Man, if you don’t love the Zeta Gundam, I don’t think we can be friends. If there’s one star Gundam that embodies the 80’s, it’s this one. Transforms? Check. Well-placed color scheme? Check. Sleek and sexy as all hell? VERY CHECK. When I was younger, I wasn’t too into the design. Most of the kits of it in that era had problems with the transformation and they all looked too bulky. Once the HGUC came around, things started improving, and now we have the Real Grade Zeta, which should hopefully make every other version of the suit look obsolete.
The Zeta Gundam was the second kit in the 2.0 series, and one that I think was needed more than the Mark II. I remember reading reviews of the 1.0 over ten years ago and people constantly complained that it was floppy because of the transformation system. If I remember correctly, the first fully-transforming Master Grades to not have any of these problems were the Zeta Plus kits in 2001, one of which I’d love to pick up one of these days.
Like the Titans Hyaku Shiki, part of the reason why I’m doing this project was out of inspiration, but as extreme of one as that. Thanks to my friends (and the wonderful owner of Samueldecal—seriously check him out on Facebook), I had some custom decals made for the Zeta Gundam as piloted by Roux Louka from Zeta Gundam. She’s one of my all-time favorite characters in the Gundam universe, so I wanted to make something specifically for her. The decals are mostly ones with her name, emblem, and ones denoting that the suit belongs to the Nahel Argama. I got several of those made just in case I wanted to give one or two to a suit from Unicorn. Additionally, I have the standard Bandai waterslide decals to cover the rest of the kit.
The Zeta has a lot of parts. A LOT of parts. Many of them are actually reused runners. This is something I have kind of mixed feelings about. I can understand why it’s done from a budgetary standpoint, but when you’re building it can feel like you’re not making much progress since you’re literally building the same thing over and over again. I remember having to do it with the FAZZ back in 2008 and that… that was a nightmare I never, ever want to relive.
One of the best features of this kit is the inclusion of a launch catapult stand. Kits that include their own stands/action bases are always a huge plus in my book. I believe it’s also compatible with the Mark II 2.0, but we’ll have to see that after I have all of this assembled.
To make things better, a 1/100 scale launch crew is included, including Kamille sitting down and a standing figure of… Emma? Yeah, that’s a pretty strange choice. You’d think she’d be included with the Mark II, seeing as she never used the Zeta Gundam itself.
Consider I have a big, complex, transforming suit here, I think I’ll be working on this one for awhile. I’m okay with this, since my shelf could use a Zeta Gundam in classic colors. Remember folks, FPNYC’s got you covered, some if you’re in the market for one of these, come on down!!