Gunpla Build - Zaku II Revive (articulation)

The Revive Zaku is ready to be put through its paces:

But first, let’s talk a bit about how it turned out.

First off, I made the right call: this thing definitely needed some shading and weathering compound. The former helps to highlight the model’s curves, and the latter removed the plastic sheen off all the black pieces. Together, they make the model look so much more real (for a certain definition of “real”, given that we’re talking about a pink robot).

In fact, there’s something quite stunning about this Revive Zaku. I’m not sure if it is the shape, or the perfect colors, or what, but it looks like it jumped right out of the TV screen. It is a testament to the fact that you when you have a strong design, you don’t need the super fine mechanical detail found in the more expensive grades of kit.

Now, let’s dive into the articulation.

Head

The head can do this:

Which means the Zaku can look down towards its feet. It doesn’t, however, do much for looking up. You can use this gimmick to raise the head away from the body, which gives you a little bit of upward range, but not much:

Now what about the monoeye? Bandai’s been rather … indecisive regarding monoeye technology. Way back in 2010, when they released the Real Grade Zaku, they figured out a way to make the eye move when the head moves. It works perfectly - it moves smoothly, it always stays in alignment, and it stops when the head does too.

But I guess the mechanism was too complicated to put into a High Grade, so they never did. They did try to replicate the gimmick in the High Grade Bugu, but it doesn’t work all that well. The movement isn’t smooth, and it gets stuck. I’ve never seen this on any other High Grade, so my guess is that they gave up on it real quick.

That might explain why the Revive Zaku uses the old, primitive, but time tested approach, where you have to remove the head and adjust a lever to make the monoeye move:

I mean, it certainly works, but it’s kind of a pain. I doubt I’ll ever adjust again after taking this photo.

And you know what? I’m mad that Bandai didn’t put the Real Grade mechanism into this one. They already made the weapons Real Grade quality, and I’m sure they could figure out a simpler way of implementing the monoeye gimmick after eleven years of advancement in Gunpla technology. It’s a weird shortcoming in a model that otherwise tries to go the extra mile.

Arms

We get a perfect flex at the elbow, which is honestly starting to get less and less impressive, as more and more High Grades seem to be able to do this:

We get solid cross body range, though I probably could have pushed it even further:

I wasn’t expecting the Revive Zaku to be able to lift its arm all the way up like the Revive Gundam. Not with that should armor and all. But I do feel like maybe they could have engineered it so that it could get a little more range:

The left side is … not really that much better:

Unless you take the shield off:

(yes, I know the hand is missing in these photos)

The Revive Zaku features a type of articulation that, as far as I know, has never appeared before in a High Grade. Basically, there’s an extra ball joint in the wrist:

In theory, this is a great addition. I can’t count how many times I’ve tried to do a pose, but needed the wrist to move inward just a little bit more. This idea solves that problem handily. However, it has a bit of an implementation problem - the joint isn’t very stiff. Put a weapon in the hand, and the wrist is liable to pop out of the forearm and just dangle around.

Now, you should be able to solve this by dabbing some super glue onto the ball joint and letting it dry (to create more friction), but you shouldn’t have to do that. If Bandai is going to continue adding this to High Grades, they’re need to adjust the size of all the parts so that there is more resistance.

Torso

No problems rotating. There’s just nothing to get in the way:

You can get a decent ab crunch, but you have to pull the chest away from the torso as much as possible without pulling it apart:

The back bend is about as good:

Legs

With the rubber skirt armor on, a full split is incredibly easy:

Same for the high kick:

You get an excellent knee bend, though it highlights just how janky that cabling is.

Even when the articulation isn’t best in class, the rubber skirt makes every pose so easy to do. That alone is worth a lot.

In Part 2, I showed how the Revive Zaku can easily stand on one leg. That means a pose like this is no sweat:

This model is a lot of fun to pose without any weapons. It just does what you want, without fear of anything falling off or breaking:

This is a good thing, because as we’ll see in the next (and final) post, things started to fall apart once the weapons come into play.