Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Pre Build Part 2)

Now that I’ve excised my demons, I can finally talk about the Jesta Cannon and its High Grade model kit.

About the Mobile Suit

The Universal Century has a history of mobile suit designs with the word “Cannon” in them. Usually all it means is that someone took an existing MS and strapped an extra gun or two to its shoulders, to give it some long range fire capabilities. Examples include the Zaku Cannon, the GM Cannon, and the GM Cannon II:

The Jesta Cannon falls squarely into this proud tradition. It exists to answer one question - “what if you took the Jesta and made it absolutely strapped?”

In addition to extra armor plating, this summabitch has the following weapons and features:

• A powerful beam launcher on its right shoulder
• A multipurpose launcher on its left shoulder that can be loaded with a variety of different ammo types
• Four racks of grenades, which can either be thrown or launched like missles
• A vulcan pod on its head
• A narrow but thick wrist mounted shield, which does not have to be gripped (thus freeing its left hand to hold more guns)
• Extra clips mounted to its right arm
• A modified version of the Jesta beam rifle that is twice as large and outfitted with both a grenade launcher and a rapid fire mode

It’s an insane amount of firepower, and while I have no doubt that it prevents it from easily fulfilling its original role as an escort for the Unicorn Gundam, it makes up for it in its new role as “expert in blowing sh*t up”.

Why Did I Buy this Kit?

I bought this kit a long while ago, either at the end of 2020, or the start of 2021. What’s more, I bought it back when I still hated the Jesta. At that time I still didn’t understand the Jesta’s true purpose, and thought that its Cannon variant gave it a clearer role, by turning it into a long range heavy support unit. That was enough to endear me to it.

Or so I thought. My hate boner for the Jesta was still there, and it lingered enough to sour me on this kit. Furthermore, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that it was going to require a lot of detailing work, and I wasn’t in the mood to put in that much effort for something I wasn’t head over heals for. As a result, it lingered on my backlog for about as long as any other model.

Why Build it Now?

Becuase I needed the guns.

No seriously. I had another model in mind to build, but I wanted it to have some more guns. And the Jesta Cannon has two of them (the standard Jesta rifle, and the extra large Jesta Cannon variant).

Then I came around and decided I actually like the Jesta, and that provided me with the extra motivation I needed to get through all the detailing work.

Why did you Build it Before Writing About It?

Because this is a weird kit, and I wanted to make sure I really understood what was going on with it before writing any build posts.

As you might expect, the High Grade Jesta Cannon is based on the High Grade Jesta, but I wasn’t entirely sure what that implied. For example, I wasn’t sure if it came with enough parts to be able to build either version, and I couldn’t find anyone online who could give me a definitive answer. The only way I was going to get one was by building it, which meant the writeups had to wait until later¹.

There were a few additional questions I had that were also easier to answer once the build is in my rear view mirror. In short, it just made my life easier to get all my ducks in a row.

And now that I’ve done so, there are a few key facts that I can reveal about this model kit:

• Sadly you cannot build a standard Jesta. It looks like this kit replaces one of the original runners for one that is specific to the Jesta Cannon. That means you’re missing a few crucial parts that you’d need for the transformation
• This body of this model does not require nearly as much painting or detailing as I expected. The parts separation here is extremely high for a High Grade
  • The same cannot be said for the guns, which require a lot of work if you want to look decent
• While you can’t make an original Jesta, the kit does come with its Beam Rifle and its shield
  • In fact, the instructions account for them, showing you how to build and equip them both
• The color palette is even darker than it might look at first glance, and the model has very little surface level detail.

I’ll keep the rest of my thoughts to myself until we get to the end. For now, suffice to say that this is an intriguing build. Next time we meet, we’ll finally get to it.