The Gundam in “Listen to Mum”: My RX-78-2 Revival Build

There are times when a plastic model is more than just a plastic model.

Recently, while watching Jay Chou’s music video for “Listen to Mum” (聽媽媽的話), I noticed something I had never really paid attention to before: an RX-78-2 Gundam standing on the right-hand side of the screen in the opening frame.

Right at the beginning of the music video, the Gundam is prominently visible. It does not simply disappear after that first second. It remains part of the background in subsequent shots as Jay performs the song.

It is never the subject of the music video, nor is its presence explained.

It is simply there.

And somehow, that small background detail became the reason I decided to build an RX-78-2 of my own.

From the Music Video to the Workbench

I was not trying to reproduce the particular Gundam prop seen in the music video exactly. Nor was I attempting to recreate its precise colours or finish.

Instead, this is my own interpretation of that RX-78-2.

For the project, I chose Bandai’s 2024 Best Mecha Collection 1/144 RX-78-2 Gundam (REVIVAL Ver.).

The choice was deliberate. Unlike the more modern proportions of the HGUC RX-78-2 Revive, the 2024 Best Mecha Collection kit deliberately recalls the proportions and character of the original 1980 1/144 RX-78-2 Gundam.

That old-school silhouette felt particularly appropriate for a project inspired by a music video from the mid-2000s, while still being a modern kit that I could build and customise in my own way.

Painting the RX-78-2

I began by base-coating the model with Mr. Color No. 13 Neutral Grey.

From there, the armour parts received their respective colours and weathering.

The red parts were painted with Mr. Hobby Gundam Color UG10 Char’s MS Pink. The yellow parts received Mr. Color No. 109 Character Yellow, while the white parts were painted with Mr. Color No. 107 Character White.

The blue parts proved a little more troublesome.

My initial plan was to weather Gundam Color UG02 MS Blue over the Neutral Grey base coat. However, the result did not quite work the way I wanted against the grey underneath.

Rather than settle for it, I changed the approach.

I painted the blue parts over with UG02 MS Blue as a new base coat, allowed it to dry, and then weathered over it using Mr. Color No. 323 Light Blue.

The result gave me a finish that I was much happier with.

The parts moulded in grey received a slightly different treatment. After the Mr. Color No. 13 Neutral Grey base coat, I airbrushed them with Mr. Color No. 8 Silver.

Panel Lining and Assembly

Once the paint had dried, I applied Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color Black to the parts.

After allowing the panel-line wash to dry, I used Tamiya X-20 Thinner with cotton buds to clean up the excess from the surfaces.

Only after the painting, weathering and panel lining were completed did I proceed to remove the parts from the runners and snap-fit the model together.

It was a fairly straightforward build mechanically, but the painting process became a much bigger part of the project than simply assembling the kit straight out of the box.

The finished RX-78-2 is therefore not a recreation of the Gundam seen in Jay Chou’s music video.

It is my RX-78-2, inspired by the one I noticed there.

The Song Behind the Build

“Listen to Mum” was released as part of Jay Chou’s Still Fantasy (依然范特西), which was originally released on 5 September 2006.

The song itself carries a message about listening to and appreciating one’s mother, and it remains one of the recognisable songs from that album.

On 19 August 2026, Still Fantasy receives a new release in Super High Material Compact Disc (SHM-CD) format.

That gave me a particularly good reason to finally turn the observation from the music video into something physical.

I’ve been interested in both Jay Chou’s music and Gundam modelling for many years, and this project gave me an opportunity to bring those two interests together in a way I hadn’t previously considered.

Twenty Years Later

The interesting thing about this project is that the connection isn’t really about remembering a particular moment from 2006.

It is about discovering something in a piece of media that is now nearly twenty years old, and deciding that this small detail is interesting enough to build something from it in 2026.

For me, this RX-78-2 is a small physical marker of that connection.

A Gundam that appeared quietly in the background of a Jay Chou music video nearly twenty years ago eventually became the inspiration for a modelling project of my own.

It is funny how sometimes a small detail in an old piece of media can lead somewhere completely unexpected.

Sometimes we notice the big things.

Sometimes, we notice a Gundam standing quietly in the background while a song plays.

And sometimes, years later, we build it.

Jay Chou × Gundam. 2006 → 2026.