Where to Buy Gunpla: Official Stores, Shops and Avoiding Bootlegs

You can buy Gunpla from local hobby shops, Bandai’s official Gundam Base stores, Bandai’s Premium Bandai web stores, toy and general retailers, and online marketplaces. Bandai holds the worldwide license to make Gunpla, so wherever you buy, check that the kit is a genuine Bandai kit, not a copy.

That last point matters most on marketplaces, where genuine kits and bootlegs can sit side by side. The rest of this guide covers what each kind of seller tends to offer and how to spot a fake before you pay.

Kinds of Gunpla sellers compared

Gunpla sellers fall into five broad groups. The table sums up what each one is good for.

Buying from official Bandai stores

The Gundam Base is Bandai’s official Gunpla store brand. Its Japanese site describes The Gundam Base Tokyo as an official Gunpla facility for fans around the world, with space to buy kits and build them. Bandai Namco Amusement America says there are 31 Gundam Base stores worldwide, including a Minneapolis store that opened in October 2026. Its history of the brand starts with an official Gunpla store in Korea in 2003.

Premium Bandai is the online side. Premium Bandai USA calls itself the official online store for model kits and other Bandai products. Bandai’s Premium Bandai page for buyers outside Japan links to regional stores across Asia and Oceania as well as the U.S. Bandai’s own product pages send buyers to Premium Bandai’s Hobby Online Shop or The Gundam Base Online Shop when a kit is open for order there.

Both official channels also sell limited kits that general shops do not get. Our guide to Premium Bandai and Gundam Base kits explains how those releases work.

Buying older or sold-out kits online

Bandai’s product pages warn that kits on the market for some time may no longer be made or sold. Older kits and past limited releases are where online marketplaces earn their place, since many different sellers list stock there.

High Grade 1/144 Gundam kits

Shop high Grade (HG) 1/144 kits→

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• HGUC kitsBrowse →
• HG Iron-Blooded OrphansBrowse →
• HG Witch from MercuryBrowse →

When a kit is listed by a seller you do not know, take a moment with the checks in the next section before you buy.

How to spot bootleg Gunpla kits

Bootleg Gunpla are unlicensed copies of Bandai kits. Wikipedia notes that Bandai holds the exclusive worldwide license to make and market Gunpla, that it has sued Chinese makers over counterfeit kits, and that bootleg makers include Daban, TT Hongli, Model GD, Elyn Hobby and Dragon Momoko.

Counterfeiting is widespread. Bandai Namco reports that in fiscal 2024 it uncovered an overseas group making counterfeit Gundam products and seized about 19,000 finished products and 39,500 runner parts. The company also says its monitoring system removes more than 30,000 counterfeit products a year from online marketplaces.

A few checks help you avoid a copy:

1. Read the maker name. A genuine kit is made by Bandai. If a listing names one of the makers above, or no maker at all, it is not a Bandai kit.
2. Look at the box and photos. Ask the seller for clear photos of the actual box and runners if the listing only shows official product images.
3. Check the seller. Look at the seller’s history and reviews, and be wary of a new seller with many copies of a hard-to-find kit.
4. Compare with Bandai’s product page. The kit name and contents should match what Bandai lists for that kit.

If you are unsure about a listing, an official store or a local hobby shop takes the guesswork out.

Picking your first kit to buy

New builders do best with a general-release kit, since those are the easiest to find from every kind of seller. An Entry Grade or High Grade kit at 1/144 scale is the usual start, and our beginner’s guide to Gunpla walks through the first build. If you want to know how the grades differ before buying, see HG vs RG vs MG, and for basic tools, our guide to Gunpla nippers covers the one tool every kit needs. More step-by-step help lives in the how-to guides.