Gunpla is the foundation the rest of the hobby was built on. Bandai's first Gundam plastic model, a 1/144 RX-78-2, reached shelves in 1980, and what began as a way to put the Mobile Suits of a single anime into builders' hands grew into a graded system that now runs from entry kits to museum-grade showpieces. The name itself, a contraction of Gundam plastic model, became shorthand for an entire category. Every grade that follows, from High Grade to Perfect Grade, is a different answer to the same question of how much detail and engineering a builder wants to take on.