure that it could maintain quality control on the ever-expanding Evangelion products at the time of the series’ release. That might be why Bandai used whatever plastic is in these kits instead of the usual ABS plastic used in conventional Gunpla.

Premium Bandai – The Evolution of Special Edition Gunpla

By the late 2000s, the Internet had opened the gateway for e-commerce. Bandai, of course, would take advantage of this opportunity by opening its online web store. This led to the creation of the Premium Bandai brand, also known as P-Bandai.

MS IGLOO 2: Gravity Front version of the Zaku II.

The very first P-Bandai exclusive Gunpla kits released were the MS IGLOO 2: Gravity Front versions of the Zaku II, Gouf Custom, and Dom. These kits are your typical Master Grade build quality and have all the accessories found in regular Gunpla. What separates these releases from the usual points back to the promotional model kits. The kits released under P-Bandai were based on Mobile Suits that were not getting regular Gunpla kit releases.

Like promotional releases, special editions are also released for a limited time and are only available on Bandai’s web store. But unlike promotional releases, P-Bandai would sometimes re-release these kits for those who weren’t able to purchase them the first time.

Around this time, the P-Bandai label became a profitable venture. It was so successful that Bandai Namco Holdings decided to make the label a worldwide service. By 2014, the United States would get its first Premium Bandai online store, and to celebrate that occasion, they rolled out the Master Grade Tallgeese III.

P-Bandai also released Gunpla kits in other grades. One of the biggest examples of this is the Gunpla Premium Box dedicated to Gundam’s 30th anniversary.

This box contains not one, but twelve Gunpla kits, ranging from the original RX-78-2 kit from 1980 to the High Grade Universal Century G-30 Gundam. These 12 kits were representative of the TV shows that defined the Gundam franchise.

What also separates this from other Gunpla multipacks is that all the kits have clear coloring, making this set a real collector’s item, albeit with a lack of model kits for the two movies that premiered during those past 30 years—the Nu Gundam and the F91 did not make an appearance here.

Aside from some various gimmicks, P-Bandai made the procurement of Gunpla that used to be only available at certain events and promos more accessible to the public willing to pay for it. You can say that thanks to P-Bandai, limited editions became less limited than ever before.